Yes, I do realize that it's January and the school season started several months ago. You see we sent our little one off to kindergarten with all the other kids at the start. He was very excited to go, and we were excited for him. At first he was very happy to be there but it didn't take very long for it to deteriorate. He's a bright, spirited little boy with lots of energy...not a teachers easiest kind of student. He wasn't good at sitting still, had trouble with disturbing the other students while they were doing their work, and would throw a fit at least once a week. In our local school system it's a 6 1/2 hour day for kindergarten. The teacher did the best she could with him (as far as I know anyway), but she and the principal both said he was immature and hinted that he should do kindergarten again. So, instead of waiting out the school year to see how things progress, watching the little light in my child grow dimmer day by day, we decided to take a different approach. Technically what we are doing is not called home school. It is actually an online charter school through the state of Washington where kids can do everything at home, and meet periodically with one of their credited teachers to check progress and such. He can move at his own pace. The state of Washington requires a person to be certified to home school, which I am not (yet) and this offers me a way around that. Also the curriculum is all set up for you, the web site has each day's work laid out for you. You can do more if you want, move ahead, or take more time. They have a set amount of time that is required but it's flexible and you can schedule days off for vacation and such.
One common question we get when we tell people that we are teaching our child at home is "but what about his socialization?" As far as the social aspect of this goes there are at least 3 home school groups in our area, plus the charter school has a long list of people using the program that you can schedule field trips with, or co-op teaching, or whatever. Plus sports, art, music classes. There are plenty of ways to give a home school child socialization.
We haven't been at it long, but so far everyone is happy and we like the program. If any of you are interested in trying it for yourself, you can find information here ---> www.k12.com. It's available in states other than Washington.
Wow, I'm not usually so wordy.
5 comments:
Ooh, I use the same program here in California. I started kindergarten with my daughter this year too. We love it, she's happy, learning and it's a good fit for us. Good luck!
Thank you! it's nice to hear good things about the program from someone that's been using it for a while.
We've done a number of different "homeschool" situations over the years from public school, private school, homeschooling through charter schools to the R-4 option here in California, and a few things inbetween. We really enjoyed the extra time with our kids, the flexibility of going at our own pace and incorporating learning into everyday life and ... well, I tend to go on and on when the subject comes up, but all in all it was a LOT of fun. Now all our children are grown 'cept our last, who's just finishing up his last year of public high school this year. He never went to school until high school, and that was so he could play football. As for socialization, my response was that indeed socialization was indeed a very big problem. My kid was so social that I had a hard time finding time to teach him anything! LOL We did sports, 4-H, homeschool groups. After being "unsocialized" all those years, he went to public school for 9th grade and quickly was "one of the popular kids". Which was indeed a problem as his grades suffered for it. So, socializing - I guess one should be careful what you wish for - LOL.
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Home schooling, sounds like a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. I'm thinking about it but will see how she settles into the mainstream first..
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