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My kids are grown and flown now, so perhaps I can offer a long view. We learned about homeschooling when I was pregnant with my first and, after doing some research (mostly library books, it's hard to remember those pre-computer days...), we happily resolved to take that route. We did, however, put both kids in preschool in our neighbourhood - mainly in the hopes of finding other local families with young children. Herewith, several observations:
1. In the total of 4 years of preschool for the 2 kids, we only connected socially with one family. We did just as well (also one family) with the community centre parent-and-tots program (that family also became homeschoolers). We did make the effort to get involved - they were both parent-participation schools, and, in fact, my husband volunteered and was elected president the 2nd year (the politics of *that* little world is a whole other story, lol!).
2. The first child's preschool was a "gentle immersion" French program. Essentially, the teachers switched back and forth with French and English. The kids didn't seem to notice, nor did they seem to pick up much French. For the second, we specifically picked a preschool that actually advertised that they did NOT teach reading and writing and other "school readiness" skills - their philosophy was all about play. This was 22 years ago, I'm guessing such a place might no longer exist, lol.
3. Things still happened that should not have. On one occasion, I arrived to pick up my daughter one afternoon to find her and another child with masking tape over their mouths. My daughter was at pains to explain that it was a "game", but she also said it was because the two of them "talked too much". I was such a wimp in those days I didn't actually rip the teacher into tiny pieces. It was only years later that my daughter told me about the pedal car - it was such a popular toy that use was time-limited *for boys* and girls were shooed off to play with other things! Ack!
4. The homeschooling community was MUCH smaller around here in those days. None of my research even really talked about homeschooling as a community endeavour. I was totally focused on going it alone and never thought to even look for other homeschoolers near me. It was only when my elder girl turned 5 and we started having the "No, not going to kindergarten next year, we're going to be homeschooling" conversation, that a local shopkeeper told me that she knew someone else who was doing that and put me in touch with her! From there we found the Greater Vancouver Homeschooling group, and within six months were hosting meetings in our home. That was a community that we connected with socially. Many of those parents and kids are still our friends all these years later.
