So, thanks to the IU getting my son kicked out of his regular preschool (that was actually going well enough for the first time ever) I now find myself with a 5 year old who has no school program.
Since he was 3 he has been in 4 different schools. I have already decided not to try another program after three very different regular preschools and one IU preschool, none of which were a great fit. This last one was the very best preschool in the area, so we could only do worse at this point.
Since my son is either mild ASD or severe ADHD (the experts can't seem to decide), in addition to who knows what else, and probably giftedness, I have to try to build in all of the stuff he needs during our day together. So, I decided to homeschool for 4 hours a day followed by open play at a local place that has bounce houses, climbing stuff, lots of toys, and lots of running space. I figure he can get all the sensory stuff/physical education there in addition to social interaction and at home we can work on transitions, losing games, flexibility, and staying on task/remaining seated for instruction. When it warms up I intend to do a lot of parks and playgrounds.
Well, we are a week in and things are going pretty well. He loves doing school with me and his overall anxiety level has dropped drastically. Problem behaviors at home and in public are down and he is just so much happier and joyful. He is always on time at the table to start homeschool and seems sad when the 4 hours are up!
I started him on a first grade math workbook from the bookstore and he blew threw that like it was nothing. I grabbed a second grade book and so far that is easy for him as well. I picked up a third grade book because I don't expect the second grade book to last long.
For reading I had him read 15-20 minutes a day and I swear his reading has shot up tremendously in just a week. I guess I really hadn't been doing anything with him and just assuming he was practicing some stuff at preschool since they have books there and he could have read them if he wanted to. I'm not sure where his reading level is, but today he sat down and read a book for 3 hours straight and it included words like abundant, entourage, solemn, and marinated.
I would have guessed last week he was around grade 1, maybe 2 for academics. Apparently that might just have been because I hadn't really officially sat down and taught him anything for so long. We have been so worried about behavior and school placements and academics just didn't seem all that important. Plus all of the experts have spent the last few years telling me that teaching him academics was such a huge disservice to him as it only served to widen the social gaps between him and the rest of the children.
Now I'm not sure what to do for K. The district says they are building a new school and will have a perfect IU classroom for him with 12-16 students in the class. The trouble he has in social settings pretty much scales up with the number of kids around him, so I'm not even sure that is a small enough class size. I've honestly never seen him do well with more than about 5-8 kids, and then only in a large, active environment. He usually plays alone and completely avoids the other kids unless it is a very intimate setting with only one or two other children who are very calm and quiet. Basically play dates at home with carefully selected children.
I'm not sure if I should even bother trying another school for K. I know we have a few months until September and a lot can change, but I never wanted to do public school to begin with. I'm also extremely PO'd at the IU right now for getting him kicked out of a quality program where they were willing to actually work with him and where he was already accepted for K next year. Although I have to admit we are all much happier without the stress of school constantly looming over us and while I do love homeschooling so far, I also was very much planning on going back to work this fall.
I'm not sure homeschooling is something I want to do forever. If we move there is a Montessori that goes up to 8th grade in a good area that looks decent, but our first bad school experience was with a Montessori school. I would not want to do the K program because it's not mixed age and limited to K materials and concepts. The elementary program would have a lot of kids older than him, so maybe it would be a good program for when he is 6? Reading the elementary curriculum on the website there is actually some stuff there he doesn't already know, so that's a good sign. OTOH, he wouldn't be able to start there until 6, in a year and a half, so who knows what he will master by then.
So, after all of that... I guess what I am looking for is both opinions on how to continue his education and recommendations for teaching him at home. I want to make sure I'm not skipping important stuff and I want him to have a good understanding of what he is learning. I want to include adequate opportunities to practice social skills.
I also am curious how much time we should be spending on academic learning. Currently our 4 hour schedule includes half an hour each of reading and math.
For reading he reads 15 minutes and I read a chapter of Paddington for the second 15 minutes. For math he does 1 card of Cart Before the Horse, one Perplexors puzzle, and however many pages of his math workbook he can finish in the remaining 20 minutes. Other than that we do a craft or art, play games, do science or geography or practice writing, play with instruments or play on the tablet, build legos or K'nex, and have snack. Am I missing anything? Is that too much academics for a 5 year old? He seems very happy with the schedule and even asked if he can do more hours, so I guess it's all fun for him.
Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated. This is all new to me and I just want to make sure that I am making the best choices for my son, especially when the experts make me feel like everything I do is so wrong for him.
