A Budding Idea-Homeschooling

I'm not sure why, but for the past few months I've been thinking about "the little kids'" futures, especially education, a LOT.  Maybe it's because Amy started pre-school this fall.  (Amy's preschool is wonderful, by the way.  My friend/neighbor does it in her house and there are only five kids.)  Maybe it's because Aaron and Jessi switched schools again as their mom moved back to town--a very GOOD thing!

And lo and behold, I've been feeling very strongly about homeschooling my little ones.  I have all kinds of mixed feelings about this.  I wanted to write them out to clear my head, and to possibly get some input.  Here are some of them:

This is a big flip from what I've always said to others about homeschooling.  Many people have asked my opinion about it since I've been a kindergarten teacher.  I've always told them that the schools here were great, and I genuinely believed that.  But now, the thought of sending my kids off to a place where there's a HUGE peer influence for 7 hours a day seems ridiculous!  And even the best of teachers won't be able to give my kids the individual attention that I can give them.  I feel spread thin now with my five kids, but I don't have 25 kids like school teachers do!  Over the years I've been frustrated with public education when it comes to Jessi who struggles in school.  She's a brilliant girl, but just doesn't fit well within the academic mold that public school offers.  This year with her school transfer it took over 2 months for them to get her IEP transferred so that she could receive help in math, and this only happened after I started making "annoying parent calls."  What a waste of two months of school for her.  She is sent home with several grammar and spelling worksheets for homework every night.  I hate worksheets because most of the time they are written to be tricky.  And why does she have to waste an hour every night doing this when her time would be much better spent working on math or reading?  When we were all at Edgemont together things were a little better because I could hand pick her teachers and work with them frequently.  Her teachers were my good friends.  Now I feel like if I talk to her teacher that I will be viewed as annoying.  A parent shouldn't feel that way about their kids' education.  I strongly believe that if I could homeschool her for a year she could get completely caught up with her peers.  Unfortunately I don't have the custodial right to make that decision.  (That was a long thought!)

The thought of homeschooling is completely overwhelming because I will have to give much more of myself to the kids than I currently do.  Homeschooling is such a selfless act.  I want that for my kids, but I have much patience to learn!  I find Amy very temperamental many days and she can frustrate me a LOT!  We will have to learn to get along.  :)

I asked Dan, "Why do I have to have all this on my mind so much right now?  Amy doesn't start school for two more years."  His reply was that maybe I need two years to get ready.  I think he's right.  I need two years to work on getting my parenting to the level I want it to be so that homeschooling will feel natural for us.  But I don't think that I should wait until Amy officially starts kindergarten to start homeschooling.  We're starting now by trying to do a lot more reading and seizing those little learning moments everyday.  (Dan is very supportive of this homeschooling idea, by the way!) I think it will mean a lot more freedom for our family.

In the past week I've read a whole handful of books about homeschooling, trying to envision what I want it to look like.  I even went to a K12 (free online homeschool curriculum) info session last week.  I'm sure my ideas will change over time, but right now I'm leaning toward a very relaxed homeschooling environment.  I don't think I want it to look like "real" school with assigned time for different subjects and textbooks, and especially not worksheets!, etc.  Well, there might need to be a little of that, but not too much!  Maybe as they get older. . . Right now I'm thinking that I like the integrated unit study approach.  Many subjects (reading, math, art, science, history,etc.) all wrapped up in studying one topic.  This week we're starting to study about leaves.  Here are some things I plan to do with the kids.  Don't know if we'll get to them all.  Maybe it will take us longer than a week, and that's okay.
-Go to a park in the canyon and play in the leaves.  Nature walk to collect leaves.
-Lots of art projects with the leaves we collect.
-Sort leaves by shape and then again by color and again by size.
-Make a leaf graph (to help count the leaves)
-Talk about why plants have leaves.  What do leaves do?  What are the parts of leaves?
-Put a cabbage or celery leaf in colored water and see what happens.
-Let a leaf wilt and then put it in water and see what happens.
-Point out edible leaves at the grocery store.  Smell the different herbs.  Point out dried leaves/herbs in the spice cupboard.
-Seasons.  What seasons look like for different kinds of plants, not just your typical tree.
-Measure leaves.
-Find books at the library.
-Letter Ll.  Make leaf puppets named Little Lucy Leaf and Large Lenny Leaf and have them play with things that start with the letter L like lollipops and lions.  Label things with the letter L.

And my last thought, everyone seems to worry about socialization for homeschoolers.  I feel really at peace about this.  I'm not worried about my kids socially.  They will still participate in activities that include other kids, as well as adults.  Plus, I would rather them learn good socialization skills from me and Dan than from peers at school.  As I think back to my childhood there are a few distinct friends that I had for many years.  Yes, a few from school. . .but just as many or more from my neighborhood (that I socialized with because they were my neighbors, not because I knew them at school) and from church.  I feel strongly that my kids will be just fine socially and won't grow up to be weird!