Homeschool World Forum

[SuzyHomemaker]

Hello!
I am a young mother and wife. My only son [LittleMan] is currently 2 years old, and my husband and I are trying for a second child.
I suppose you could say LittleMan is a typical awesome 2 year old. He loves animals and takes an active role in helping to care for our family pets. I feel that responsibility is something lacking in many children now days so I make a point of teaching LittleMan how to clean up after himself and help with family chores.
He is a fairly independent child in that he is happy to play alone for extended periods of time without seeking a playmate nor finding himself any mischief.
He's only just a toddler so I'm not really sure what we should be working on at this point. We discuss the days of the week and the weather every morning. I also am in the beginning stages of learning Spanish and make a point of speaking only Spanish to him for an hour or so a day (even if that means I have to rush to dictionary to help me find words I need to communicate). We do the typical toddler things such as reading stories and singing the alphabet song, painting, counting, colors, shapes, etc.. He is also in a weekly soccer class, goes to private daycare one day a week (for social benefits), attends our local library's weekly storytime, takes swim classes and music classes everyother month.
We did baby signing with him and thats continued into his toddler age. Right now he is very excited to be learning the ASL alphabet song.
I've been reading about homeschooling ever since our son was 6 months old but I still feel as clueless as the day I started reading into it. LittleMan is obviously still too young for "formal" education but he does love to learn. For example, his fascination with the recycling truck prompted us to talk about trash and make "recycled musical instruments". Another example, his obcession with a bird in our backyard turned into us making bird feeders and talking about bird anatomy. Right now we're trying to take our cues from him and it seems to be working well. He's a very happy child.

I can remember being in middle school and feeling like there were gaps in my education. I felt behind some of the other children but my parents and teachers never really seemed to care. Now as an adult I find in normal day to day conversation that I have missed out on learning something my peers learned in elementary school. And as far as highschool was concerned, all I have are memories of several years that I went through the motions, barely managing to graduate and learning next to nothing. As an adult I have been going back and re-educating myself. Filling in the gaps and supplimenting things I wish someone had bothered to teach me years ago. I'm embarrassed to say that I only just recently learned how to do simple multiplication. All these years I got excellent-to-fair grades in math by using the multiplication tables at the back of the book.
So my reasons for homeschooling are simple: I want my son to have the education I never recieved. The more I look at our failing public education system, the more I realize that is NOT what I want for my child.
My husband's reasons for wanting to homeschool are varied. He agrees that we can't trust public school to teach everything a child needs to know nowdays, however he also is concerned about bullying and socialization.

My biggest fears right now are that I won't be able to teach him everything he needs to learn. I'm scared that sometime years down the road we'll look back and realize we forgot some basic building block he needed to succeed in life. I myself do not have a fantastic education, so I don't really know what it looks like. I also don't have much experience with children besides my own.
My husband's biggest fears in keeping our son at home are that he won't have friends nor form basic social skills. I'm trying to convince him that boy scouts, team sports, homeschooling co-ops, and other after school clubs will be more than enough to give our son a full social-calendar.

I've come to this forum looking for more resources of support and encouragement. I'm just feeling very clueless and wanting to figure out what I can do now to set my son up for sucess in his future homeschooling as well as just what comes next.

[hscoach]

Hi. It sounds like you are already homeschooling your son. Many moms do that when their children are preschoolers; it just comes naturally.

I believe you will be able to teach your son everything he needs to learn. You can teach him so much more than he would ever learn in a traditional school setting. Homeschooling becomes a way of life and learning really occurs all the time, even on weekends and on vacation, etc.

Your son will be just fine as far as socialization, as long as you don't isolate yourselves. (I can see you already have wonderful plans for him.) Some homeschool co-ops have classes for preschoolers. Some start at age 2; others might not start until age 3. It just depends on the co-op but I would definitely ask. If you start going to co-op now (you might start in the fall), you can meet all the other moms and he will start making friends. The classes for preschoolers are always fun but also educational. Usually they have a class that teaches the alphabet or a class for music, etc. If you contact your local support groups, they can tell you about any co-ops in your area. (Or the co-ops are sometimes listed along with the support groups.) Here are two links where you can find groups in your town.

http://www.home-school.com/groups/

http://www.localhs.com/

Keep reading all you can and you will do great - because you're getting a head start. Remember, you are your son's best teacher because you are his mom and you know and understand him better than anyone else! Welcome to the forum.
_________________
Laura L. Barth
http://www.freehomeschooladvice.com

[SuzyHomemaker]

Thank you for the suggestion and the links to resources!
I guess the only reason I haven't looked into something like that yet is because we are a military family currently living abroad. I figured maybe it might be easier (more likely) to be able to find other homeschooling families after we move back to the US in 2-3 years.