Adding Another Title

Now you can call me teacher! We started talking last fall about the possibility of homeschooling monkey as of the 2010-2011 school year. We bought an amazing house at the end of October however it came with a not so amazing school zone. I found out recently that they are going to close that school after the current year ends however instead of rezoning and distributing the kids they are moving the entire student body to another local school. Then rezoning and distrubting those current kids. So, new school same problem which is really low test scores and a horrible crime rate. The crime rate baffles me though since the school sits right next to a police department but who knows.

We tried, and failed, to get her into the magnet program which would have sent her to a better school. The thing with those is after kindergarten its apparently impossible to get in because all existing kids and their siblings have priority. So that put us back to the homeschooling option.

I've been searching and searching trying to find something that would be a good fit for us. I mean, not only would I have Monkey, Toots, and Baby Girl home all day with me...I'd also have my daycare to run which will consist of 7-8 other kids! Yes, I have an assistant starting with me so that would help but I would still have to make time for Monkey's schooling too.

Then I found www.time4learning.com and it looks very promising. Actually I'm almost certain this is the program we will go with. The provide a complete curriculum based on grade level which we have to submit to the schools here. It's online activities, learning, testing for her based on her grade level. It can be customized to her needs as well which is nice since she is advanced in several areas. It provides online progress reports and completion reports which are needed to show the school system that she is in fact learning. I can even pull information from it to do home activities that tie into what she is learning and depending on what it is can incorporate it with the daycare kiddo's too for a fun activity. I'm actually considering signing up for it with 2 kids so I can get the preschool curriculum as well specifically for the daycare. We'll see on that part though.

So, I guess now I can add the teacher title to ever growing list. It should be a fun and interesting adventure. I've talked to Monkey about her staying home to do schooling and in some ways she seems excited but in others sad too. Mostly for the social aspect but with our local mom's group and all the people we now know we should have no problem keeping her busy and socialized.