Homeschooling Kaius

By admin

I had every intention of homeschooling Kaius before I became a single mom – I’m not very confident in my ability to homeschool him. I’ve read all the material that tells you that it doesn’t matter who you are… you can homeshool. I’m starting to think that I’m using the single mom thing as an excuse not to homeschool.

If anyone comes back with the ‘he’ll be weird and won’t know how to socialize’ argument about why I shouldn’t homeschool then you don’t know my child and you need to find another argument.  I’ll listen/read your arguments but that one won’t work.

I put Kaius in school and daycare when it became apparent that I would have to get a job outside of the house. Being a single mom that had to work full time outside the house doesn’t leave you with many options.

For those that don’t know me.  I don’t have a ton of support where I live in regards to child minding or babysitting.  I’m ok with it – it’s challenging but I deal with it. We have a few key people that watch him but I don’t like to abuse it.

I’m facing my homeschooling fear with a back up plan. He’s going into Grade 1 (Sept 8th) and we’re also going to homeschool so that I’m confident he’s getting what he needs from school while trying out homeschooling.  Then once school pisses me off I have no excuse to not pull him!

Will he get burnt out… will I? I have a feeling it’s going to be so much fun that we won’t get burnt out but I could be wrong. Plus I think I read once that kids are really only LEARNING for half the time they are in school – the other half is the kids waiting around, lining up, etc.

One thing about homeschooling – for me – is that there are a few types of homeschooling and I’m not sure which type I prefer.  I know which ones I don’t lean towards but we have to figure out what works best.

The other thing about homeschooling – I don’t like printing stuff. It’s the non-clutter, minimalist, environmentalist in me and I’m not sure I can get over it.  Can you homeschool without printing stuff? I’m not so sure. Do you think I need buy a printer? I may just pay to print the pages needed at the internet cafe across the way – which will help to limit how much I’m printing and what I’m printing.  Maybe I can strike a deal with them.

I just signed up with LessonPathways.com (Building Paths for Online Learning) as a beta tester.

It’s a homeschooling resource.

Here’s a little bit from that page:

A Pathway is a unique learning unit that contains a prescreened selection of Internet resources, which together cover a particular topic. Each Pathway provides a multisensory learning experience, enabling children to learn from a variety of reading materials, hands-on projects, games, online activities, and videos. Many Pathways also include audio resources, e-books, and reference pages for those who want to delve even deeper into a topic.  Pathway resources are prescreened to ensure that they are age-appropriate and informative, and each one is developed to appeal to various learning styles.

I’m excited! About Homeschooling! I sort of dreaded it before.  Maybe it’s because he’s older and I’m seeing the differences in him and his friends, or maybe it’s because we’ve experienced school and while he’s fine with it, I’m not.  Did you know that from K  – Grade 7 they pass you no matter how you’re doing?  No wonder students have issues once they hit junior high.

My biggest fear – that he end up like me in the learning/smarts department.  While I’m not stupid I’m not good at numbers, or retaining information that I’ve read, low B average student that didn’t apply myself and a superstar personality that as a person isn’t at full potential because there was no focus or discipline on learning.

If you`re a homeschooling family you might want to check out Lesson Pathways -the first 500 to sign up get to be beta testers and get a year free.

Looking forward to learning new things with my boy,