How do you get kids excited about homeschooling?

I mean, people are always telling Lydia how she is "already ready for Kindergarten". WTH? She's 2! I've carefully removed all of the books we've had about school, going to school, etc.

She gets all excited if we see a bus. "Look Mommy! A bus!" It seems everything about school gets her excited. I have *zero* plans to send her to school, we plan to homeschool at least up through elementary.

The only other homeschoolers I know are doing it because they are really conservative Christians and want to keep their kids out of the evil school system. I'm Christian, but I have a real problem with the people who homeschool for the sole purpose of sheltering the child. One family in our church has a 14 year old with a *terrible* speech impediment, and wouldn't even let her go to speech therapy in the public school.

One of the main reasons I want to homeschool is I just see so many great opportunities for making learning fun. How do I get that across?

Do your kids ever ask to go to school? What do you tell them? I realize I have 3 more years to think about this, but it seems like the issue is coming up all the time.

I don't necessarily worry about it, but it is ever present. Fortunately, there is a large and ever growing secular homeschooling community here and my kids are around other HS'ers all the time. We've also had very positive reactions whenever we tell people that we are homeschooling. We have a plot in the community organic garden at the local community college with a few other HS families. All of the other gardeners love to see the kids there and two of them have come up to tell us that their grandchildren are HS'ed and how wonderful it is.

I think that it eventually becomes apparent to the kids that they are getting a very unique experience through HS'ing. Gavin really wanted to go to K, until I explained that the shiny playground (the only part he had ever seen) was a very small part of what goes on at school. He prefers park days where he can play for hours on end, choosing what he wants to learn about and which classes he wants to take, if any. He's been a young naturalist from day one and is really excited about a class we just started at the Environmental Nature Center once a week. We took a field trip there last month and all of us (kids and parents)fell in love with the naturalist so we asked her to teach a natural science class every week. We've found a dynamic, passionate mentor for our kids and they love it!

One of our favorite things in the world is camping. Gavin knows that we wouldn't be able to do it nearly as much if he were in school. We'll have been on three, maybe four (5-6 days each) trips before local schools have even let out this summer.

We spend lots of time at museums, the beach, you name it, we do it, learning all the way. Gavin never asks to go to school anymore. He seems to know how good he has it ;)

We never had a problem.

Yes, lots of people asked about school and still do. But he's always known that he would be homeschooled and has been cool with it. Then again many of his friends are also homeschooled and those that are not also went the full time preschool route so they've been different for along time. Oh, and those specific friends do almost everything differently than we do so he had to learn that from a young age that our family does things differently than others.

Yes, he went through an I love school buses phase. Not a big deal. We found a field trip that allowed us to ride on or I would have set up a public bus field trip opportunity.

As for the media (books and tv) it really hasn't had an impact on the going to school thing since he knows/knew that he'd be hs'd.

We did wait to start attending the hs park day on a regular basis until Sept of the year that he was to start K. Just as something to look forward to in case he started to feel the school pressure.

I also think I prevented problems by thowing in "gosh isn't this great if you attended a traditional school we wouldn't be able to do this" for field trips and stuff. And when something happens and we have to get up at the crack of dawn I get to remind him that if he attended a traditional school that he would have to do that every day.

I don't want to ever make the traditional school seem like a bad thing in case circumstances change and the kids have to go to school. But I do want them to know that their are definit pluses to being hs'd.

hth.

:waving: Hi Brandy!

Do you have a pict of the kids so I can show my kids?
The one in your sig line is showing up as a red X.

I dragged all three kids out into the front to take a fresh picture. I cannot for the life of me get a good one of all three of them at the same time, but this one will do :)

Originally posted by Brandy~Mama~2~3
I dragged all three kids out into the front to take a fresh picture. I cannot for the life of me get a good one of all three of them at the same time, but this one will do :)

:) thanks Brandy!

Ainsley is 2.5 yrs and her grandparents have started making more regular comments to her like, "wow, your kindergarten teacher is going to love you" or "you'll need to learn how to hold your pencil right before you can go to school"...UGH!

A few months ago my dad was alone with Ainsley and he told her that when she is 5 she will get on the school bus and her mommy will probably cry, but it will be ok because she will be home from school soon. Ainsley was freaked out, which I can totally understand. I think it totally scared her because why would you want to go somewhere that would make your mommy cry???? We had to have a bunch of conversations about it and I told her that I didn't plan that she would go to school, etc. She ended up shedding a lot of tears over the whole thing. I was so frustrated with my dad!! :vent: She still seems a little scared when people talk about school.

We haven't told them about our *secret* homeschooling plans. It is kinda fun to keep this secret to ourselves. I have been avoiding telling them as I don't want to talk about it with them for the next 3 years. We are never going to change their mind and I don't even want to try as they are all public school teachers. Even if they were supportive they would be handing me curriculum stuff left and right, probably would even buy dd a desk and me a chalkboard. n:) We are planning to unschool and there is no way they could even wrap their brains around the idea. We may be disowned from the family when the secret comes out. ;)

I would love to hear what other parents say when these type of comments come up.

Thanks for starting this thread!

every time we are at a playground someone will ask what preschool Nick goes to.

The only thing I'm doing right now for him is pointing out how many of his little friends homeschool. After hanging at the park with Jenn or Brandy's kids ... waving.... we'll get in the car and talk about how they homeschool, how fun it is to play with them and go to the museum with them, etc.

Our family is supportive so that helps. My mom will talk to him about what he did at a homeschool function and he can recount his day just like he would if he had been answering the question about what he did at preschool.

He has friends in school, and a best friend who talks about school all the time because it is new to her. Hopefully all the great connections with school children and homeschooled children will help him to see them both as just being different options for different families.

