With the homeschooling! That's right, we made the big decision to homeschool this year. There were several factors that went into this decision. The main one is that kindergarten is now a full seven hours. My little boy, the one who JUST TURNED 5 six days ago, is expected to sit still from 8:30-3:30. My child does not even get out of bed until 8 (and this is with an 8:00 bedtime). The thought of getting him to school by 8:30 everyday and then to hope he sits in his chair when he gets there...terrifying. Seriously. Terrifying.
So, we decided to wait until he turns six to put him in kindergarten. We thought we would let him do another year of preschool, but guess what? The preschools don't want to take a five-year-old. They only want four-year-olds. The preschools that will take five-year-olds want to take half of our monthly income for the privelege (I might be exaggerating, but just a little). NOT schooling him in any form was not an option.
And so, this year, I am homeschooling. We may or may not continue it next year, it all depends on how this year goes. We live in a pretty good school district, so at least I don't have a crappy school to worry about if we decide against it next year.
Thankfully, I have a friend who started homeschooling her oldest last year (his birthday is one year after Ian's, but he was born the year before). She has given me tons of helpful tips, which has been great since I had no idea where to start.
I've chosen a few curriculums, with her help and advice. We will be using Hooked on Phonics, Handwriting Without Tears, and Math-U-See. We will be looking online for science and social studies activities that we can do. I just put in my final order today, so hopefully we can start schooling around September 1st. I'm going to The Teacher Store here in town to see if they have any kind of lesson plan organizers.
We will be starting each day with a Bible story, which is exciting and scary. I wasn't raised believing in God (we didn't necessarily NOT believe, but we didn't talk about it, we didn't read about Him, and we didn't go to church), so I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm still struggling with understanding everything myself, so to try and guide my child is a big task. I'm sure we'll BOTH learn quite a bit this year.
So wish me luck. I'll update as we move along, and give some reviews on the products we're using. I'm a little nervous, but I feel very confident that we can do this.
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