But, Logan has a different feeling this year....
(Logan's new school photo!)
We are certainly getting ready for school....but it will be a different and new experience in the Reynold's home come September. Logan will be learning from his own little "classroom" or "office"-as he likes to call it- as he is now an official student of The Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School (PALCS as we call it) !! Logan will be Cyber Schooling (a form of online home school).
You can check out the link at
www.palcs.org
We are very excited for this new journey...and a bit nervous! :) But, once we become familiar with the daily routine, the website, and all that comes with it...I am sure we will feel better and be comfortable in no time!
We knew we wanted to try "home schooling" at some point with our children. Matt had a great experience being home schooled (the traditional way-with Mom Linda teaching herself!) and I had always been interested in this idea of my children being at home with me, me being more involved in their education. However, I always thought I would be working and that this was just a neat idea. Now that I am able to stay at home with our children , we feel there is no better time then now to try this out! I feel so very blessed that I can be home with our kids, and that we can finally give this a go. We both had heard of Cyber Schooling but we really did not know anything about it. When we realized we were going to be able to do this for Logan's 3rd year in school, we began doing research before his 2nd year was up! We spent allot of time searching the internet, asking questions and gathering information on the variety of home school/cyber school website and curriculum out there. It was a little overwhelming-there sure is allot to choose from! We had to decide what was going to be best for our family. I knew that I did not want or think I could handle the full load and responsibility that comes with Home Schooling. Picking out our own curriculum, coming up with daily lesson plans...being the full time teacher. I admire women who can do that! But, I had to be realistic and with a toddler to take care of, it just wasn't for me. We started to look into the world of Cyber Schools and we came across quite a few good ones. It's amazing the options that are out there. I suppose technology can be a blessing as much as some think it can be a curse. In this case..it is a blessing!
We narrowed it down to two schools, PALCS being one of them. They both were similar in so many ways and it really took some digging and soul searching to come to our decision. There are many reasons we ended up choosing PALCS. A few are :
- I am more of an "assistant" teacher to Logan. "Home Facilitator" is the term they use. He will have his own teacher that he/and I communicate with on a daily basis. I will be helping him allot and be right by his side...especially in these early years...but overall I do not carry the load of picking curriculum, lesson plans, etc.
- The teacher/student communication is amazing! It is very one-on-one and we love that Logan has many tools available to connect with his teacher, ask questions, and just communicate in general. The teachers have less students and are able to focus and help each one more.
- The Teacher/parent communication is also amazing. This school provides quite a variety of ways to get in touch. Phone, email, instant messaging, webcam....you name it and they have it available! We should be able to be in touch with a teacher, or any staff from the school, the same day.
- The reviews on the school are great! Everyone has wonderful things to say about their experience. You get the feeling the staff and teachers truly care about the students and their families. They want to help and everyone we have been in touch with is very nice. They seem to like their jobs! :)
- We really like that the teachers take time to pick out the curriculum for their classroom. They use a wide variety of curriculum. Some cyber schools we looked at had one curriculum they used and no other options.
- They had the best, most in depth, very well laid out and descriptive web site of any others! We felt that if they could have such a great web site...then they probably have an even better one for teaching the students!
- For me , having support is huge! And I feel that with PALCS, already I have had great support and I know as I go along that I can call or email or message at any time with questions and concerns and will be replied too promptly and with great care. This fact won me over!
I am so excited about this adventure and as we show our family and friends, we hear comments such as "wow, this is so great. I bet so many people do not know about this type of home school". I got to thinking...they are right! Because we certainly never did before! I wanted to share this great information with all of you...if you know of someone interested, considering home schooling, please pass along the PALCS website to them. It may just be what they are looking for!
Another little fun fact : I was told at orientation by a staff member, that although they do not promote themselves as a Christian School, majority of the staff, faculty, and students are Christian. Just something neat to discover as we go along.
We will be sure to update as we go along, how Logan is doing and post pictures of all the fun activities we do through the year!
Oh, Logan starts school September 7! So, he still has a few weeks of summer left! He certainly is excited about that.
Here are some photo's of his desk and computer. His "office" :O)
