I have asked ds what his preference would be, and he says he'd prefer the Montessori school. We even did a pros/cons list for both Montessori and hs. His primary PRO is that he would have friends to go to school with and that he would have lots of lessons to choose from (tons of materials). For dh and me, the cons of Montessori are the expense and fear of ending up in the same situation we were in before. Of course, this school is soooo different from our previous school. For ds, the only con for Montessori is the fact that he has to go to school ALL day. He likes that we can complete academics in a few hours at home. At the Catholic school, he says a minute seemed like an hour. I'm sure it did; he was concentrating the whole time on sitting still and being quiet while he learned nothing. Anyway, that makes him a little wary of another ALL day situation.
Homeschooling is definitely harder than I thought it would be; I knew it would be a challenge to keep up with ds academically. I underestimated the emotional and psychological aspects involved with teaching your own child, however. That said, I'd do it forever if it was best for ds.
Thanks for everyone's input. If anyone else has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I think they'd like for us to move ahead and make a decision soon, but I think I'm going to tell them we need a couple of weeks to think about everything. If we decide to go the Montessori route, I'll be looking for a new job! Bleh! I had no intention of putting ds in any school until next school year at least. Now I'm thinking it might make sense to start Montessori in January if we go that route. If that's the case, we'll need my income.
