Of Schools and Homeschools

The other day at Patrick's party, I talked to the mother of one of Daniel's classmates about the upcoming school year. The private school that Daniel, Danny, and Patrick attend only goes up to first grade. Danny's family is facing the same problem we are: they, too, are city residents and, like us, they believe the city public schools are dreadful. Our own situation is complicated by the fact that the twins will most likely be entering kindergarten next fall.

Of course, Tab and I had hoped that we'd be out of this house and into a nearby town with a good school system, but it doesn't look like that will happen before September...which leaves us few options.

On Friday I called and left a message for the woman who handles admissions at a parochial school in Lawrenceville. (Last spring, Tab and I had considered sending Daniel to this school for first grade but opted instead to keep him at his current school.) I wanted to find out if there were was an opening in next year's second grade class or if Daniel would have to go on a waiting list.

The admissions person called me back yesterday and said that the school was still polling parents of the current students to find out who would be returning next fall. She would not know for a few weeks how many openings there would be in each of the classes. She also told me that there would be an open house on February 1, at which point the school would begin accepting registrations.

One thing that had concerned me was cost. It is hard enough paying Daniel's tuition each month; I was worried about how much we would have to pay for all three boys. When I checked the information packet the school sent me last spring, however, I was relieved to discover that tuition for all three boys was only $150 a month more than what we are paying for Daniel alone at his school. I knew his school was expensive, but I didn't realize just how much more expensive it was than parochial school.

Still, I think the money we have paid has been worth it. As one of only six students in his kindergarten class and three students in his first grade class, Daniel has received an extraordinary amount of attention. He is reading third grade books with ease, loves math, and is excelling in his other subjects, too.

I regret that Stephen and Matthew's first few years of school will be very different from the sort of experience that Daniel has had. As I said to Tab, we will have to be prepared to make up for what they may miss. In fact, I've begun the process already. Since we can't afford to send them to pre-K a few mornings a week, I've started working with them on some of the activities that Daniel did in his pre-K class two years ago.

To that end, I spent part of yesterday searching for homeschooling information on the web. I was looking for practical advice on teaching preschoolers, but most of the pages I found were commercial sites hawking a specific curriculum. If I were ever to homeschool my children, I'd like to think that I could devise a curriculum by myself without having to purchase a pre-made, cookie-cutter package.

The one worthwhile thing I found during my web crawling was a downloadable font for teaching writing. I used it to print out worksheets for each letter of the alphabet so that the boys could start practicing their letters.

The twins were excited when I told them what we would be doing. This morning we worked on capital 'A.' I let Matthew play on the computer while I worked with Stephen, showing him how to hold the pencil and guiding his hand to form the letter. "Down, down, and across," I chanted as we traced the dotted lines to form the 'A.' Then Stephen switched places with his twin, and I worked with Matthew for a while.

They both enjoyed the one-on-one sessions and were proud of the stickers that I put on their papers. I tried to keep my tone light and encouraging. I want to make learning fun for them, not a chore.

"Let's do 'B' tomorrow, Mama!" Matthew suggested.

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