Better to Try Out Homeschooling or Traditional Schooling First?

The language immersion sounds AWESOME - I would totally go with that. If you have no issues with the school district, etc., why not take advantage of it? If it doesn't work, I would think the transition to homeschooling might be easier than the transition to traditional school.

Good luck!

Kids change tremendously from year to year so what's a good fit this year may not be right for your daughter next year. Not knowing your daughter, I'd lean to putting her into the immersion program for kindergarten. Because she's so young, she'll get an ear for the language and begin speaking without effort. It's a great opportunity for her.

I've done all three, homeschooling, public and private school. There are plusses and minuses to each. Find what works best for your daughter and your family. My kids have made the transitions between types of schooling and benefitted from each. Be flexible and willing to adapt as you go.

I have been homeschooling for the past 4 years now and although it was difficult at first to change from a routine of going to school, I can honestly say it was the best thing I could have ever done. My children range in ages from 2-17 and we are all happily learning at home. If you want to enjoy every moment God allows you with your child remember it is not about the knowledge of this world. If you keep that it mind you and your child will grow spiritually as a family and the learning will come so easy.I will pray the Lord leads you in the right direction.

We did the EXACT same thing. Our son was ready for K at 4, so we put ourselves on a waiting list for the dual immersion and figured we'd homeschool if it didn't come through. Four days before school started, we got a phone call that there was a spot for him, so we took it.

He liked K and I figured we weren't going to homeschool. Loved the teacher and liked the school. Right after his K graduation, on our way home, he expressed, "Mom, can I not go back to school? I hate it." WHAT??? We put him in summer school at a Montessori school nearby, just as a transition, so he would think that changing schools was normal, in the event we decided to homeschool.

(The one thing we really liked about the dual immersion is that our son reads at a 12 grade level and he just turned 9, so he should be in 3rd grade. He learned to read and write Spanish first, so he can pronounce everything....and his accent is awesome. We go to Mexico regularly and he speaks Spanish with me - I only took 4 years of it - and others. They speak to him like he's fluent because his accent is so fluent.)

Well, we decided to HS and he LOVED it. I'd ask him on a regular basis if he wanted to go back to school. "No way!" was always his reply. We put in the hours the state recommends and we were done in 2 months with first grade. What???? I must have missed something. I went back over everything, tested him on everything....nope, we had finished 1st grade in 2 months! So, we moved on to 2nd grade and significantly slowed down the hours we put in and he finished 2nd grade in 7 months. We now put in about an hour a day, so he doesn't get too much further ahead. As we are now, he'll graduate high school at 16...and if he ever decides to back to school, I don't want a boy who is 3 or 4 years younger than those girls...so we are sticking to our minimal schedule.

Trust me, if HSing isn't working, she won't have missed much, if you put her back in school. What got me to completely decide to HS, was research I read that showed the kids only get 2 hours and 13 minutes of actual instruction time. So recess, coming in and out of the classroom, lunch, busy work, etc. I figured I could do better for my son. He's thriving and we belong to 2 great HS groups. The dual immersion was good for ONE year, but more than that....not so sure. My other kids don't sit and do homework like our oldest, who is the only one to be in a formal classroom setting.

I do have a friend who would NEVER HS, but she finally pulled her DD out of school at Christmas break and never went back. Then at the end of the year, she pulled her DS and turns out she is THE biggest HS advocate you can imagine. LOL

I am not one who would even consider home schooling. I can't imagine it at all.

As for sending a child to kindergarten, it's required here so we would only have 3 choices, either private school, home school, or public school. If you can afford private school then I would go with that. One that has lots of extra curricular activities would be awesome.

Good luck deciding what to do!

When parents homeschool, they are overwhelmingly more successful at teaching a child to read, and usually at a younger age than what they would learn in public school. And that is the 'basics" for early school...that and simple adding, color recognition, arts and crafts, ect....pretty easy stuff. It is more likely, your child would be ahead than behind. I would not put a child back into K, if it were me, but move them into 1st. But most people who homeschool from the start, stay the course. I knew one mom who put her child into public school, and sadly it was because she was overwhelmingly filled with fear about everything!
There is no need to be fearful. Children flourish in a homeschool environment, safe in mother's care, there should be no reason why it wouldnt 'work out', unless there is some undue pressure or expectation somewhere. Relax and have fun. Learning is natural, and fun, and creates strong bonds between a parent/child.

You can do any of these options. I've known people who've done all of them and were fine.

If you are primarily interested in homeschooling because of specific values you want to give your daughter, start with homeschooling. I homeschool largely because I want to give my children a love of learning. Schools largely teach children a love of performing for grades. My youngest will probably be in public school at some point, but only after I am certain that her love of learning is so solid that the school's emphasis on grading won't be able to crack it. It's much easier to establish a pattern/attitude if you don't have to un-learn an old pattern/atttitude first.

If you are primarily interested in homeschooling in order to accelerate your daughter's academic development, start with the dual language immersion program. If you decide she isn't learning up to her potential, you can pull her out and homeschool her anytime.

