And What About School?

Some of our friends and family have started to enquire about Bentley's schooling. Now that he's five, it's traditional to send him off to kindergarten--but we haven't. Most of them know that Kara was homeschooled 5th grade through high school, so they are not completely surprised to learn that we aren't sending our precious young one off to public school. Quite frankly, we aren't willing to share him. He's an avid learner and we enjoy working with him. He's staying home with us.

Anchorage is one of the most homeschooling-friendly cities in the nation. (It's probably #1.) You can keep your child home from school and do your own thing without filing any paperwork. Or you can join one of two charter schools for homeschoolers in the Anchorage School District (FPCS or Frontier Charter). Or you can join one of the many distance education schools located in the state. Two (IDEA and Raven) even have local offices.

Why join a public school for homeschoolers? Some parents do it for help and guidance. Others sign their children up for financial reasons. The money is quite a lure. Homeschooling can get expensive if you want to purchase certain curriculums. Some of the funds can be used to pay for art supplies, music lessons, or some type of exercise class (gymnastics, dance, karate, etc.). Of course, if you sign up with a public school for homeschoolers you will have to turn in samples of your child's work. If you go it on your own, you can keep records or not.

What did Kara do? First she researched the topic to death. She compared funding and resources and required record keeping. Then she agonized over which school to join. It wasn't too hard to decide what to do this year because only Bentley is enrolled, although the twins do qualify for a few hundred dollars of preschooling funds. One school stood out--Raven. Unfortunately, next year with all three enrolled, the decision is not nearly as cut and dry. I'm going to have to listen to all the pros and cons again.

That's a problem for next year. This year I get to have more fun with Bentley. Kara and I will be spending time with him to help him increase his reading ability, improve his writing skills (he uses mostly caps), learn phonograms (so he can more easily sound out words when reading), work on math skills (my favorite!), study art (fun), play with a science kit or two (human body kit is first), and study a little history. B's only five, so we'll take it slow and give him plenty of time to pursue his own interests.