Preschool at Home

Now that Alex is 4, we are at the point where we are facing some major decisions about what we want to do with him as far as school goes.

Many parents in our area send their children to 3 year old preschool, and then 4 year old preschool. Last year, we didn't see a need for Alex to go. He seemed so young to me, and I wasn't ready for him to leave. More importantly, though, I couldn't come up with a good reason to send him. He knew his alphabet, many letter sounds, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. He was involved in church Sunday school, plus another Tuesday program at our church that runs just like a preschool classroom. Through MOMS club, he is always going on play dates and doing activities with other kids. We just didn't think, at the age of 3, that he needed to start school. So we waited.

The question came up again this year: do we send him to preschool 3 mornings a week? The answer we came up with was no. For some of the same reasons we listed above -- he is very social and has lots of interaction with other kids, and he knows a LOT of stuff already. I'm pretty sure that if he was given a kindergarten placement test now, he would pass it. He has always been one to read, do puzzles, workbooks, etc. and he has picked up a ton of information just on his own over the past year. He doesn't NEED preschool for the education benefits. So since I'm home with Thomas anyway, and there was so additional benefit to us to send him, we decided he would stay home.

Just to make sure he IS ready for kindergarten next year, though, I am ready to start some preschool work with him at home. I am trying to get some things organized this week (somehow that didn't happen over the summer!) and we are going to get started next week. Our big focus will be pre-reading skills: letter sounds, word building, sight words, and letter writing. We will do some math: counting, sequence, number writing, patterns, time, money, and more. I am excited to get started and see how much he can do. I am hoping that he will be doing a little bit of reading by the end of the year. I will give you all blog updates as often as possible and share his work with you.

We are still undecided at this point about our plans for next year. I'm hoping to do a lot of research and thinking and praying about it and make a decision by spring. We are leaning toward homeschooling at this point, but may consider sending Alex to a Christian school next year. We're going to play this year by ear and see how Alex is doing and also get a sense of what he wants to do and what will be best for him.

I'm enjoying having my boys be little and am in no rush to send them off. :)

That's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly