How Did We Get Here

I have tons of hair-brained ideas, as my husband would certainly agree.  I used to get an idea in my head and immediately go into full-afterburner mode putting my idea into action.  Sometimes it worked out and I actually accomplished something useful, ie. the few furniture projects I've built.  Other times I either came to the realization that my project is way too big  (the online business I wanted to start) or I start it, and it fizzles out over time (my Etsy fundraising store for my favorite charity, Farm of the Child).  Over the years I've learned to give my hair-brained ideas over to God and allow Him to bring to fruition the projects He deems worthy.  As I said in my first post, I desperately want my children to be bilingual.  Up until a month ago, I truly believed that there was no way I could teach my kids Spanish.  I just didn't know where to start, and I didn't believe I had the time to create a curriculum/materials.  I believed it so intensely that I came up with these hair-brained ideas for my kids to learn Spanish from someone besides me.


--Get a group together to open a dual-immersion charter school within 9 months, so my son could start Kinder there.  (I'm not just talking little bit hair-brained, I'm talking monster hair-brained!)


--Apply for a zone variance to one of the 8 Clark County public schools that offers dual-immersion.  (Ok, not that hair-brained, except for the fact that the closest school offering dual-immersion is 35 minutes away.  This wasn't an option anyway, as every school gave me huge negative as far as a kindergarten zone variance.  I can't blame them with 35 plus kindergarteners in each classroom.)


--Move across town to be zoned for a school with dual-immersion.  


--Pay someone to come into my home and teach my kids Spanish, while I found a job.  


Then one day I had an "aha" moment.  I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would be homeschooling my son for Kinder next year.  I missed getting him enrolled in a nearby charter school by 20 minutes, and I didn't feel that sending him to a public Kinder in a class of 30something students for 2 1/2 hours a day was really worth it.  I mentioned in the first post that my husband and I are frugal, so paying for full-day Kinder was not an option.  Somehow I came up with the idea to search for homeschool curricula in Spanish.  After all, there are many options for boxed homeschool curricula.  Surely they homeschool in Spanish-speaking countries.  Right?  Not so much.  I found out that homeschooling is not widely practiced, and sometimes even illegal, in other countries, and my search came up with zero boxed homeschool curriculum options in Spanish.  But I did find several sites for resources and support for families trying to homeschool in a second language.  I also came across a Mexican online homeschool curriculum, educazion.com.  I guess the promising outlook of finding a support community online, as well as some material was enough to inspire me to dismiss all my hair-brained ideas and get moving on enseñando mis niños español.


I prayed about enrolling my kids in educazion for a couple of days, then finally moved forward.  So far, I've only looked at the preschool course, which is pretty basic, but then so is preschool.  It's enough, though, to at least give me some direction as far as where to begin with teaching my kids Spanish and a path on which to continue.  And that's where we are right now, just beginning, laying the foundation to begin our dual-immersion homeschool next August.


Websites for support/information


Multilingual Living
Mommy Maestra Blog