I am starting to gather info on home schooling for us - as a just in case. Honestly, although DS(4) is in a gifted pre school we are just not 100% convinced that it's going to always be a good fit. Right now we are about 90% sure that he is not encouraged to work at his own personal ability level and I am in a mental mess about everything right now.
He starts back on Wednesday this week after a month's break and I am waiting to see what will happen. He and I had a great chat about him telling the teacher what he wants to do and work on, so we will see how that goes.
There is also the financial aspect. Next year we will have two kids in the school, and then a third to join them a few years later. Right now I am doing more teaching at home after school in the afternoons anyways so the only difference would be that I would be saving a whole boatload of cash if I did it at home - and this would free up cash for trips, outings, extra murals etc. If he was learning optimally and I knew that he was happy as well as me being happy with the level of work offered to him then I'd sell a kidney or whatever to keep them all there, but it's not happening - surely I should not have to still teach him more after a morning of school at a gifted school??
So my questions for those that have chosen home schooling:
- what made you choose it?
- from what age did you start homeschooling?
- do you follow a very structured timetable or do you go with the flow?
- what do you think of unschooling for younger kids?
- do you only follow the required information type learning or do you go indepth as much as your child wants before moving on?
- what advice would you give to someone starting this with young children?
- what would you change if you could start home schooling over again?
Any other advice or wisdom you can impart?
thanks!
