We made an offer to our oldest to start homeschooling again and he accepted! It was a tough decision for him. Not because he liked school and couldn’t wait to get back. In fact, he has shown little to no interest in back to school activities and has made several scathing comments about school policy and the futility of the whole public school process. But he is in the band program and LOVES it. It was hard for him to give that up. But when we laid out several different options (i.e. investigating the possibility of staying with the school band while being home schooled, finding a municipal band to join, or even starting his own band) the pendulum swung in favor of home schooling. He had made out a list of pros and cons and the only real benefit to staying in public school was band.

He had been home schooled for the 3rd and 4th grades. And although it went well at the time, he was starting to resist because he thought he was missing out on fun time with his friends. The family was also in some flux because I had two much younger children who demanded quite a bit of attention. So we decided to put him back into school with the idea of keeping track of his education and supplementing where needed (which was almost everywhere). We had a feeling that given his thoughtful and gentle nature he would soon see the glaring problems with public school. Let me tell you, it didn’t take long.

The problem was with Kid #2. She was adamant about starting Kindergarten in the fall. But after listening to Kid #1 and me talking and planning about all the things we would do this fall she declared she was going to go to home school too! Yes!

The ideas are in the works. #1 wants to study film and politics and #2 wants to learn how to read, write, add, and subtract. Pretty simple stuff. I can’t wait to get started.