:)Jenn

:waving: Hi Jenn!

Originally posted by sleepypnutsmama
Ainsley is 2.5 yrs and her grandparents have started making more regular comments to her like, "wow, your kindergarten teacher is going to love you" or "you'll need to learn how to hold your pencil right before you can go to school"...UGH!

I would love to hear what other parents say when these type of comments come up.

Christy,

My family is mostly public school teachers also. (My mom, her parents, my sister, and both of my IL's and my favorite adopted Auntie) I actually found that I had support for hsing from them. I was pretty scared to tell them because of their chosen professions. My mom & grandma both agreed with my reasons for hsing but were concerned about the mommy sanity factor of being with the kids all the time. My sister and auntie know that I research almost all my decisions to death and know that if our needs/our childrens needs change then we are open to changing their educational plans. My IL's... well that was tough. I ended up telling them as I took them to the airport for a month long vacation. MIL's only concern was that we would be held accountable for his education. That was cool because I had anticipated her objection and had opted to go the charter school route.

But :sigh: we still run into comments from MIL. I'm sure she is not doing them deliberately but *still*. Last week she told dd (in front of ds) what a big girl she was since she was going to school (speach class) and on and on. It was insensitive with dd's older brother standing right there but I still don't think she did it on purpose. I let it slide and talked to ds about it later.

All in all it is not a problem. When I was telling my family I made sure to let them know they could come to me with concerns that they might have and that if I didn't have an answer I would find one for them. My IL's, well, we just walk different paths in life. Everything I do is different from what they do. As far as they are concerned I should have go back to work full time when the kids were 6weeks old and that $$ and showing off is more important than anything else in the world. :shrug: I don't work that way.

I think Jenn (marchroses) hit on a couple of important points.

We have a very supportive family who understand why we homeschool and see the problems that we have with the public school system. This has made things so easy for us. The only questioning that I get is from IL's who we only see a couple of times a year. They aren't a big enough part of our daily lives for me to get bothered about, although I may complain and vent after a visit...lol.

Another thing that made a difference was talking about homeschooling and our friends that do it. There was one boy, about three years older, who Gavin really looked up to in our AP playgroup. Knowing that he was HS'ed and that we would be seeing them more at HS park days helped out a lot when the whole kindergarten buzz started last year.

In our AP playgroup there was a group of about five kids that were within eight months of eachother, all five year olds. All but one are now being HS'ed and Gavin always talks about the one that went to school. He misses him and really wants him to be HS'ed too, so he can come to the park during the day. The mom was at the playdate last week with her younger kids and Gavin asked her why she sent him to school and told her that she should HS him...lol.

Oh...and I have to say how cool it is to connect with other Amitymama friends IRL. I got to see bothe Jenn's yesterday in two different places :)

Jenn (marchroses) did you have a good time last night? I'm sorry that we didn't get to chat, it was CROWDED here and I was stuck in the kitchen. Did you enjoy the drag queen? I'm ready to have another party, I had so much fun!

Renee, I've had a lot of the same thoughts that you have. It's only been in the past few months that Sam will reply to an adult, "I am homeschooled." Before that, he would be flustered when asked about school, or even say something like "I don't go to school yet, but I will when I am older." We're active in our local HS group as well as an unschooling group, and he has lots of friends/acquaintances of all ages who are homeschooled. I think it just took a while for him to know how to respond to more mainstream people.

He and I have talked more about what school is like (prompted by him talking about school as if it was like Ms. Frizzle's classroom all the time....not!). After hearing about it, he is happy to be homeschooling. And I didn't give it short shrift, either, I gave him all the positive aspects as well as the negatives. I also explained why I thought he would be happier being homeschooled, and he agreed. I don't know how this conversation would be with Lydia, but it's worth a shot. I was pretty matter of fact about it, like, "I know that people are talking to you about going to school, and I want you to know that we have decided that homeschooling will be better than school for you. Here is why." Then, "do you feel uncomfortable when people ask you about if or when you will go to school? Would you feel better if you knew what to say to them?" Now he is proud when he replies. :) I just think that he didn't know how to talk about it.

Tara

We had a mini crisis about this when we officially began homeschooling Isabelle. She has a friend across the street who is a year older and started K the same time we did with Isabelle. There was all kinds of hype about her friend getting to ride the bus and go to "big kid" school. While I don't begrudge this child his hype I felt I needed to create a little hype for Isabelle to as she obviously felt left out. I didn't want her to get the impression her experience was any less valuable.

So I got her a few tshirts and a tote from http://www.greathomeschooltshirts.com/default.asp and I picked up some pencils from the teacher's store that said "kindergarteners are #1" and I also got some of those printed award ribbons that I doled out from time to time when she achieved something new. The first day she read a whole beginner book she got one that said "Reading Award" or something. She still has those ribbons so they must have meant something to her.

Our family is generally supportive. They sometimes do things that are a bit insensitive but they aren't aware of it. Like oohing an aahing over Isabelle's cousins report cards and giving them money for grades in front of Isabelle.

I've tried to hype up my kids by allowing many of the things that public school kids get to do right before school starts. During back to school sales, our kids get to pick out a lunchbox, a backpack, new writing utensils, a few new outfits, folders, etc....

We use the lunchboxes for packing lunches for the park or for going to Grandmas for the afternoon. They pack their toys, books, crayons, and coloring books in their backpack for car trips or other outings where they might need to keep occupied. So our kids are doing everything the other kids are doing, except the bus trip and leaving home for school. That way they don't feel completely left out of the public school hype.

I found it! Here's a little bump to the top so I can find it again. :)