home school your children?

Last activity 17 April 2014 by agbahali

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francisco77Member10 April 2014 12:39:59

Hello everyone,

We are a family with 2 small children, of four and six years of age. We have a bit of a disadvantage because the little ones do not speak English. We already speak Italian and Spanish at home, so we never insisted on a third language just yet. We are soon moving to Nairobi however, which does not have any Spanish or Italian schools (not to our knowledge at least).

We are sure they will pick up English soon enough however the oldest one has to start primary school as soon as we get there, which complicates things a little because he has not learned to read or write yet. One option may be homeschooling, although it works better when there are other families involved for support.

Anyone else in a similar situation or willing to try this alternative? We would be specially delighted if you were also Italian or Spanish speaking, though we don't expect to be so lucky.

Let me know!

SumranbiMember16 April 2014 20:47:55

Send them to regular school, they will learn fast don't worry. There are awesome schools in Kenya. Karibu.

agbahaliActive member17 April 2014 20:57:05

Hi,
Welcome to Kenya.From your description it would look like an interesting case study seeing the language barrier for the small ones in a new school environment.Home schooling might be an option initially but in the long term this might prove unsustainable(guess both parents might need to work,children need to intergrate etc).I would say try to carry as much reading/book materials for the kids if you can get them so the kid can continue using them at home.At the same time,look for an internation schools in Nairobi to get your kids enrolled in(they most likely will have an Italian/spanish teacher who can initially guide the kid to transition to english books.The only drawback with these intl schools is that they are mostly expensive!Also try to get the kids to mingle freely with other kids( via play dates etc) so the language can get easily diffused into them.Surprising they say kids pick up languages so easily.But i could add that it would be best not to switch speaking to this kids in English but in your language as always.Theywill be trilingual if no quadrilingual .Good luck and do share your experience. A

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