Ok well I'm worrying if i should homeschool my children for a few years?

Question

What i'm wondering is if i should put my children in peschool and kindergarten andin first grade and then homeschool them until they are about to go into sixthgrade and just leaving fifth grade and yet i haven't even had my two kids i'm due on july 17th and i still haven't chosen my sons name and my daughters name please help. also do you think that i'm kinda strange that i'm already planning if my children will be homeschooled i don't know. PLEASE HELP!!!!

Thanks

Haley

Answer 1

I knew YEARS before having children that I was going to home-school. I stupidly put my son into Kindergarten to get him started. That was a HUGE mistake. He had already been learning at home, because I worked with him from birth. The teacher actually commended me on a job well done. He was able to read and write before Kindergarten.

Don't worry about what other people say to you about home schooling. If you choose to do it it is nobody's business. FOLLOW YOUR HEART.

Preschool- 3rd grade is and extremely important time for social development... it is also the time when MANY of the bad habits are formed.

It's foolish to think that a parent can bring a child into the world, teach them their alphabet and numbers, teach them how to walk, talk, how to properly use eating utensils, how to use the bathroom, how to brush their teeth, shower,behave, and MANY other things that a parent teaches their children, but we can't teach them about History, Math, Spelling, etc...?

That is absurd!

If you want to home school, go for it!

Do research, find resources, get involved with homeschooling groups early on. EDUCATE yourself on the subject. Find out the positives and negatives. Research it. When all is said and done, You are the only one who can make the decision. If you have done your research in advance, then you will make an informed and educated decision.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

Do you have any training teaching children to read?  Do you know how to introduce children to basic mathematical concepts?  Do you have an alternative to school for teaching your children to successfully socialize with others?

One last question.  Do you know how far behind their peers your children can be by grade 6 if you have answered "no" to any of those questions?

Unless you are trained in education and/or you have very good reason to avoid your local schools, chances are they will do a better job readying elementary school children for future education than you will.

Answer 3

I don't think you are strange at all to be planning on homeschooling. Aren't most parents at your stage already unconsciously planning to put their kids in public school? Some parents who choose private schools are already undergoing admissions interviews! Besides, I've encountered people who planned on homeschooling their kids long before getting pregnant!

Let me say that from the many homeschoolers I've known, those who had their kids in school until the end of K or gr. 1 REGRETTED putting them in school instead of just homeschooling them that whole time. There are so many adjustments to be made if they are going in then being pulled out... It would make their first year homeschooling far more difficult than it would need to be. If you just keep going along with them, it'll just feel like a natural progression from one year to the next.

As for up until which grade, I'd recommend doing a "Let's see how it goes" approach. You might hit the end of grade 5 and feel like you'd like to keep going.

For names: check out some online lists of baby names and pick up to 10 favourites for a boy and 10 favourites for a girl. Write them out and put them on your fridge. Imagine using the names with your babies. Some will just hit you at some point at not being at all suitable. The name has to be more than, "Oh, it sounds nice." It ought to feel totally natural saying that name to your child. And even then, you don't have to have only one name chosen for when you give birth--when my daughter was born, we had narrowed it down to 3 names, with one name usually being preferred. When I held her for the first time and we looked at her, we both agreed that the preferred name was the one we wanted to call her. I've known some moms who had done something similar, but once holding the baby, they just "knew" that the originally preferred name wasn't right and picked a different one.

Answer 4

Some of us like to start planning early :) I'm the same.The earlier you start, the more time you have for research. It takes time to develop your theories on education: what should be taught, when, how etc. Don't even bother with kindergarten and preschool. You won't like them for the same reasons you don't like school.

Start here:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/meth...

See if any of these, or any combination makes you jump up and down with excitement. When that happens, you know you've hit on the right path. Then you can go and learn more about it.

I have a table drawn up, with grade level down one side, and subjects across the top. Slowly I'm filling in the blanks with curriculums, books and anything else I come across.

http://homeschoolreviews.com/ is a very helpful site. The customer reviews on amazon are good too. And of course you should join web forums for any method that appeals. Advice from others who use similar materials or have a similar philosophy on education is invaluable!

(My first recommendation would be The Well Trained Mind.)

Naturally you'll change your plan many times over the course of the next 20 years, but if you have no plan, you can't even get started. :)

Answer 5

First of all...I have to say to Dan R:  If all teachers are so highly qualified, why were my kids failing in school?  If I'm so UNqualified, why are they now at least two grade levels ahead?  I speak, read and write English, French, Spanish and Latin.  I do algebra and complex word problems as a past time.  I read no less than sixty books a year.  I only have a high school diploma.  My son's "professional" teacher couldn't point out the Sahara Desert on a map.  She also told him that Canada is its own continent.  We're Canadian, for Pete's sake!  I'm not boasting.  I'm just making the point that a teacher's certificate does not make a person good at what they do.  A diploma does not equal intelligence.  As for the social issue, it's not an issue.  While other people's kids are sitting bored in a class full of kids they don't even like, my kids are doing sports, music, arts, workshops, play arrangements, volunteering and hikes with children they have actually chosen to be friends with.  They don't sit alone in their rooms with only their books as friends.  You need to get your facts straight before offering criticism.  

That said, I don't think it's weird to plan your children's schooling this far ahead.  We had considered homeschooling, but decided to give the system a chance.  Our eldest child did half of a year of kindergarten at the local public school.  It was enough to convince us that we should have gone with our initial instinct on the matter.

About names:

For boys:  Levi, Travis, Wyatt, Daniel

For girls:  Skylar, Allegra, Shelby, Micah