Ok, so I'm not a big "the universe is telling me I ought to do something" person. I registered dd in kindergarten at our local school. It's full day as of this fall, but we would pull after half the day. However, I'm terrified of grade one. I want dd to spend more time outside and I want to have at least one weekday off per week.
Last week our wonderful preschool teacher told me about a former student teacher who is interested in starting a forest kindergarten. I am an environmental educator and I'm interested too, but I've been too burnt out to pursue it. I now have a meeting with the potential instructor and a possible location for a three morning/week forest kindergarten, which is basically exploring in the forest. My ideal location would be right by my workplace and would allow me to drop off my daughter before work, volunteer there once a week (we would run it as a parent participation class), and have lunch with my daughter before she went to her grandparents' house.
I would combine this with a local (ie: 20 minute drive) homelearning program and we'd have at least one weekday completely free to just hang out around the house or go on adventures. Yes, I know that this is not totally homelearning, more invent your own school, but I think it would work well for dd.
Dare I try to juggle this? My dh has been totally against homelearning, but I think that a vaguely school-like schedule might work for him. I think that the grandparents would still be willing to do childcare for a couple more years, as long as it is no more than once a week for an afternoon. I work 3 days a week and some nights after my daughter is asleep to make up full time work.
I'm going to chat with dh again tonight to see if he'll go for it. This would be a great schedule for us for a few years. Give me strength to explore these options and forge forward, while being persuasive to those who need to be persuaded.
Last week our wonderful preschool teacher told me about a former student teacher who is interested in starting a forest kindergarten. I am an environmental educator and I'm interested too, but I've been too burnt out to pursue it. I now have a meeting with the potential instructor and a possible location for a three morning/week forest kindergarten, which is basically exploring in the forest. My ideal location would be right by my workplace and would allow me to drop off my daughter before work, volunteer there once a week (we would run it as a parent participation class), and have lunch with my daughter before she went to her grandparents' house.
I would combine this with a local (ie: 20 minute drive) homelearning program and we'd have at least one weekday completely free to just hang out around the house or go on adventures. Yes, I know that this is not totally homelearning, more invent your own school, but I think it would work well for dd.
Dare I try to juggle this? My dh has been totally against homelearning, but I think that a vaguely school-like schedule might work for him. I think that the grandparents would still be willing to do childcare for a couple more years, as long as it is no more than once a week for an afternoon. I work 3 days a week and some nights after my daughter is asleep to make up full time work.
I'm going to chat with dh again tonight to see if he'll go for it. This would be a great schedule for us for a few years. Give me strength to explore these options and forge forward, while being persuasive to those who need to be persuaded.
Plus the forest kindergarten sounds amazing!
