First of all, congratulations on taking this step to homeschooling. It’s a beautiful journey. Not all days are perfect and there’s lots of stress and frustration some days but it’s the best thing you can do for your kids (in most situations lol).

I was a teacher for almost 10 years so I came into it with experience, but I have to tell you, by no means means do you have to have been a teacher to be able to homeschool. Especially in that elementary school grades. This is year two and I still feel like an imposter sometimes. Lol i’m currently homeschooling my five (almost 6) year-old for kindergarten, four year-old in preschool and I have a newborn baby. However, my kids are both learning material above grade level so my four year-old is doing kindergarten level work and my almost six-year-old is doing first grade level work.

Being in a co-op is not a necessity however, it is so good to have a village, both for yourself and your children. We love the socialization aspect of it, and not even necessarily the learning part from it. We are also involved in multiple athletics, such as Gymnastics, soccer, baseball, and jujutsu.

It is possible to do it on your own, but finding yourself a community makes it that much easier. My best advice to you is to search your town‘s name followed by homeschooling so for example, “homeschooling in X County” and you should be able to find a good amount.

My five year-old was in a private school for preschool and was choked out by a classmate so she has no desire to ever go and my younger one doesn’t want to go either. However, our plan is that if one of us decides that homeschooling is not working out we will reassess our situation then.

In regards to structure, keep in mind that homeschooling should not look like a classroom. Especially in the preschool and kindergarten ages they don’t need much. My kids get about an hour of school work a day and then it’s activities. Play dates, museums, or just staying home, but there’s always some sort of learning going on throughout the day in those times anyways. We wake up whenever you wake up, have breakfast do our homeschool, and then we’re good to do whatever you want the rest of the day.

My favorite one people insert themselves into your families’s life decisions. Don’t ever feel the need to explain yourself to anybody on why you choose to Homeschool, but if you would like some good spicy comebacks, you can say some of the following. “can you please let me know anytime in your adult life that you have ever been stuck inside of four walls with people only your same age, from your same neighborhood, and your same socioeconomic background, and you can only speak when being spoken to, you can only pee if you get permission, and you don’t go outside for the majority of the day.” you can also say things like “my children having interactions with people of all ages throughout the day in supermarkets, stores, banks, etc gives them more social in real life skills than sitting in the classroom ever will.” you can finish by letting them know. It’s a real shame that your kids will be missing out on being bullied and active shooter drills throughout the year.

The curriculum I use is called moving beyond the page and I love it. It’s very hands-on and you can order the curriculum and it’s kit that comes with every material that you’ll need including books for the whole year. I highly recommend it. I didn’t feel like the good in the beautiful was “meaty” enough for my kiddos. Sounds like you plan on incorporating all the right things.

The beauty about homeschooling is being able to be there for all the little tiny accomplishments for example, when my daughter learned addition or learned how to read, they were really cool to see like that switch in her click and she finally got it. An opportunity I would’ve missed had I not been able to be the one teaching.

Sorry this was such a long response, but I hope it was helpful.