More Reasons I Love Homeschool

My dh is starting college this fall at Arizona State University. Friday they had a special welcome student day, with an evening barbecue. We decided to take dd and ds and drop them off at grandma's so we could go. While we drove over there, we noticed the school bus dropping off kids. Since dd is now Kindergarten age, I just had to make a mental note that if dd was in school, we would have had to wait for her to get home from school before we could head out.

Dh starts his new job tomorrow. He has three weeks of paid training, and then he will be working from Tuesday to Saturday. In order to maximize the kid's time with daddy, we're doing school from Tuesday to Saturday as well.

When my ds was born last fall, we took a week off the week before he was born because I was just too tired to teach, and we took the week that he was born off as well. Even though I had hospital appointments twice a week for the last couple of months, we still managed to have school four days a week (we have park days every Friday, and will continue to have park days on Fridays even though we'll be doing school on Saturday). We had school at the park and at the library. Our two weeks off when the baby was born was our fall break. Most of the schools around here have fall break... I don't remember having them when I was a kid, then again we never started in the beginning of August either. We will probably not take fall break this year. We took spring break the week that my parents came to visit.

Of course there are some advantages to regular school. I have to actually do the work of teaching, for one... although I like that job. I don't get a break during the day like schooling parents. But then again, I don't have to spend my evenings checking up on homework like schooling parents either. I will probably assign independent work (it's all homework, right?) and assigned reading when dd is older, but I will still know what she is supposed to be doing. But I like my flexibility and the ability to change things on a whim if I have to.

I was thinking the other day about all the school options available now. Back when I was a kid there was public school, private school (which was a little weird), and a few people homeschooled (but that was really out there). Now we have more acceptance for private and home schooling, charter schools, public school charter schools where students learn at home, public school courses where children spend most of the day at home, and private homeschool coops where children go to private school a couple days a week (where all parents volunteer) and spend the rest of the days homeschooling. Even though not all educational establishments are passing with flying colors, at least we have more choices.

I'm signing up my dd for soccer this fall. Should be an interesting experience for her. Since most of my time right now is spent with family and church members, it will be interesting to spend time with some people who are outside that circle.