Kindergarten

On Monday Summer started Kindergarten!  She is a big girl now, all grown up.  

Still as goofy as ever of course.

Class of 2025!

So how do I like homeschooling so far?  Well I will be honest, we just started so I can't really say.  I do like having her home every day, I like being able to teach her things myself, I like the concept of the school, I like watching her learn, I like waking up whenever I want, I like her being to wake up whenever she wants, I like having the support of a teacher, who seems very nice.  It has been a challenge with Pepper around, I am still not sure how much work I should have her do each day to get finished with the assigned work each week.  I don't know how well she is going to like it but we have time to figure it all out.  

I decided to homeschool for several reasons:

1) because the schools in Nevada are just not the best.  You might get a great teacher but you might also have more than 20 kids in your class and that is just not a practical way to teach (in my opinion), it creates too much down time, or coloring time, or time spent doing nothing.  I saw this when I volunteered at a school a few years ago, several of the kids needed help and were getting attention while the rest had to sit there and do busy work, and be quiet.  They were not learning anything but how to be patient I guess, which isn't a bad thing but just not what I want.

2) because I feel Summer is smart and can learn fast on her own.  I wonder how she would do in Kindergarten if she is ahead of other students, would she learn to find something else to do, would she help other students, or would she be bored and get into trouble.  I was the bored get into trouble type.  They wanted to put me on meds, my mom told them just to give me more work.  I remember racing to be the first person done.  

3) because I actually like having her home with me, I did not look forward to sending her away to school.  It was a little sad to so many facebook updates from moms looking forward to school starting so they would have a break from their kids, of course Pepper may be a different animal :o)

4) because I like teaching, if you really know me you might know I always wanted to be a teacher or teach, and have thought about it several times.  Something has always prevented me from going in that direction, oh like wanting to do a million other things, but I really like teaching and I think I do it very well.

I had my reservations at first, I wanted her to go to a public school to make friends, to get socialized, not that she needs any more socialization but I really honestly enjoyed school - even the bad parts.  Hopefully choir, dance, and piano classes give her some of those opportunities to socialize more.   

For now this is working for us, we are figuring it all out :o) and I am happy with where we are.