Gearing up to Homeschool

I mentioned back in May that we were considering homeschooling Adrianna for Kindergarten and our initial reasons why we had come to this decision. And then I haven’t talked about school since. So I suppose I should post to say that we are now 99% sure that homeschooling is what we will be doing for this upcoming school year.

Since this will be our first year to homeschool, I am understandably nervous. But I remain excited for the upcoming year as well. Adrianna has also expressed excitement about it.

People have asked us how long we plan on homeschooling. The quick answer is that we still don’t know. For now, I plan on making that decision one year at a time.

I have been busy doing research over the past couple of months. I have found that there are some laws in our state regarding homeschooling. For one, you have to notify the district a couple weeks in advance of your decision to homeschool your child. (Since Kindergarten is not required here, we can skip this one for this year.) Second, testing is required every couple of years, starting in third grade, so we can skip this one for now too. Lastly, there are a number of hours and days of teaching time that are required per school year. Other than that, we are good to go as far as the state is concerned.

I have also been looking into what we should purchase curriculum-wise for the next year. There are a ton of options. This is both a good and a bad thing. It is good because I like having options but it also makes the decision process a bit stressful. I know I shouldn’t worry about it too much though since it is, after all, only Kindergarten. At the same time though, I want to hit the ground running with her schooling since she is already doing so well with her reading and writing.

Speaking of reading and writing, Adrianna enjoys doing both! She loves to write and is always asking me to dictate how a word is spelled so she can write it. I recently bought some beginner reading books that are full of vowel-consonant-vowel words and some of her sight words and she has been excited to read those out loud.

I have been asking questions of some of my friends who have been homeschooling their children and that has proven to be a great resource in encouragement and information. Through one friend from MOPS, I was introduced to a state-funded charter school that has a homeschool option where homeschoolers can attend classes at the school one day a week for those subjects that can be tougher to teach at home, such as hands-on science, art, P.E. and music. I think this is awesome because then we actually do get to partake in some of the benefits of our tax dollars that go to public education! And being that art was one of Adrianna’s favorite classes last year, I am glad that she can continue to be a part of an art class.  After being clued into this option, I did some more searching around and was able to find another charter school closer to home that I have enrolled Adrianna in today.

Another thing I have learned is if Adrianna were to take private music lessons, such as piano lessons, those can count toward the number of hours she is considered to be in school. I think other extra-curriculars such as gymnastics or dance could count toward P.E. as well should we decide to enroll her in anything else.

I have no idea what people did before the internet was established. Actually, I do have an idea since I didn’t get introduced to the internet myself until my first year of college in 1997. (Dating myself there, huh?) But the internet has been such a HUGE wealth of information and I know it will continue to be during our homeschool career. I have found so many helpful blogs written by other homeschooling moms that have tips on scheduling, fun crafts and science projects and comparing different curriculum. Finding these blogs and talking with moms I know who homeschool has really encouraged me that I can do this. We can do this.

I cannot believe it is the beginning of August already. School starts in just a few weeks!

To-do list:

1. Decide on a curriculum
2. Purchase a curriculum
3. Come up with a daily/weekly schedule. This includes deciding how we want to break up our year (semesters, year-round, etc.)
4. Find a local home-school co-op
5. Decide where we want to have school (kitchen table or our loft/playroom/my office)
6. Organize, organize, organize!