Homeschool Preschool? Part 1

My older son just turned three (check out his awesome Spider-Man birthday cake!), so my husband and I have been talking about the possibility of sending him to preschool this year.  We've known for a while that we want to homeschool our sons when they get into kindergarten.  But what about preschool?  It wasn't something I had really thought about until several friends started sending their little ones.

Since we're planning on homeschooling later, we're leaning toward not sending our kids to preschool at all.  But I also wanted to know why other moms send their kids and what their kids do at preschool.  First, to decide whether I wanted to keep my son at home.  Second, if I do decide to homeschool preschool, I may want to incorporate some of the activities and curriculum from a traditional preschool.

The first question I had about preschool was, "Why should I send my son?"  I've asked many moms I know who send their kids to preschool why they send their kids.  There were only two answers that I received, over and over:

1.  Socialization.  This is the #1 reason that I heard from moms for sending young kids to preschool.  And, it's also the first argument that several people have made to try and convince me to send my son to preschool.  I'm assuming from what other moms said that "socialization" here means preschool allows the child more time around peers his age. 

2.  Time alone for mom.  For many moms, this seemed to be the deciding factor--their sons making friends was a nice bonus, but the real advantage to preschool was 3 hours alone every week.  As a mom of two little ones, I am not criticizing at all.  I admit, it does sound nice to have a break for a few hours. 


That's it--out of all the moms I talked to, these were basically the only two reasons for sending their kids to preschool.  These weren't the answers I was expecting, and I had to wrestle with the fact that they initially sounded pretty appealing.  Allowing my son a morning with friends away from me sounds like a pretty good setup.

However, after thinking about it more, my husband and I decided that these two reasons were not enough for us to send our son to preschool.  I talk about that in my second post in the series.
-Lily

Other posts in this series:
Part 2:  Socialization and time alone--my response
Part 3:  Academics and Curriculum
Part 4:  Money and Expenses


Image courtesy of chokphoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net