My reason

Thanks for bringing this topic up...My reasons are well kinda selfish at first...My big girl is just 3yrs old. I already feel like so much of her life has gone by (her life with me) and as much as I wouldn't put her in daycare and miss out on her growing up, I have no desire to send her away to school for 6-8 hrs a day and allow them to see her growing/learning and I miss being a primary educator (and learner, as I wholeheartedly believe she will teach me as much as I teach her). I am not ready to miss her. I am not ready for someone else to decide for my daughter what will be important for her to learn and what wont. I am not ready for her to learn her values from conversations at school (or peers). I am not ready for her to be told she is not smart in the way they measure it.
On the other hand I am ready for her to love being with her family. I am ready for her to excel in learning and actually believe it is fun, instead of a dreadful thing to be nervous about (TEST). I am ready for her to grow in her understanding and appreciation of the world. I am ready to watch my baby grow, learn, fall and pick her self back up, struggle and succeed. I am ready to watch her teach her younger siblings some of the things she has learned without thinking they are too young or not in her "grade" so they wont get it. I am ready to watch my daughter learn values based on our faith in God, His Son, as well as faith in our fellow men (seeing the best in others).
I am her mother. I know her better than anyone. And atleast with my oldest, she is a spitting image of me (in personality and learning) and when I think about how different my view of education would have been had I been HS, well lets just say it would not have taken me till College (lucky I even made it too college) to learn that educating myself could be fun. It cost alot of money to learn that simple lesson.
I am not perfect. There are days when I am outta sorts and her education suffers abit. I dont even know how to teach certain subjects (like geometry) as I myself still do not understand what my teachers were trying to teach me. We will learn together. There will be many moments when she gets it before me and can learn it even better by having to teach her poor old mom something.
We tend to forget that public schools have not been around that long. They are an experiment too.The thing that has been around the longest is homeschooling. Whether in family units or co-op type situations. And then even when public schools came around, towns were smaller. Students of all ages met in the same room. Classes were much much smaller. Teachers usually lived with a local family or where already part of the community, so teachers knew their students better and were better able to tailor their education to them and their particular goals.
The closest we will ever get to 'school' will be a Montessori type situation. They are typically not as long of a day, less structured, and geared towards individual learning. If we are ever living around one and can afford it (as it cosy Way more than HS)then we will see if any of our children our interested in trying it out. It would still never replace them being educated at home, I would just supplement what they are getting at school or help fill in the blanks if any exist.
As for the much looked forward bus ride. Still have not figured out about that. Maybe I can 'borrow' one sometime or take her on a field trip in one.
I mean, really, I rode the bus...it is not all it is cracked up to be. Some of my worst peer experiences happened on that thing.
I am excited about learning with my children. It keeps me busy and my mind active. I really can't see anything she will be missing out on.
I am thankful for a husband who supports this decision (even though he excelled in a school environment). He himself wishes he had been HS.
I look forward to our family growing closer together in this crazy world because of our time HS'ing.

Package

Well my package from RainbowResources has arrived. I got up early this morning just to look through the workbooks ordered. I can already tell that Liliana and I will love the Rod & Staff Bible stories (preschool age) package. It comes with like 6-7 books covering different skills, as well as an actual bible story for the parent to read with the child each day (and a page to color that goes along with each story). It is meant to educate and teach values, a good combo in my mind. I believe the pack cost 18.00 or so for the whole set one would need with a pre-k child.
I also ordered a fun card game that I would recommend. It is called "Sequence Rummy". It is flash card size deck of cards that you have to put in the right sequence, you can also play rummy with it once you are a little older child. It was like $2.00.
They threw in one of their catalogs, which took up half of the shipping box it is so huge. Do not know when I will have time to look through that but am excited to have it around for reference.
Anyway, I am just excited about playing (learning) with my child.

