Homeschooling? Any advice for reception year?

[Thefirstime]

any advice or information for homeschooling a 5 year old?

social lives? Day to day?

thank you!

I home educate my two children. They are now 8 and 6. I joined the local Home Ed groups on Facebook and started going to the meet ups and activities. We soon made friends and always have something to do.

For the reception year, we did learning through play.

Wow, I admire you!!

how do you find it? Do you manage to get a break? What support do you have?

my son is high energy! And I worry I may be burnt out..

do you have plans for school for them at some point?

thanks!

Why home school? If you literally have no clue what you are doing, why take the risk?

Look to your child, and give them whatever seems right for them. You don't have to have a plan. Instead you can be responsive to them and meet their individual needs. You've been educating your little one since they were born. Nothing suddenly changes when they reach the magic age of four or five or six.

Don't try to replicate school. School has been designed the way it has in order to cope with the specific and very challenging requirements of educating large numbers of children with limited resources (i.e. few adults). Hats off to teachers. I could never do what they do. Fortunately I don't have to. My job is much easier.

I agree with @VMor about getting in touch with local home ed groups via Facebook. You don't NEED them, but they may help you feel less alone, give you confidence, and provide opportunities to play and learn with other families.

You might also want to start a thread on the Mumsnet Home Ed board to get more responses, preferably from people who have actually done it. It's remarkable how people who have no experience of home education let their imaginations run wild about how they think it would look.

For example, some people assume that you need to do formal teaching, or that children need to be in large groups with others of exactly the same age in order to learn social skills. Neither is true.

My two are now 23 and 17 and were home educated from the beginning. Originally I planned to use home education as a way to delay school start until seven or so, because I didn't think formal learning at the age of four would suit my older child. But it was so successful that there never was any reason to change. We've had a brilliant time!

Five can be an exhausting age, whether your kids go to school or not. The years when my eldest was 4/5/6 were hard work. After that, it got easier with every passing year. My second child was always easy.

I used to work part-time while sending my eldest to a childminder who also home educated. That suited our family really well, because my child was so active and sociable. The CM used to take them along to museums and home ed groups and play at home, while I had a break working by myself! Other than that, we just went to every activity going, and enjoyed all-day playdates. It was actually easier having a friend or two round than having just my own child, and the other parents would return the favour by taking mine to the park or swimming or their house.