The Decision to...... HOMESCHOOL

One of the biggest decisions I have ever made as a parent..... "Where do I send my kid to school?" I did some research on a web site I found called greatschool.org. The great schools web site, is pretty..... insightful.... you type in your city/ state and hit the search button. The new page it brings up has options on the left to narrow your search results. Search by type of school (i.e. public /charter/private), age, (pre/ elementary/middle/high-school) . The results show a rank on a scale of 1-10.... obviously 10 being the best. The website also has school stats/ polls....etc......

Well, I found the 3 "best schools" in out district for my daughter... and applied for district transfers (the kind where I have to stay in the district we live in, but she can go to a school other than her home-based one) She got accepted to 2 of thee 3, by sheer accident! Silly me, I reversed her last and 1st name on one of the applications....Oh well, what are ya gonna do???

Anyways, one of the schools had a 10-star rating, one had an 8-star rating.... after driving to both schools , and talking with the admin, I ultimately decided on the 8-star one, based on how I was treated by the staff, and location... it was simply more convenient.

After filling out all the registration forms, and showing proper proof of everything they asked for... I STILL couldn't shake this uneasy feeling I had about sending my "baby" to kindergarten.... the school, I had chosen had an open-layout.... meaning, it essentially was 1 very large room with wall dividers.... and anyone could walk down the back hall and past all the rooms.... there were no doors to the class rooms......

I didn't like that my 5 year old was going to be sitting in a classroom for 6 hours a day!!! After-all when I went to kinder 22 years ago, I was there for less than 4 hours a day! I really consider 6 hours too long a day! I don't like that there will be 30 kids in the room with her, I KNOW she wont eat her lunch there, I do have the world pickiest eater.... (trust me... your kid wont even rank if you think you have a picky one.... she does take after me!!!) AND... she has a low attention span... at this point in time however, I consider her attention (or lack of attention) normal 4 year old behavior.

After asking several of the mom's that Katie has dance with what they were doing for kinder this year, one mom told me she homeschooled... SPARKS started flying!!! She told me about some of the books/curriculum she uses, and gave me a few really good websites she uses. One of the sites I have checked back with frequently and follow on facebook is "Confessions of a Homeschooler". Between dance mom, and one of my new favorite websites, I started looking more and more into homeschooling.....

I wasn't too excited about public school, and private school was not an option for our family. MORE and MORE research into how to homeschool.... what do I do? how do I do it? How do I know what I need to teach her? How can I be sure I am not going to "screw" this up??? I dont want to make a mistake, but I want and need to protect my child. I WANT to homeschool, but how to I tell and convince my husband of this, when I have NO IDEA what I am doing!?!?!? RESEARCH!!!!