Homeschooling was the best thing I did for me and my son

by Camie
(Canada)

A year ago my husband and I moved our family from the states to Canada. The school year had just begun and without thinking we placed all 4 of our children into public school because that's what we've always done.

My youngest child, who was 5 turning 6, was supposed to be in Kindergarten, but the school placed him into 1st grade instead. I was crushed. My husband and I protested, but we were told we had no choice or say in the matter.

At first my son seemed thrilled to be going to school like his older siblings, but after a little while his attitude changed.

He quickly realized that he was "behind" his peers and his teacher was giving him "D's" on his report cards. He began to dread getting up for school every morning and I was literally pushing him inside the school door. It was a nightmare for both of us. It didn't seem fair that he had to start his school experience out this way. School is supposed to be fun!

After several months of morning battles, I wised up and pulled my son out of public school. The principal tried to talk me out of it telling me I was making a huge mistake, but he was wrong. It turned out to be the best thing I could've done for my son. I only wished I'd thought of homeschooling sooner.

At first I tried to teach my son a combination of both Kindergarten and 1st grade curriculum thinking I had to "catch him up". I purchased expensive workbooks for math, reading and writing. However, I soon realized that my son didn't need to catch up to anyone and both of us decided that worksheets are a rather boring way to learn. Once I relaxed my expectations and stopped pushing worksheet after worksheet on my son, we really started enjoying our time together.

We like to be outside when the the weather's nice and as we walk around we count rocks bordering flower beds and we learn about place value using house numbers. We watch insects in a natural setting. We go to the library and find books about anything my son is interested in. When he wanted to know more about beavers, we read a book about beavers, made a paper beaver with movable arms and tail and wrote down some simple beaver facts. We have cooking lessons, put puzzles together, play math or alphabet games and do simple science experiments. We made an abc book with letters and pictures cut from magazines.

My son proudly tells people that he is homeschooled. I have received a lot of negative comments about my choice to homeschool him, but I don't care. My son is happy and he enjoys learning and that is the bottom line. He is reading now and loves math and science. We have both learned so much in a short amount of time. I love homeschooling!