Stone Circles School

My four-year old daughter is in preschool. I personally, feel that it is an essential stage of life for her. A co-worker of mine recently challenged me, saying that she never saw a need for her children to attend preschool and they turned out perfectly fine. She was basically telling me that my choice of forcing early learning on my child was a waste of time and money. For a few days, I doubted my choice and did some research. What I found in conducting my research was absolutely fascinating and has only reiterated the fact that early learning for children is probably one of the best investments that you can make for your child.

What I discovered in my research, was that children who attend preschool are more likely to get better grades, be more motivated in life, and continue on to get a college education. Children who do not attend preschool are more likely to get pregnant outside of marriage, use drugs and not turn out to be the most upstanding of citizens. Almost all of my friends, including myself, who have college degrees attended preschool when we were younger. Interestingly enough, my coworker’s three children may have turned out fine, but none of them has more than a high school education. Even more interesting to note is the fact that her daughter had a baby at the age of 19, and was not married. Coincidence? Whether or not you can tie early learning to how children turn out in their later years can be argued either pro or con. However, the statistics are interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

Children come in all shapes, sizes, personalities, and behavior traits. As a homeschooling parent you are more acutely aware of all of these traits in your child than anyone. Teaching your child is a tremendous challenge. Aside from the books, the alphabet, the numbers and such, there is a certain amount of behavior management that you must employ to successfully teach your child at home.

Each child is different and motivates differently, some maintain their attention quite easily while there are some that do not. Some children may be strapped with actual behavior challenges.

If the behavior becomes disruptive enough and constant enough that typical behavioral management techniques fail to produce change, it could be time to seek additional resources and testing for your child. This is generally true when managing the child’s behavior becomes the focus of the day and actual learning is taking a back seat. This can be an additional burden if the disruptive child begins to affect your other children if you are indeed engaged homeschooling more than one of your kids at a time. Read the rest of this entry »