Big transition!

[rivka]

On Friday, Alex graduated from nursery school. We went straight from graduation to my parents' house in upstate New York, to visit them for Memorial Day weekend. (Perhaps there will be another post about that later.) We arrived home last night.

This morning I was reading to Colin in the living room when I heard Alex's footsteps on the stairs.

"Who is it?" I called out.

"It's your homeschooler, Alex!" she said back. Pleased as anything. I took a First Day of School picture, posed at her direction: Michael holding Colin, Alex holding a book she can read and looking proudly over the top.

Then, sadly, I went to work. Michael gets to do the first day of homeschooling; he'll be home with the kids every Tuesday. I remind myself that there is going to be an awful lot of this to go around, and that it doesn't matter so much that I'm missing the first few hours of it.

Honestly, it doesn't quite seem real that, from now on, we have no institutional place to send Alex. We are in charge of her education. I feel pretty confident that we'll do a fine job, but still, it's a big job to do.

I don't expect that I'll be posting that much about homeschooling here, but we will probably be updating the homeschooling blog I set up more often now that we're official. In case you want to follow along, it's syndicated at tinderbox_blog.

Comments

[lynsaurus.livejournal.com]

What a milestone for the whole family! Congratulations.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I love that idea of marking the start of Alex's new schooling.

[redbird]

Bravo!

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

Such a great girl you have there!

[diony.livejournal.com]

Wow, congratulations to Alex! I'm very excited to begin following her homeschooling adventures, both for her sake & because I hope to convince my husband that it's a possibility for our daughter once she's (much) older. He's starting from a position of "the only people who homeschool are those who don't wish their kids taught evolution," so I look forward to sharing your blog with him.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's definitely the stereotype. A sociologist named Mitchell Stevens wrote Kingdom of Children (http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Children-Controversy-Homeschooling-Movement/dp/0691058180), a really good book breaking down the two homeschooling cultures in America (Christian and "inclusive") and explaining why Christians are so dominant in the public discourse about homeschooling. (In a nutshell: they're much more organized and hierarchical.)

I don't know where you are in terms of reading or research, but if you want ideas let me know. There are great secular books about homeschooling.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Coming in late to say that I work for Jossey-Bass (an imprint of Wiley) and we publish some pretty good teacher/homeschooler resources (http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-WILEY2_SEARCH_RESULT.html?query=homeschooling) and you might look at some of the teaching books as well.

I can get them at half price, and my email is on my user page if you want to get in touch.