Schooling has always been a sort of stressful point in parenting for me-since Addilyn was two (maybe younger?) I was often thinking of what schools we'd send her to or where she'd learn the best and how it'd affect the next years, her career goals, her love of Jesus and the people around her, etc. Remember-long term planner? I have been involved in enough different types of schools as a student, college student, student teacher, and teacher to know there are many positives and negatives to every schooling option. I also have witnessed some great homeschooling (and some not so great-but again, lots of positives and negatives). As a mom wanting the absolute best for my kid, for her personality and strengths as an individual, I aganoized over schooling decisions. Addilyn absolutely loves to learn. She loves letters, words, asking questions, and learning through hearing the answers. She is independently motivated to understand as much about her surroundings as she can and has an amazingly good understanding of herself and what she can and can not understand or do. I want those strengths to be used in her learning-I don't want her just to become a number in a big class, or to have a teacher annoyed by all of her questions. I don't want the constant standarized testing and common core curriculums to hurt her as an individual learner. I don't want her struggles to hold her back because she hides them well. I want her to learn through them, to ask for help, and to learn how to overcome them.
I also know full well that she is probably a kid that will do well in most educational settings at this point. She's motivated to learn, loves other kids, and loves pushing herself. Originally, the plan was that I would do a homeschool version of preschool and therefore push off making major educational decisions for another year. Then my nerve disease decided to come into play again. And I realized that I can't do it all. We may also be bringing home one (or two) very high needs kids early in her educational career that I'll need to focus on attachment and growth with and don't want that to negatively impact my girl's learning. So. We visited a preschool and finished up with a cupcake date. She will be attending that preschool beginning next month (and already wants a new backpack just for school!) so that no matter the K/elementary decision (middle/high/college is also in my head) we make together, she is prepared and ready.
She is so so very excited and I know that she will do amazingly well. I also know we will miss her so very much those three mornings a week at home. Her brother isn't going to know what to do. But, we will all figure it out and get to be amazed at all she's learning and doing and friends she's making while she's away from us.
