First half is Sam's progress that I post from time to time, second is just me sort through some decisions, as usual.
I would like to start by saying that Sam have changed SO MUCH since she turned 4! Has anybody else's kids done that around that age?
Samantha went from shy, quiet Sam, to being little Miss Popular with a ton of energy! Maybe it is just a 4 year old thing. I have no clue. She has even gotten brave enough to ask if she can join in when she sees a group of girls playing. She never in a million years would have done that before. And in dance class, she is the most show off-y energetic child. They do a dance to a song called Supermodel by Taylor Dane, and at the end that each get a turn to do a runway walk. She has always done it, but she was a little shy about it and just did a small pose. Now she goes all out and does flips and tricks and she'll say, "Ba-BAAM!" when she finishes.
Obviously she isn't hitting a lot physical milestones or anything, except her dancing is getting better. But the thing she has progressed in the most is her reading! After she hit a wall with her reading, I figured she wasn't old enough to go any further. She was only 2 at the time, so I didn't push it, but since she has turned 4, she has taken it upon herself to learn more. She is always asking me how to spell certain words and she will repeat them, and when she sees a word, like today, we spelled the word "Dance" with letter blocks, she kept trying to spell it back to me without looking at the word. She is sounding words out a lot smoother now, and she is recognizing words all the time, not just words that have a certain symbol to associate them with, like Taco Bell. Last night, she was looking at the remote and she pointed at the word exit and told me what it said. It shocked me because she usually recognizes the "Exit" sign, but she have never recognized it (that I know of) when it wasn't in red letters on a sign above a door. She is taking all the right steps toward being able to read and spell pretty well independently in the next year or so.
Now, the thing that I need to sort out in my mind...That co-op keeps popping into my head, the one that Sam and I toured last February. I can't get it out of my mind. We decided not to do it because we are unschooling. But when I talked to the lady there, she said that a lot of times people just do it for the social aspect. Maybe that would be a good idea. It is only one day a week for a couple of hours. She would get to be with other kids and get to do extra activities. It is just such a tough choice because I really detest work sheets and that is what they were doing in there the day we toured. But I really need to weigh the pros and cons here and see how much can work sheets really hurt her when she isn't doing them all the time and she is not being forced to do them. We will give her the option to stop doing the co-op at any time if she decides it is not right for her. (We may make her finish up the semester depending on the reason, but she will have the freedom to make the choice. It is a big deal for me that she knows how to make her own decisions.)
Pros:
1. She will meet new friends.
2. She will get to do lots of fun, extra activities. I know they do science fairs and I am sure they do field trips.
3. She will get time away from me, and I will get some alone time with the baby if we have another, and if we don't, I will have time to clean or read or whatever.
4. It could spark her interest in something new. If she learns something there, but they don't linger on it and she is really interested, then we could research it more at home.
5. It would help me know what to do to stay legal. It is sort of a support group. They help with standardized testing and all.
6. It might assuage that "left out" feeling I know she will eventually feel when all her friends are in school and she is not.
Cons:
1. We will have something to do EVERYDAY of the week! Tuesday Dance. Wednesday Library Day. (Although we could move it to Friday after co-op if she didn't mind missing storytime...) Thursday Women's Center. in the day, Recovery Group at night. Friday Co-Op. (Monday is a weekend for us, so of course we have stuff to do.) On top of maybe having another baby soon and church and all the extra activities that go with co-op and dance. I don't want to overwork her. Downtime is just as important to me as learning, because that is time we get together to play games and cuddle and read books. And if we have another, I know I will want to play on the floor with her and teach her and we will have PAT meetings and everything.
2. Which brings me to this one, which I guess is pretty much the same thing, less time for outside exploration and unstructured learning, since Fridays are one of the only days we have completely free of everything, unless we join the co-op.
3. WORKSHEETS! I seriously detest worksheets. They just seem so mindless. I have a friend whose daughter is in pre-k and she said herself it is so pointless for them to write the same letter over and over on their worksheets. (However, I will request that they start her in 1st grade if she goes, which I know they will do because she meets all the requirements and she offered to let Sam in Kindergarten when she was 3, almost 4, which would have been this year, because she met the requirements. I just hate to see her going over stuff she already knows.)
The more I look over these pros and cons, I wonder if a support group would do the same thing without the cons...
I just want to do the right thing for her without overloading her. There are so many choices, and she will be 5 this year, so I need to start making decisions soon.
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