LINK TO OUR JOURNEY TO JILLIANA

LINK TO OUR JOURNEY TO JILLIANA
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What To Do About School?

We have been having many discussions about what to do with Lily in regards to school.  The options that we have come up with are, start her in pre-school two days a week, start her in Kindergarten, or homeschool her until the fall.  The pre-school option would allow her to get used to the idea of school.  She has not been in any school other than the tutor that we paid for that she had a few months in China.  So even though she is learning rather quickly and can recognize and write many letters, recognize colors, write her name, etc. she has not been in a school  environment which requires you to wait in line, take turns, share etc.  We have to remind ourselves constantly that there is so much that she has not been exposed to even though she seems age appropriate.  Also, there is the fun part of her life that she has missed out on like nursery rhymes, coloring, singing, playdough, fingerpainting etc.   If we send her to pre-school just two mornings a week she will still have time with just me where we can work on school or just spend time together.
This is a picture of what I found on the play room window.  Lily had glued all of the pictures that she had cut out on to the window.  She didn't know that you do not use glue on windows.

I would imagine if she did something like this at school she may have been in trouble.  Most people would expect that a six year old would know that you do not put glue on windows.  Even my first reaction was "Oh No!", but then I had to remind myself that she had never used glue before and I think it was very smart of her to figure out that if you could glue a piece of paper together you could certainly glue the pictures on the window to enjoy.  I showed her that we only use glue to on paper.

It is these kind of things that make me think that the pre-school option is  a good one. We could then evaluate whether to send her to kindergarten or first grade in the fall. She won't look out of place since she only falls in the 5th percentile for height and weight.

If we send her to Kindergarten we have several choices for that.  We can send her to the private school where the girls go.  There are only 12 children in the class.  There are only two months left however and the children are already reading, so she may feel so far behind, not only with the language, but with what the other kids are doing.  The last thing I would want would be for her to feel  that she couldn't keep up and give up. We could send her to the public school just around the corner, but the class size is much larger, but there would be some services that would help with language.

I could just keep her home and spend a lot of time with her loving her and teaching her.  Please pray for us as we make this important decision.




Lily, so excited to have her own bike.  She loves it!


Lily and Emma with our friends.
Emma making Lemonade after learning about the letter "L"
We found out that Lily likes to eat Lemon, when we made the Lemonade!

Meilynn with her Lemon.  We were also learning about 1/2 and Lily was learning the color yellow.  She now knows red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and sometimes purple.


The Cat In The Hat was still visiting and Meilynn talked me into making Green eggs and ham.  I am sure Lily thought were were crazy ti eat green eggs.


The Cat helped Meilynn make a book and do a puzzle.

The Cats last day with Meilynn.  She loves him. And I just love her smile!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

When you have that talk about glue on the windows with Lily, can Zoe sit in on that? She could definitely use it! And my walls could use the break.

Tina said...

Oh wow, what a tough decision. We homeschool our children. Our 4 year old does got to pre-school and she loves it. We are going to China in May for our 7 year old son. As of right now I am planning on homeschooling him. I will pray you have peace in whatever decision you make.
Take care

Anonymous said...

Hi! Have you thought about a Montesorri school? I know years ago they were pretty good, but not sure about them now. Home schooling for a while sounds good too. I'm thinking maybe talk to a teacher who is familiar with this type of thing and see what she suggests. Good luck! Lily is a beautiful girl, as are Meilynn and Emma!

Hugs,
Sharon in Arizona

Kristi said...

Praying for wisdom for you as you make that choice! Crazy about the glue, I'm impressed that you were able to keep your cool initially.
Your girls all look so happy! I hope that the transition is going well.
I enjoyed meeting Lily's friend on our trip. Too bad that it didn't work out for all of us to be in China together!

Sammy said...

Stafan was 5 and I kept him home 3 months and then put him in the last 3 months of Kindergarten. Started him in 1st grade in the Fall. After 1 week of 1st grade I put him back in K because they were expecting too much out of him. Personally, my first few months home I don't teach them and just let them learn English naturally. Now Stafan is in 1st grade and makes As in Math and Spelling, but only C in reading. Im trying to catch him up in reading.

Trish said...

Sounds like she is doing so good! Welcome home! Maybe just keep her home the next couple of months and re-evaluate over the summer, these kids learn so much so fast! Plus, it sounds like you are already doing an awesome job with her at home. (of course this comes from a homeschooling mama, lol)