I Know What My Husband Must Be Thinking

I’ve spent a good amount of money on books, supplies, and curricula. I’ve spent the past year reading, researching, and discussing home education. I’ve joined 15 Yahoo! Groups…I’ve even taken over ownership on one of them…so where’s all the home education? He sees all the stuff, he sees me on the computer, but I don’t seem to be doing any home schooling. And he’s right, to a point.

I’m not doing much (structured) home education right now. And that’s intentional. My son is only 4, and I want him to have as much time to play as possible. If we were in the US, he wouldn’t even be beginning Kindergarten for another year, and some other countries don’t begin formal education until children are 7, so I feel no need to rush into anything.

I’m actually thinking of holding off until January and doing a January-December school year. I plan to school year-round, and during the summer, which will be our mid-point, doing sort of a ‘homeschooling lite,’ taking time off as and when we need it. It seems neat and orderly (and will give me more time to plan and organise)

And really, when I think about it, a lot of education has taken place. He can nearly count to 100, he’s learned his alphabet, his phonemes, he can blend (albeit slowly), he can write most of his letters and numbers, can print his name, knows his colours and many shapes (he knows what a cuboid and a cylinder are), can measure things, knows most of the Arabic alphabet, and has an amazing vocabulary.

I do do a lot of home educating. We read aloud for at least an hour every day, go to activities, we count things, play games, read non-fiction books, cook and bake together, discuss things, etc. No, I’m not using all these great resources yet. But I will.

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