[CityGranola]

I know as HS parents, you likely hear the same questions all the time, so I'll try to ask new ones!!

1. We live in an excellent school system. Many of my family work in the schools and I went there as well. I KNOW they're good schools, but I'm not sure they're the best fit. Is that a "good enough" reason to HS? (I realize I don't need a reason, but does it make sense?)

2. My son is only 22 months old, but we already work on "pre-school" stuff - he knows some shapes, a few letters, some colors, and some counting. Right now it's mainly just for fun, but are there pre-school specific things I can do?

3. I work full-time and DH is a SAHD. My job is really flexible - I work a lot of nights. Would it be feasible that I would be the primary school-er? (I would prefer that - I want to educate my children.) DH can help, by all means, but he's not sure he can do it "right."

I plan to have more kids, but it's just the one for now. Jack has some sensory issues, which we're working on, but the main thing that's hindering my decision to homeschool, even for pre-school is I'm terrified that he will have some sort of learning or developmental disability or delay and I will not catch it. I know school are trained to pick up stuff like that, as are peds, but we're in the process of finding a new ped because ours is WAY too laid back. (not concerned about food allergies, asthma, or eczema - "all kids have 'em." Um, my son was severely allergic to dairy - to the point of needing an EpiPen Jr. rx... luckily we never needed to use it.)

Am I being crazy? Can I really do it? Where do I start? Someone on another board suggested the Well Trained Mind... any other tips? (I ordered that and am awaiting it's arrival...)

 

[Lillian J]

Welcome!

1. We live in an excellent school system. Many of my family work in the schools and I went there as well. I KNOW they're good schools, but I'm not sure they're the best fit. Is that a "good enough" reason to HS?

I searched high and low for a school that was a good fit for my son, and finally realized there was no such thing. That's what led us to homeschooling. I definitely feel it's a good reason.

2. My son is only 22 months old, but we already work on "pre-school" stuff - he knows some shapes, a few letters, some colors, and some counting. Right now it's mainly just for fun, but are there pre-school specific things I can do?

My own take on that is that it could be slightly improved by paring it back to those things that are only for fun rather than mainly for fun

- because a child that age doesn't have a need for the study of letters yet, and the rest comes quite naturally in the course of living. Here's a page I put together on preschool and kindergarten - underneath the box of articles are annotated links to quite a few websites that have fun ideas for activities with little ones.

3. I work full-time and DH is a SAHD. My job is really flexible - I work a lot of nights. Would it be feasible that I would be the primary school-er? (I would prefer that - I want to educate my children.) DH can help, by all means, but he's not sure he can do it "right."

Absolutely!

And he needn't worry about doing it "right" anyway - it will all fall into place pretty easily.

I plan to have more kids, but it's just the one for now. Jack has some sensory issues, which we're working on, but the main thing that's hindering my decision to homeschool, even for pre-school is I'm terrified that he will have some sort of learning or developmental disability or delay and I will not catch it. I know school are trained to pick up stuff like that...


I think you'll notice a lot more than you realize. You'll be right there with him, and it won't be that difficult to notice if something feels funny - and you'll be able to pursue it further if you see a problem.

Am I being crazy? Can I really do it? Where do I start? Someone on another board suggested the Well Trained Mind... any other tips? (I ordered that and am awaiting it's arrival...)

You certainly can do it! You're no more crazy than the rest of us as far as I can tell

.

I'm personally not a fan of The Well Trained Mind, although I know some get some good resource suggestions from it. I would recommend starting with Homeschooling: the Early Years, by Linda Dobson - it's a compilation of contributions from homeschoolers all over the country, along with her own comments. I'd also suggest How Children Learn, and Learning All the Time, by John Holt, and Learning At Home : A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling, by Marty Layne. You can "look inside" most of those books by clicking on the picture of the book covers in the Amazon site.

Also, peruse my (noncommercial) web site - see the link in my sig line - besides the articles in the site, there are links over on the left to good ones in other sites. And there are lots of fun pages linked to in the Gateway to the Internet pages.

However, what I would suggest for now is to make a copy, for future reference, of the ideas people will be giving you here, and then just mroe or less forget about the whole thing for a while. Then just get on with enjoying life with a little one. It will be a long time before you need to think about homeschooling. In the meantime, your child will be having needs specific to his age, and those things are probably easier to focus on in a full way if schooling matters are not even on your mind.

Have fun! - Lillian

 

[elizawill]

you don't have to committ to homeschool your child through college.

you can just try preschool years...then kindergarten maybe...this approach may make it less stressful for you. just one year at a time. my school district is also great, and i've been surrounded by great mommy morning out programs. i don't have any problems with publics schools or preschool programs...i hear wonderful things about them. i'm homeschooling because i knew it was in my heart since i was pregnant with my first child. for me, there hasn't ever been another option. having said that, just follow your heart. you can try homeschooling him for preschool, and he will learn alot and you've literally lost nothing. kindergarten is easy too.....so just go from there. your heart will lead you

) homeschooling does not require an explanation in my opinion. when asked, i tell people i'm homeschooling because that is what God has laid on my heart to do. it's the truth and that explanation is more than sufficient for inquirung minds.

 

[birdie22]

I'm in a similar situation. We live three blocks from the best elementary school in the district, and my good friend is a teacher. I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to say to her so that it doesn't sound like my choice to hs is a condemnation of her profession and her choices for her own child.

Anyway, Lillian's website was a big help to me as I started fishing around for information. The Linda Dobson books are great. I checked out Jessie Wise's Well-Trained Mind and Ordinary Parent's Guide to Reading, but they didn't seem realistic to me. Something about her tone got under my skin. JMO, though.

Here are some books that have been useful right away:

Before Five in a Row - Jane Claire Lambert
Teach Me Mommy - Dunsford
Early Education at Home - M. Jean Soyke

If you look through these books, you will mostly find ideas for activities to stimulate your child's curiosity and readiness. A couple of the books are organized into daily lesson plans, but at 2, I'm just mixing and matching the activities and interspersing lots of free play time. I mainly let him do his thing, and then watch for the moment when he comes to get me-- it usually means he's ready for something new. Of course, I read read read read to him and then read some more. ETA: I try to make sure we do some music, art and outdoor time at some point every day. Other than that, there is little structure. At this age, every trip to the grocery store or post office is an opportunity for some kind of learning.

The library can be a powerful and money-saving resource. Just check out everything they have on home schooling. (OK, maybe not everything at once!)