About a year ago this time, my husband and I decided that instead of sending our daughter to preschool in town that I would teach her from home. It was a very hard decision to come to as that meant all the pressure to have her ready for kindergarten rested on my shoulders. After much thought we decided it was best as that would still enable her to travel like we always do and experience real life learning that she wouldn’t get in a normal preschool setting.

Do I regret it? No. Is it easy? No. I am a person who considers this my job on top of the normal day to day such as budgeting, grocery shopping, household cleaning, etc. I sit down every week and try and figure out themes for the week, the letter of the week and activities, counting activities, shape activities among others. I gather most of my information from Pinterest and other websites. I spend a good chunk of time on the weekend researching, planning, printing, laminating, and cutting things out. There are times when I think why didn’t I pay someone else to do this? But then I see my daughter excited about a theme or an activity or proudly telling someone she does preschool at home and I have my reasons. She has learned so much in her time and I can proudly say I did that!

Now don’t get me wrong it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. She (and I if I’m honest) have those days where we don’t want to learn. Where I’m forcing her to sit and do something (such as practice writing right now) and it ends up in her melting down, but overall I would not change anything.

Every week we pick a theme and aim for 3-4 hours of preschool 4 days out of the week. We attend storytime at our library about every other week, do play dates, and are able to spend a week out of town without worrying about what she might be missing in school. I read somewhere that 75% of a child’s emotional well being is learned by the time they are 5. Do I want that taught by someone else or me?