Plan and re-evalutate

I was listening to a good sermon by Mark Driscoll the other day about Proverbs and what it has to say about planning. One of the things that he said was that we seek the Lord to make our plans and then we later re-evaluate the plan and tweek if if we need to.

Throughout the summer we planned and prayed about schooling for Caleb. Since he was a little babe I had envisioned homeschooling him, my sister Jennifer has homeschooled for years and I remember when her children were in lower elementary, they had an amazing grasp of history and knew so much about everything! Jennifer used a program called Classical Conversations (CC). The more I heard about it the cooler it sounds. I won't get into that now, but if you're interested check out the link. Now my other 2 sisters and my bother (actually my sister-in-law does the schooling:)) homeschool. They started a CC group in our city this year.

Anyway, back to the planning.... There is a free Montessori school in our district that uses a lottery to choose what students get in. It seemed like a great option for us, so last spring we put our name in the lottery and we got in. We made the decision to send Caleb and we are glad that we did. It was a great opportunity for him and it was good for him to see what school is like.

But after a few months of sending him, we have 're-evaluated' and have decided to take him out of school and homeschool him.

Basically, this decision seems to be the best for him as an individual and for our family as a whole.

Caleb Reasons:

-Caleb loves learning and spends a lot of his time working on math and reading.

-Having a husband as a teacher, Michael helped by checking out the state of Michigan achievement goals for Kindergarten and Caleb and he's already at a first grade level, so I can't do too much damage:)

-Caleb had a hard time going to school, he would cry and say that he didn't want to leave us. Usually, he loves going anywhere and doesn't have separation anxiety.

-Having Kindergarten at the end of the day cuts into our "fun" trips. Since school has started we haven't been going to the museum or zoo or other educational outings as much because his class was from 12:30 - 3:30. At this age I think all of those things are important and that he learns through those experiences.

Family Reasons:

-We miss him when he's gone. Nathan's behavior really changed when Caleb started school, he missed him yet when they were around each other Nathan was often jealous and they fought more. When they are constantly around each other they find their groove and are best friends.

-When we bring Melia home, Caleb really won't want to leave us and I feel like Melia will get a better sense of family earlier if he's not missing for part of the day.

Me Reasons:

-Practically, It will be way easier for me to be at home with the kids than piling 4 cuties into the car 2 times in 3 hours.

-I love teaching him. Since Kindergarten is pretty easy and he's successful at what he's doing, he's really fun to teach. I love reading with him and I am constantly amazed at how quickly he improves.

So, all that said...

1. We have no regrets about sending him to school and left on a good note with the teachers. It was a great learning experience for us as a family.

2. What's next~ We are going to join the Dearborn CC group in January. Until then we'll work on reading and math and science experiments (pretty much stuff we always do!)