Any decision you make will involve giving up some opportunities. This is called opportunity cost. Minimize opportunity cost by trying to follow your highest values for your daughter. Understand that there will always be some opportunity cost....there will always be an infinite number of cool opportunities you are not pursuing. Learn to come to peace with this.

Whatever you decide, if a few months pass and it still doesn't feel right, change it. Bouncing back and forth every few months is not good, of course, but everything else is fine. Making a single, informed change in the middle of the year is fine. Deciding to public school for several years, homeschool for a year or two, then return to public school is fine. I have seen parents do transitions every which way with public schooling and homeschooling. Sometimes the first 6 months of transition is rough, but they all seem to thrive in the end.

Good luck!

I don't think it would be wise to make any changes mid-year. K teachers have their hands full trying to meet all the different needs of the kids and get them all on target for 1st. Amazingly, the kids all come in at varying levels, but manage to all get caught up by the end of the year. Imagine throwing your daughter into the classroom part way. And, she's not on target. It would be very difficult.
Homeschooling is a huge commitment and you must be pretty dedicated to the idea. It doesn's sound like you are. That sort of tells me that maybe that's not the choice for you.
If you homeschool for K and then decide you don't want to do it anymore, you can move her straight to 1st. Unless she just didn't get anything out of it and would be behind. Then repeat K.

I would start homeschooling first - we have known a handful of homeschoolers who were in school, and it has been difficult for the parents to undo the damage (kids no longer have a love for learning, or they were psychologically traumatized by teacher/peers).

That said, there is not a whole lot of actual "schooling" that comes with homeschooling a 5-year-old. It's pretty basic stuff, and your child likely knows most of it already, or will pick it up simply by living life.

Wishing you the best for whatever you decide!

A dual language immersion program sounds amazing. My son is in a Montessori and their version of 'Spanish' is they learn the colors once a week, repeat annually. If there was a language immersion program in our area, absolutely would have.

Why are you considering homeschooling - I'm asking because people have radically different reasons from radical unschoolers to those who don't want their kids exposed to different ideas from their own to areas where the schools are just poor. Your motivation, the amount of support you have (community of home schoolers, museum, arts and other programs, friends with similar age children etc) would play a huge role in whether home schooling would be a benefit or handicap to your child.

Not much help here, but have you looked into a Montessori program? I was not happy with traditional programs but knew that homeschooling was not for us. Found that Montessori had everything we wanted from a school.

I know that i am not a person that will ever homeschool. My kids need the socialization, and I need the break.

You can always start your child at your local public elementary school. A month in you can start. Have you toured the school? You may hate it, or like it. My oldest went to a different kinder in the district. He has hearing deficits, and needed a smaller classroom.

Hi C., I understand peoples reason for wanting to home school, I had to do that for a little while while we were living in Japan. As a mom who's childtren are grown and who attended public schools I'm glad we did it that way. We all want to protect our children, but at some point they have to learn to protect themselves within reason, our children will go to college and work in the real world, they need to be street and world smart to make it in this world, I would do public school first, children learn sociakl skills while at school with other children, make life time friends, that's important and part of childhood and grwing up. I have done both and I preferd my kids going to school. J.

Why are you considering homeschooling? What is your motivation behind it? I think the answer to that would make all the difference in the world.
I have been homeschooling for about 14 years now. My oldest went to Kindergarten, and by the time the year was coming to a close, I knew I had to rescue him from that. I didn't want to because it would mean that I had to give up my freedom. But, I knew I had to do it for my children. We have never looked back. There is nothing, and I mean *nothing* that could ever intice us to go back to that life again. We have grown accustomed to our freedom. Our freedom to spend the days studying what we want and how we want. The freedom to skip school in the classical sense and go study nature, or history, or whatever, however we want. The freedom to go on trips when we want. The freedom to think for ourselves, to study an issue and consider the ideology behind what is being taught. We aren't spoon-fed to become good socialists. We look at everything differently.

Our primary reason to homeschool is that at the very core of it all, we believe we must teach our children from a Biblical worldview. We cannot let them sit under the teaching of God-haters. Even if the teacher is a Christian, her hands are tied. She must teach the curriculum that the school board gives her. The textbooks are written by people who do not have any regard for God. We see the effect of public education on our society. Look around. Is that what you want for your child? Is it as bad as it possibly could be? No. Thankfully, we still have some constraint. But not much. It is only getting worse. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But, if you put a frog in cool water and slowly warm it up to boiling, it will never jump out because it doesn't realize that he is getting boiled to death. Same with us. We just don't see how hot the water is getting because we slowly become used to the heat.

Watch the movie Indoctrination. http://indoctrinationmovie.com/

Of course if your reasons have nothing to do with your faith, then these things might not matter to you. If it is about getting a better education. Yes, you can probably do better at home than in a classroom environment. Typically a one-on-one education is much better than a classroom environment. Typically only the very wealthy and homeschoolers can afford to do that.

Those tend to be the two main reasons for homeschooling. If it were me doing it today, I would never send my child off to school. But, I do have pretty strong opinions about it. I wouldn't subject my kids to the institution. But, I've already said that. :)