Bolkema Blessings: Our Not So Normal First Day Of School

This post really begins way back in January. My friend and I decided to head to a Preschool Open House at Eastern Christian. Our children were born a mere 6 hours apart and we were excited for them to start their next adventure together. I LOVED the preschool! The teacher in me came alive and I found myself longing for the bulletin boards and the projects and the chalk and the paint, etc. I could envision Mikayla being a part of that community and thriving in it. But something else happened on the short drive from my house to the school, anxiety came flooding in as I pictured leaving Mikayla at the school and missing out on that part of her life. There were a lot of factors to consider and it took us from this open house until July or August before we made our decision about school. (This is sadly our normal time frame for making decisions!)

Our biggest factor was her birth date. The preschool teacher joked with us that she tells people not to have babies in the fall. I realize her point! She misses the October 1st deadline for Kindergarten so we were faced with many paths. She could do 3 year old preschool, 4 year old preschool and then kindergarten, or preschool, junior kindergarten and then kindergarten, or skip this year and then continue with preschool or junior kindergarten next year. The possibilities seemed endless and overwhelming.

This main factor brought up several other factors that lead us to this place. We support and appreciate Christian education and while we toyed with the idea of public school as a means to integrate ourselves in this community, we realize that a huge piece of education would be missing and we didn't want that. But Christian education comes with a price. A price that we are absolutely willing to pay when the time comes. This made us question how many years of school were actually necessary. We talked with many different people including some educators and we got some different responses but one response kept coming up, don't rush for her to grow up. We began to get more and more comfortable with the option of keeping her home for one more year. However, this decision could put me in a challenging place. If we were not going to send her, what was I going to do with her, all day, everyday. She is excellent at entertaining herself, but she can't be expected to do that all of the time. Would I be able to be everything that she needed me to be?

Thus began the process of figuring out plan B, our "not sending her to school plan". I needed to know that she would be able to learn and grow outside of the classroom. I began to research some inexpensive weekly activities. We signed up for story time and little lambs. Then I decided that I should use my degree. I spent four and a half years and a lot money getting a teaching degree, and then I only taught for a year and a half! I have a basement full of books and teaching resources that need to be used. So I Googled "Christian Homeschooling Curriculum" and after looking into a few options I settled on Sonlight's 4-5 year old program. Now, this does not mean that I am deciding to home school! I've had some concerns toward that for a long time and I'm not changing my view on it just yet. I really just needed some guidelines to help me teach her since I question my creativity and I get seriously distracted by laundry, cleaning, cooking, and all that good stuff.

So our not so normal first day of school was when we got a big box in the mail containing her school stuff. She was thrilled to help me open it and go through all the books that we got. I try to set aside time every afternoon after Caden goes down for a nap to work with her. She gets so excited and now asks for "school time". It's taken us some time to get the groove of things and to decide which aspects are working and which are not. I got my calendar stuff out of the basement and made a seasons chart to go with her science curriculum and we plan on starting some letter sounds this week. It's a process and I can't say we're doing anything extraordinary but I think I can confidently say we're both enjoying it very much. It's great to have some peace after thinking about something for so long. It's been a great couple of months and I'm enjoying seeing her learn and grasp concepts. She still gets to interact with kids at the library, story time, children and worship and our weekly play dates with other kids, so that worry seems to be unnecessary.

So that's our school story! I'll let you know in June if I'll consider doing it again or recommend it :)

"First Day of School"