Beginnings

Starting around last November, I began to decide I should homeschool my oldest child and kindergartner, Rebekah. Many thoughts and events conspired to form this opinion. For one, she was beginning to dislike school. She loved her teacher, and had made new friends, and didn't have any specific problems, but as we live at the end of the bus line, she had to catch the bus at 7:20am, and didn't get home until 4:30pm, or even later some days. She was exhausted, and what with fixing dinner, doing homework (yes, in kindergarten), and an early bedtime so she could get enough sleep, we hardly interacted at all during the week. Wednesdays, with church activities in the evening, were a real strain.

Many other thoughts played a role too: thoughts of future peer pressure (not too much of a worry in kindergarten), school safety, bus and travel safety, scheduling issues for when all 3 kids were in school, exposure to disrespectful peers, lack of individualized attention, lack of adequate intellectual challenge (I'm assuming all my kids will be extremely gifted, of course! ;-), testing pressures, undesirable or untimely subject matter.

Of course, I had thought of all those things before, when I was of the mindset that I'd never be able to homeschool my kids, and couldn't handle having all of them home with me all the time.

But I changed. Or God changed me. It was such a dramatic change in my mindset and desires that I know God had a hand in it. Now, I can't imagine not homeschooling them. I have found such a freedom in having my children home with me, and such enjoyment in figuring out what and how to teach them! At this point, there is no going back.

Like most new homeschoolers, I spent a considerable amount of time researching curriculum. I think I have spent over 100 hours during the months of January and February researching curriculum. I am not too worried about kindergarten, since she already knew pretty much everything on the kindergarten checklist, with the exception of reading skills. We're focusing on that (and she's already reached a first grade level in that in just a few months), and I'm preparing for 1st grade.

In the next few posts, I'll talk more about my curriculum thoughts and choices.  For now, it's time for bed!  Tomorrow's a school day!