Thanks for such a nice welcome, everyone!
I have a 3.5 year old, Kestrel, whom I assume is at least MG. His only experience with school thus far was a trial of Mother's Day Out last year. In the middle of each day, he would cry for me, and not let the teachers comfort him. He lasted a month! I later found out that he'd had a double ear infection the whole time.
Robin is 11, HG, and has a checkered educational history. He was accepted at 4.5 to the kindergarten at the accelerated school I mentioned before.
Ultimately, I decided to enroll him in their pre-k instead. We had recently moved to a new state, and he'd never done all-day school before. I worried that he'd be too stressed. He'd been the youngest in his preschool class, and I hoped that being one of the older kids in his new class would help him socially.
Rob did great socially in the pre-k. but learned very little. I taught kindy there, and the next year he was in my class! He was one of the kids I was not allowed to accomodate.
Again, he did well socially and learned too little. He got used to knowing all the answers and spending mere moments on his work.
The next year, we sent him to a Sudbury Valley Model school. To explain why that didn't go well would be a whole other novel.
The next year, when he was 7.5, Kestrel was born, and we began homeschooling! I wrote Rob a curriculum, but we slid towards unschooling pretty quickly. After viewing Rob's end of the year portfolio, our hs'ing coordinator bumped him up a grade! Easiest skip ever.
So this is our 4th year as homeschoolers. I had always thought hs'ing was a cool idea that we'd probably never do. Now I'm convinced it's the path for us.
