Why we should home school Part II

I think a lot of people are nervous to home school their kids. Even though I have years of teaching experience, I'm nervous about it too. It's different doing things on your own and having to pay for everything you use, but I'm convinced the positives outweigh the negatives.

• Classroom size ~ The ratio of parent to child is much smaller than the ratio of teacher to student. 
• Control over what is taught, when and how. ~ Sex ed can be taught in way that the parent finds appropriate instead of how a school feels it needs to presented to hundreds of students. ~ Teaching creation instead of evolution.
• Field trips~ occur more often and lessons can be tailored to the trip and the child
• Life Skills ~ Kiddos can be taught from everyday experiences. Most schools are inhibited as to what they teach in the way of cooking due to fire codes. At home, kids can learn many different lessons through cooking and working in a kitchen.
• Hands-on learning ~ Homes tend to have more room and with less studentshands-on learning is more accessible.  
• Flexible schedule ~ If you have doctors' appointments (which we often do) or someone isn't feeling well or didn't sleep much, the schedule for the day can be changed to accommodate. Also, if you find that your kiddos does better with writing after lunch rather than after breakfast, you can change the schedule without concern of it the change affecting the classroom.
• Co-ops ~ Many areas have home school co-ops that parents and kiddos participate in allowing the kiddos to learn new things they may not have learned in school or at home. It also allows parents to talk and share ideas.
• Extracurricular activities ~ As a teacher, I would have students come to school exhausted and nearly falling asleep in class because they didn't get to bed until after midnight due to playing baseball. When a home school family wants to participate in extracurricular activities, 1. the activity can count as minutes toward school  2. the kiddos can get as much as sleep as needed before having school the next day
• Choices of curriculum ~ as home educators we can see how our kiddos each learn best and provide that to them. If one learns best on the computer we can chose an online curriculum or have at least part of the lessons online, if one curriculum doesn't work, we try out something different in the future. Schools don't have this luxury since they have to buy a curriculum for the entire district costing thousands of dollars. Even when the majority of students show that they are not progressing well using the curriculum, teachers must continue to use it because of the money spent.
• Sick days can still be learning days ~ Recently a friend of mine shared on Facebook how  excited she was to see Bill Nye is now on Netflix so her son was still able to learn science even when he was sick.

These are not the only reasons I have for choosing home education for my kids, my they make a compelling argument.