Home Schooling VS Private School

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! I'm thinking about homeschooling, but I'm also intrigued by the DC area private schools and am a bit torn. For those of you who homeschool, was private school ever an option and why did you eventually decide that homeschooling was the best option?

[Anonymous]

Cost was an issue that made private school difficult.
They charge a lot, and I was not sure how much more my dd would be learning.
Homeschooling is becoming sort of fool proof now with all the kits out there. It is hard to mess up. The hardest part is making sure that you get in the field trips and the experiential learning, like capturing the caterpillar and watching it turn into a moth, and so on.
That said, it is easy in the early grades to home school.
The social issue is real. Best case is to get a good solid group of other moms that are home schooling and have regular, frequent activities (in addition to the skills lessons, e.g. swimming).
In the end, you child gets more enrichment from good homeschooling in less time. Kindergarten can be done in 2 hrs a day, max.
If your child is pre K, you can experiment in the year before starting school by buying some solid core curricula and try to teach every day. For instance, you could try one of the reading programs, or math programs available for Kindergarteners, and work through it now. There is nothing lost by doing that. (avoid the books sold at local stores, almost all of the good home school material has to be purchased on line).
I have no plans to do it past 3rd grade. My dd is waaay ahead now, but I want to eventually put her back in school. In the mean time, we save money.