This blog started with a purpose and has overall remained purposeful until the past year. I started with the intention of sharing the area I had moved to with my family. I moved to sharing arts and crafts, thoughts, and then just what was happening with Chad and I outside of the Christmas letter.
After Ann was born it was a great way to share the explosion of pictures that seem to be customary of this age and time without annoying those who did not wish to engage with it. After that first year though it has become hard to get here to post a weekly update. Mostly because with so many of my extended family members having troubled times (cancer sucks!) it feels trite to come and post "Hi, we're great. Here's pictures of my only child happy and healthy."
Let's face it, I (we) are incredibly blessed. I know that God has been incredible to us. I am in a position that I have seen how challenging things can be. Don't get me wrong though - it's not all rainbows and puppies here. There are plenty of things I want to complain about, support, educate, and just generally share my opinion on but I'm not willing to do that on a public site (and all of the internet is public). There are multiple reasons for this but mostly for protection of our careers and because I pull myself in so many different directions that it gets hard to come back and respond if things were to get out of hand.
As much as I've wanted to come back to the blog, even to the point of writing out posts in my head, I've just not been able to do it. Nothing has been pressing enough to really put me back in touch with writing.
That is until now.
Now I have a new purpose. An experiment really.
Fortunately for the grandparents (who I suspect are the main/only readers of this blog) it centers around Ann.
Welcome to my 180 day experiment.
Due to Ann's birthday, if I were to "go with the flow" and wait until the law says she should attend kindergarten, she would not start kindergarten until 2016. That is she will be five turning six to go into kindergarten when the law of our state says she should.
For Ann, that is going to be unacceptable. She keeps up with kids entering kindergarten now (not only my opinion). All I want is to be able to get her into kindergarten at four turning five. That's all. To do this I know I'm going to have to find the loophole in the system.
I don't know what that loophole is yet. I'm just now seriously exploring options. I'm looking at private schools, public schools, Montessori, home school, etc. I know there are good and bad options to each one. I also have opinions of my own that are biased that I have to overcome.
This blog though, will now help me in my research in that I want to see if I have the drive, organization, and ability to potentially home school Ann for the first few years to be able to get her in at what I know is the best for her potential.
South Carolina requires that students have 4 hours of instruction 180 days between August 1 and July 31 (that's regardless of if it is public, private, or home school). There are different options for how to go about this but one big aspect of it is that records proving instruction has been given and a portfolio of work is kept.
Seeing that Ann is turning three in October, I feel this is a perfect time to see if I can do this. She is asking questions all the time that lends itself to starting this work. At this age, nothing is required of me by the state. But I need to know that I can do this for her.
This will now be my documentation.
I'm excited to see how we may do. I'm using pinterest a lot for ideas and resources for projects. I don't need a lot and I'm being exposed to many different education issues (common core that I thought was supposed to be wonderful - I now am starting to understand why many of my friends who are teachers don't like it). In my dreams, when days that nursing is just too hard, I'm a teacher*. It will be interesting to carry that dream out.
The schools in this district start on Monday. I'm going to try to at least know what the schools around here are doing calendar wise so that I can try to keep on track with how many days we have had and where we should be. Due to my work schedule, Sunday will be our first day. I know that our first days of instruction will be evaluating where I think Ann is in what she knows, where she really is, and what the best direction to go in will be. I'm excited to be able to share that with everyone.
Here's to a happy new school year everyone!
*Many people find it ironic that I'm fantasizing about an extremely underpaid job with just as much bureaucracy as healthcare. The upside is to the fantasy when I have it is that the life's in my hands during teaching are not in imminent jeopardy because of a mistake and that any mistake I would make is possible to be overcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment