Field Trip
Last week, I sent the kids on separate field trips. They each attended a day of public school with a friend. David went with a 7th grade buddy (David is technically in 6th grade, age-wise) and had a decent time. His first and foremost complaint was that his lunch was too small and he was still hungry after he finished his lunch. Do you think the boy is growing??? He came home being happy about being homeschooled. He did enjoy PE because they got to roller skate. He also enjoyed the study hall where he could do what he wanted to do, which was see how high he could go in the Mayan number system we had studied earlier in the week. So the day was pretty uneventful for him. He said he doesn't think he wants to try out public school right now.
The girls were a different story. They each went for a half day with their respective friends that are in their grade. They came home bursting with excitement over how much they loved it! Abby quickly made new friends and enjoyed doing all of the activities they did as a class. Ana enjoyed the school aspect (except Spanish because she didn't know any of the words that the other kids knew) and the recesses, and lunch, and friends, and pretty much everything about it. She told me it was the best day of school ever! They both want to try out a full day next. They will go back next week to give a full day a chance.
Why are we offering this to our kids? Well, we are not die-hard home schoolers. While I do favor the option if it works out, I am not set in stone with it. This has been a hard year for me to adjust to teaching three kids at once, all at different levels. Apparently I do not have to homeschool gene that other parents do of teaching piles of children. So we are exploring our options for next year. I was expecting David to not enjoy public school. I was expecting my social little Abby to be enthralled with public school. Ana was the toss up. I think it may be a good fit for her. She's competitive enough that being able to see other kids her age doing things that normally cause issues at home with attitude, may just spur her little competitive nature on to try to "beat them" and do a really good job.
So next week, they will go for a full day. If this is the route we decide to go in with the girls, they may finish out the school year in the public school a little later on. We're still not quite ready for decisions to be made, but we're working towards it. We're thinking of having them try it out for a year. If they end up despising it, we can easily reevaluate and go back to homeschooling for the following year. I think a year off from teaching three would be awesome for me. David is getting more independent in his studies so he doesn't need quite as much supervision as the girls.
We'll see what the future holds and what we end up doing. I'll keep you all posted!
The girls were a different story. They each went for a half day with their respective friends that are in their grade. They came home bursting with excitement over how much they loved it! Abby quickly made new friends and enjoyed doing all of the activities they did as a class. Ana enjoyed the school aspect (except Spanish because she didn't know any of the words that the other kids knew) and the recesses, and lunch, and friends, and pretty much everything about it. She told me it was the best day of school ever! They both want to try out a full day next. They will go back next week to give a full day a chance.
Why are we offering this to our kids? Well, we are not die-hard home schoolers. While I do favor the option if it works out, I am not set in stone with it. This has been a hard year for me to adjust to teaching three kids at once, all at different levels. Apparently I do not have to homeschool gene that other parents do of teaching piles of children. So we are exploring our options for next year. I was expecting David to not enjoy public school. I was expecting my social little Abby to be enthralled with public school. Ana was the toss up. I think it may be a good fit for her. She's competitive enough that being able to see other kids her age doing things that normally cause issues at home with attitude, may just spur her little competitive nature on to try to "beat them" and do a really good job.
So next week, they will go for a full day. If this is the route we decide to go in with the girls, they may finish out the school year in the public school a little later on. We're still not quite ready for decisions to be made, but we're working towards it. We're thinking of having them try it out for a year. If they end up despising it, we can easily reevaluate and go back to homeschooling for the following year. I think a year off from teaching three would be awesome for me. David is getting more independent in his studies so he doesn't need quite as much supervision as the girls.
We'll see what the future holds and what we end up doing. I'll keep you all posted!
Oh my goodness, can you imagine how excited Grace would be to go to school with Abby. :) Is she doing 1st grade this year or Kindergarten?
ReplyDeleteI agonize with you. It's such a difficult decision! I like the idea of homeschool (but I don't think it's right for every family) and I get why people choose to do it. Of course we decided to start out at public school and I haven't actually homeschooled. Possibly in the future and only if it is a good fit for that particular child. I think it varies from child to child. One kid may need it for a year or so for any particular reason. We've been really happy with public school for Jeneva and I *think* that's what we'll do for all of our kids.....as long as it's a good school. As it is with anything, there are positives and negatives to both choices. I'm sure that whatever decision you end up making for each of your children, it will be good. It sure sounds like it's the best fit for David at this point!
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