Please talk me out of sending my kids..........

[ivkins]

to SCHOOL! Currently I am in a stressful situation, homeschooling and otherwise. We have been living with my parents for the past 10 months trying to save money for a house. I have a 6yo,4yo and 6 month old. The baby does not make this any easier. This year doing preK and K has been a wash. We have gotten nothing done. There are people in and out of this house everyday creating distraction after distraction,sicknesses, what have you. Dh really wants to send the girls to this Charter school about 20 minutes away. It seems ok, they are different than normal schools, there are no grade levels, things like that. He thinks that socially, this is what they need.  With the baby and the winter we have been home a lot and with it not being our house I tend to not have hs friends over much and feel to pushy asking moms if my girls can come over to their homes to play. I am also having a really hard time finding a curriculum that works for us....So all these things adding up on top of each other and I am actually considering this.I feel like I am really falling short lately and  part of me feels really selfish because technically it would be much easier but my heart says NO WAY. Please remind me why I should keep them home!

[etsdtm99]

hopefully others will reply because i don't feel like i can REALLY say too much here.. but i have 3 kids, similar ages (5,almost 3,6mo) .

you have lots of time, they have each other to be social with,- i'm sure they play together! my kids play together all.the.time. and when they are with other kids, they play the same games- they pretend to be the same things .. at this age, its not like they are really exchanging ideas or whatever - part of the reason I am committed to homeschooling is because i feel that socializing in a family setting is important and playing should be a BIG part of their lives right now (not school as a 'full time job' )  so i keep the tv off and leave them to play as often as possible. in another yaer or so - when the time seems right for both our family (ie. no stressful situations!) and my kids,  i plan to start trying a half horu to an hour a day of learning letters, reading etc.  but in the mean time, we will live life - my DD will practice writing and letters recognition as part of her play.. (like today, i waswriting thank you notes - she wanted to write some too - she wrote pretend letters and copied a few of mine then she lost interest after abotu 10 mins - she has learned all her letters this way) sometimes we do math that way too, she learned single digit addition and subtraction just by us talking about it here and there - there is math in cooking etc. 

now, that being said..i always feel like i need to admit that i do send my 5 yr old DD to "preschool" 2 days a week ..i know she is learning something there, but its no substitute for what she is learning at home and it is expensive - if i ahd to cut back $-wise preschool would be the firs tthing to go.. 

[Kristin0105]

just wanted to say your kids are really young and right now you should be providing them opportunities to explore, play, do crafts, draw, paint, pretend, build block houses, knock them down, and build them up again. Read to them all.the.time (or so it will seem), and just generally be kids oh and answer their questions, all of them, if you don't know you can teach them to find out through doing, going to the library, looking up on line etc... you get my point. no formal curriculum or school time is needed now. My dd learns tons just through doing our life, baking with me, going to the bank, shopping, etc... and listening to me read to her. You have time. It's all good.