home ed of 4.5 year old

[mandhann]

i didn't send my daughter back to school last week as she is not yet fully toilet trained and had problems at nursery. I noticed her confidence was low and she didn't really want to go and I thought why put her through the stress at such a young age. I am enjoying spending time with her and letting her lead on learning, the problems I have are 1)the isolation I think we are both missing the company of others (my friends are work or thier kids are at school) and like wise there doesn't appear to be any groups we can go to, the kids are too young. Secondly its other peoples attitudes. I am sticking to my guns but it is hard, I am due to meet the head teacher at the end of October and may send her then. I would really appreciate any advice, I am in Lowestoft area if any one knows of anything in this area.

Wanted to reply as no one else had but perhaps someone more up to date will come along.

Could you find a home ed group meeting near to you - there is an organisation called education otherwise (they have a website) who have a local contact person you can call and talk to about your concerns and who knows about local activities - I think you need to join to access this. Or you may be able to find an HE yahoo group for Suffolk.

When my child was that age and home ed - it was very far to our local HE group and I had no transport so she did some afterschool activities (dance, swimming etc) We went to the library once a week and to the park a lot during the day - at our busiest local one there always seemed to be older kids off school. We also kept up her playgroup friends on Staurday or afterschool.
There may be a local park where the local primary children play afterschool - you could go there so she can play and you can talk to mums about the school. As your DD is under 5 she can still go to council run one o'clock clubs and preschool alliance playgroups and the like.

Good luck

Thanks so much for your reply, I will look into the HE group and contact the playgroup she used to go to.

Thanks

We also spent a lot of time in the local Children's Library, in fact all the children's areas in the branch libraries in the area.

I don't know specifically about the Lowestoft area but there are a lot of home educators in East Anglia overall. My web page has a map with local groups and it's worth joining any online groups in the vicinity because someone there might know of an event or group closer to you.
edyourself.org/groups/index.php