Home Schooling Brendan

Most of you probably know that I decided to give homeschooling a whirl this year with Brendan instead of putting him in preschool. Thought I would give you a little homeschooling update.

Homeschooling this year has been mostly a very positive experience.....for both Brendan and me. He LOVES learning and successfully completing new tasks. A couple things he does (L.A., Math and Handwriting) require workbooks which he loves doing. Every morning starts with our Bible verse memorization which we try to practically apply to 4-year-old-life throughout the week. We have a new verse every week along with a new letter that goes along with his beginning readers that he is reading on his own! After talking about the date (and counting down days until the next visitor arrives or our next trip to Shelton) and the Bible verse we start with our reading assignments. The program I'm using (Sonlight) is a "Living Books" program, which means the kids/parents do a lot of reading and a lot of their learning (even as they get older) comes from novels and stories and, well, living books, rather than text books. Almost daily we read a Nursery Rhyme, a Bible passage, something from one of the Golden Books collection (remember those??), and something else maybe a little more cultural (ie, Stories from Africa, Children's book of Virtues, Children's Big Book of Art, etc.) and we even have a great science book.
Anyway, I love the materials, I love being so involved in Brendan's school, I love watching him learn and I love that school is fun and really only takes us about an hour (roughly) a day AND it's FLEXIBLE!!!
Onto the down side.....
Lately I've been having doubts about whether or not I am doing the right thing by keeping him at home. There really isn't a lot of support for what I am doing. In fact, I don't even know anyone here in Phoenix that is choosing to home school their kids. I go to a mom's group once a week where the kids each have a "class" that they go to and then they go to Sunday School on Sundays. They LOVE going to their classes. Brendan LOVES talking to other adults and other children, and telling me about his "teacher" and what he has learned. We live right by an elementary school and we drive by and he sees the kids playing outside and he, of course, asks questions. He will say things like, "I'm going to go to that school next time, and go to "real" school". He enjoys what we are doing at home and he is learning at lightening speed, but I know he knows that his friends are doing something that he doesn't do, and he wants to do it too.
I've doubted whether I am disciplined enough to keep up homeschooling when Wyatt needs to start and when things get harder...like when we have more kids. It would be so much easier to send them to school for most of the day, and get a little break from parenting!
I could go on with the doubts. Why don't you home school your kids? Most of those answers are going to be all the reasons I've been thinking maybe I shouldn't do it.
BUT THEN ON THE OTHER HAND, I love doing it. Brendan loves doing it. Wyatt loves doing it too. As they get older I think there becomes more and more pros to homeschooling. What is he missing by being home? Are those things I could remedy in other ways like sports, play groups, classes outside of school? How can I balance house work, and school, and alone time and possibly new babies?? Is public/private school the only answer? Probably not.
There's something about homeschooling that gets me so excited. I love the whole package. I like that I can tailor it to fit US. We don't have to revolve our lives around the 8-3 school day for the next 14 years. School can be flexible and fun and tailored to fit each child. And although it requires work and sacrifice on my part, I get to be the one watching them learning and helping answer their questions and making sure they don't get lost in the mix somewhere along the line. Anyways, don't mean to rant. Just some things I've been thinking about.
I'll leave you with a little interview :) ....
ME: "Hey Brendan, what do you think about homeschooling? How do you like doing school at home?"
BRENDAN:"Like when I'm working hard in school, I get everything done just in time. I like to work in school. I like reading and practicing hitting the ball."
(OK, so the ball part could be considered P.E. with Dad, right?)