Adventures of a 1st-time Homeschooling Mom

CANT WAIT TO START!!!

2011-09-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

Hi all! Sorry I have been gone so long, unfortunately, my laptop just, up and crashed 1 sad-dark-hot summer day about 3-4 weeks ago......... Until yesterday, I had NO computer to update my blog..... and now... IM BAAAAACKKKKK!!!!

So, what's new??? On Wednesday, I received a phone call from my EP (or education partner), and made an appointment with her for this coming Wednesday, to pick up all my curriculum, and talk about Katie! I can begin to tell you how excited I am! I wish I had all my stuff already, I am soooo eager to start the school year off!

How do I plan on staying organized????

2011-07-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

How will I stay organized??? How will I stay on track?? This is hard for me, I am easily distracted, and besides my in-going kinder-kid, I have my hands full with a 2 year old!!! What on earth am I going to do with him while I homeschool?? Cant just pretend he doesnt exist, and I cant turn the t.v. on for 4 hours.... what kind of mother would that make me? and how would that be fair to Katie?

1st off, I dont have a spare room to dedicate to homeschool, so a corner in our living room will have to do for now. So, my plan is to try and incorporate Jake into some of the education, Im sure I will figure it out easily!

My strategy plan??? I will use help from some amazing websites that help even the most unorganized person! If you dont already use the following site I am about to tell you about, go check them out now, and sign up! They will make your life so much easier!

#1, I cant, for the life of me, remember how I ever managed without my cozi calendar!!! They even have an app, with a running widget, that you can keep on ur phone screen all the time, to see what is planned next for your day! They have it all!! so, head on over to www.cozi.com, and check it out, it's free! What do you have to loose???

#2, flylady.net , fly lady (for free) will teach you how to stop living your life in CHAOS (Cant Have Anyone Over Syndrome) in just 30 days! She teaches you how to maintain routine, to keep up with your load of housework! As you read it, its so simple, you wonder how you never thought of this yourself before??? She also has TONS of stuff in her store you can purchase, to help you with all these daily tasks, and routines! But it's not necessary.

Now that you have read about these pretty nifty sites, go check them out! you will be glad you did!

NOW WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

2011-07-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

So.... I made the decision to homeschool..... now what do I do??? How do I do this? How do I make sure I take care of all the legal "mumbo-jumbo" so one cold day in the winter, I dont get authorities knocking at my door asking why my child isnt in school...??? (okay, maybe that is a little dramatic.....but remember I already enrolled her in a public school, and over the sumer I changed my mind)

I went to google for some answers... By some miraculous chance, I was directed to "TLC" (or, The Learning Choice) TLC, is actually a PUBLIC SCHOOL, where I live in BEAUTIFUL, SUNNY, San Diego, CA! Again, like I said, out school system... isn't exactly top notch... but this "public school" is different, because it is also a CHARTER HOMESCHOOL!!! Which means, I get to homeschool MY way, and style, and THEY PAY FOR EVERYTHING!!! I will have what they call an "education partner" (or EP) , this EP is a credentialed teacher, who I will meet with approx. every 20 days or so (pretty much 1x/mo), the EP will will check my child's progress, help me with any question I might have, check work, attendance, etc....... the EP will also help me pick out the curriculum I want to use for Katie, and order it for me.... again... they PAY!

They have a few different programs to choose from...

Program #1, is a fully online program. For a kindergartner, I was not fully excited about this option. Yes I know my child will someday live in a world of computers, and technology, but I think at her young age, she needs to learn some things the traditional way 1st.... in othere words, FROM BOOKS!

Program #3, my child gets to go to the home base center 2 days a week, for more of a formal education on those days...

Program 3, the one I chose, is a traditional homeschool program, she will get to go to the center 1x / week for about 2 hours, for socialization with other homeschooled children her age, this option also includes 70 units for extra curricular activities/month... What does that mean???? Well, each unit is = to $1. So here I have $70.... I do not pay this. THEY PAY IT!!! They will pay up to $70 / mo for any "out of school" activity my daughter does.... i.e. her dance classes that cost me $100/mo..... they will pay $70 of it, so, those now only cost me $30..... now, if my daughter didnt do dance (and had no interest in sports or anything else), she could use those units to help pay for field trips.....

PRETTY NIFTY IF YOU ASK ME!

The Decision to...... HOMESCHOOL

2011-07-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest decisions I have ever made as a parent..... "Where do I send my kid to school?" I did some research on a web site I found called greatschool.org. The great schools web site, is pretty..... insightful.... you type in your city/ state and hit the search button. The new page it brings up has options on the left to narrow your search results. Search by type of school (i.e. public /charter/private), age, (pre/ elementary/middle/high-school) . The results show a rank on a scale of 1-10.... obviously 10 being the best. The website also has school stats/ polls....etc......

Well, I found the 3 "best schools" in out district for my daughter... and applied for district transfers (the kind where I have to stay in the district we live in, but she can go to a school other than her home-based one) She got accepted to 2 of thee 3, by sheer accident! Silly me, I reversed her last and 1st name on one of the applications....Oh well, what are ya gonna do???

Anyways, one of the schools had a 10-star rating, one had an 8-star rating.... after driving to both schools , and talking with the admin, I ultimately decided on the 8-star one, based on how I was treated by the staff, and location... it was simply more convenient.

After filling out all the registration forms, and showing proper proof of everything they asked for... I STILL couldn't shake this uneasy feeling I had about sending my "baby" to kindergarten.... the school, I had chosen had an open-layout.... meaning, it essentially was 1 very large room with wall dividers.... and anyone could walk down the back hall and past all the rooms.... there were no doors to the class rooms......

I didn't like that my 5 year old was going to be sitting in a classroom for 6 hours a day!!! After-all when I went to kinder 22 years ago, I was there for less than 4 hours a day! I really consider 6 hours too long a day! I don't like that there will be 30 kids in the room with her, I KNOW she wont eat her lunch there, I do have the world pickiest eater.... (trust me... your kid wont even rank if you think you have a picky one.... she does take after me!!!) AND... she has a low attention span... at this point in time however, I consider her attention (or lack of attention) normal 4 year old behavior.

After asking several of the mom's that Katie has dance with what they were doing for kinder this year, one mom told me she homeschooled... SPARKS started flying!!! She told me about some of the books/curriculum she uses, and gave me a few really good websites she uses. One of the sites I have checked back with frequently and follow on facebook is "Confessions of a Homeschooler". Between dance mom, and one of my new favorite websites, I started looking more and more into homeschooling.....

I wasn't too excited about public school, and private school was not an option for our family. MORE and MORE research into how to homeschool.... what do I do? how do I do it? How do I know what I need to teach her? How can I be sure I am not going to "screw" this up??? I dont want to make a mistake, but I want and need to protect my child. I WANT to homeschool, but how to I tell and convince my husband of this, when I have NO IDEA what I am doing!?!?!? RESEARCH!!!!