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Monday, September 2, 2013

To School or Not to School, at Home: Part 1


This is part 1 of a why we want to homeschool our children.

My husband and I have been toying with the notion of homeschooling since this past fall.
The reasons? We have plenty. And the kids having to take FIVE standardized tests a year is at the top of that list. 5?! Is that really necessary?

It all sort of started with the youngest kid, Peanut.

When we tell anyone about this, especially people that homeschool, their reaction is always the same: "Oh, so she's bored."

That's putting it mildly. She knows her stuff but she never feels challenged. And when she's not challenged, she gets bored. And when she gets bored, she doesn't complete work. I suppose she thinks in some ways that it's beneath her to do work that doesn't remotely stimulate her brain or make her think.

She scores in the 99th percentile on her standardized tests. Yes, every test. I think the lowest that she ever scored was the 97th percentile and it was the first standardized test that she ever had to go through.

If we begin to homeschool her, she can go through the work at whatever pace she needs to to be successful. In institutionalized school, the pace is set by the Board of Education and the rest of the students in the room.

And then we started thinking about how much homeschooling Button, the oldest, may have been beneficial back in the 2nd grade when she just could not grasp "inference". (She might be the most literal person that I have ever met.) And there was no slowing down for her. She had to move at the same speed that her class was moving. Her teacher gave her extra work but all that did was take any free time she had away. I am shocked she didn't start to hate school. She was in school all day, after school program until 5, normal homework for 2nd grade followed by pages and pages of extra work, then dinner, and to bed at 7:30.


This post merely points out the test scores and speed of study. The next post will go over the little things that have turned into huge things in our minds.







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