We are not alone

So I was at the library today. I go every Thursday for storytime and to check out new movies and books. For movies, we usually pick out a few educational ones and a few fun ones (like she is watching snow white right now (which she has never seen) but we also picked one up about tunnels (for kids) and we occasionally pick up signing ones etc...) For books, the same goes. I have been picking up some Rookie Readers. i highly recommend these for early reading. They have the words on one page and the picture on another, which is so helpful for beginners. If both the words and the pic are on the same page the child ignores the words, but when seperated (the the words are printed bigger as well) then a child can look at each word while it is being said and then look at the picture to go along with what they just read. I also have been checking out sound books. There are certain letters Liliana has a hard time with (like "R" and "CH"), so I check out the R and CH book in this one series they have here. So for CH it will read like this, "Chad checks his bedroom for checkers" or something like that and show a picture to correspond. So she repeats after me while we read it.
Now while there today I ran into another mom. I recognized her as she is also there often. it never fails that if i wear my sling people want to know where I got it and want one (it is called, The Sling Set and is sold online only). So after chatting with her about that I overheard her telling someone she homeschools. So I asked her about it. She has a 7yr. old, 5yr twins, 3yr old and a baby on the way. She had her oldest in private school (cost $2,500/yr, which really isnt too bad compared to others) and decided she didnt like what her sweet child was changing into at school (started being meaner to her siblings, bad language, etc...) so she started to homeschool. She says for all 4 children she spends $500/yr in homeschooling supplies and said she could do it cheaper if she had to. She gave me some websites where she has found her material(s). I have not even looked at the sites yet but thought I would post them here as well.

My Father's World
Rainbow Resource Center

So far with liliana...

Well. There are many things about home schooling that I am looking forward to.
Right now with liliana this is what we do. She will be 3 in a month. She earns computer time everyday (the most she spends on the computer is 1hr, it is more like 30 mins.) and we have 5 sites (so far) that we like and she can use. So she has her own desktop on the computer so that while on it she cannot destroy any programs or hard drive stuff, she can only access these 5 programs (all internet based). She uses starfall (which she enjoys but is getting bored with), PBS kids (she 'plays' the curious george games having to do with memorizing, addition, and recognition skills), Discover kids (she plays matching games, and watches Bindi the Jungle girl go out with dolphins, crocs, etc...), I also use the Time for Kids site (I print off worksheets geared toward her level (they have k-8) and lesson plans for various subjects that give me facts to share with her, actvities to reinforce the facts and projects to do, etc...) She participates in a playgoup once a week for a few hrs. where each mom takes a turn teaching a mini-lesson and facilitating the kids (3 yr olds) through a craft (sometimes fun, sometimes edible). There are some things she used to do before I got pregnant and lost more brain cells. She remembers doing 'cards' with me and still ask if we can do them, even though it has been a year since her last time. I make her reading cards where the letters are big enough to where she can read them (the print in books is just to small for little kids' vision level) and we have math cards (where she learns how to recognize quantity, instead of having to count one at a time). Both of these skills are important to me and I want to get her math/reading cards started up again.It just takes more of my time to get them ready for the week (it only take 15mins/day to go through them with her). So that is where we are. Well we are also still teaching her more signs, which she would learn more of if we showed her more. She was given a signing movie for christmas from her grandparents and already has that memorized from watching it 3 times. Sometimes we check out signing books from the library that she goes through with jacob (as it is, jacob cannot put her in her bed at night and shut the door without standing in the doorway and systmatically going through a series of 5 signs that are her favorite (hippo,airplane,ilove you, kangaroo, and something else, I cant remember) but she will just fall apart if he tries to shut her door without doing her signs.
Our education goals for liliana for this year include learning how to read (on her own), math skills (addition,subtration,greater than,lesser than), learning how to put a sentence together with just signs, and learning whatever facts she finds interesting (all of the 'why' questions that have already started) (like why did heavenly father put the moon in the sky?)
I would appreciate any help with all of this. It really does take several people to educate a child.
As for Mattie, by the end of the year we would like her to have learned several communication signs, and social skills) I cant believe I will have a one year old by the end of the year...
so that is where we are.