Any homeschoolers out there? About This Page:

[emilyandlogansmom]

Originally Posted by KathyL

You can order Scholastic Books on your own. If you go to Scholastic.com, you can set up an account. You can set it up as if you were running a school out of your home. I believe that there is usually a minimum order of around $15.00 but thats always easy to meet on Scholastic. Good Luck with your decision.

Ooh. I've gone in under the parents section, but never thought of setting up a school account.

[krisk11]

As far as the school pictures go that is how they did it at my dd's school all the time. It never made any sense to me because I could never afford the package so I would scan the picture into my computer and send it back. I know that's cheating but I never asked you to print the pictures and you could offer a cheap package that we could afford but you don't.

[emilyandlogansmom]

Originally Posted by krisk11

As far as the school pictures go that is how they did it at my dd's school all the time. It never made any sense to me because I could never afford the package so I would scan the picture into my computer and send it back. I know that's cheating but I never asked you to print the pictures and you could offer a cheap package that we could afford but you don't.

It just seems so silly and wasteful! It just goes to show how much markup there is on it if they have no heartbreak over throwing their product away without making any money on it! But...they are cute pictures...

[Tabitha34]

I have just found this thread and you may have received the answers you were looking for. I just wanted to share my experience with you briefly. I have 2 children. My oldest is homeschooled. He is 8 years old and is 1 grade ahead in all of his subjects except math. In math he is 2 grades ahead. He is very social and we give him a lot of opportunities to be with other kids. He goes to Karate 3 times a week, plays soccer in the spring and fall and basketball in the winter. We have homeschooled him from the start and we have loved every minute of it. Our daughter is in public school. This was her first year of school and she loves going to school. She will be 5 this month. She is in a Pre-K EC class. She has severe disabilities and we felt that she would do better in public school. This was a hard decision for us to make because we wanted her home with us. Once she started school we were glad that we made that decision for her. I tell you all that to make this point, every kid and every family is different. What is right for one may not be right for another. Homeschool is right for my son in every aspect. Public school is right for my daughter. Since she has started school this year we have learned that there are things that the public school offers that my son can utilize like scholastics book orders. My son can go to the book fairs at his sisters school. Her school also participated in the Identakid program. They allowed me to bring my son to the school so that I could get him an identakid card also.

I know there are some who are completely against homeschooling (I was one of them) but just like homeschool is not for everyone neither is public school. In public school my son would have been bored and not had the opportunity to reach his full potential. Like you, we did not decide to homeschool out of a great desire but out of necessity. It turned out to be this great thing that we did not expect. We were not planning to homeschool him all through school but now we have no plans of sending him to public school.

If you have any questions that you would like to ask regarding curriculum or anything else I will be more than to happy to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

[momex4]

we homeschool our 4. And we love it!!!! And I didn't really think I would, I was very opposed to homeschooling at 1 point.
there are a lot of great sites out there that can help you find the right curciculum, we use My Fathers World, Sinapore Math and Spelling power. there are also online schools . Know that most states require proof of learning (stand. test) unless you do religious exception, but if you do the relious ex. and decided to put them back in public school you could end up with a big mess on your hands.
Good Luck!!

[graygables]

Former English teacher, been homeschooling someone for the last 15 years. I, personally, like Plato's philosophy on education: "Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds." I have morphed from "school room" homeschool to interest-led almost, but not quite, unschooling. We use Oak Meadow curriculum as a backbone and then let the interests fly from there. One DD is all about photography and clothing design right now, so she's learning practical applications of geometry and light. The other is dead-set on going to culinary school, so she is focusing on math and dabbling in chemistry to understand how and why ingredients work together. We also use a technique called "lapbooks" (I get mine here: Hands of a Child) LOVE them and they are a nice, easy way to start out.

My younger 2 have always been homeschooled, but my older 2 were pulled in 4th and 2nd grades. It was a harder transition for them because they had an idea of what "school" looked like, which is why I reverted back to my Education 101 classes and we set up a school room and made it look like what they were used to. Eventually, once they "deschooled", we were free to do it however we wanted.

In our family, college is not the end-all measurement of a person's success in life, so that is not what we teach to. I teach the kids to be well-rounded, thinking persons, able to find their own interests and dreams and pursue them. If college is involved, by all means, that's great, but if it isn't the choice they make, they aren't made to feel badly about it (youngest is 12 and has photos of CIA of New York in her binder to inspire her as she works.) They know they need to be productive persons and however they choose to do that is fine. We are about finding "contentment" and "enough".

BTW, we used K12 through a virtual charter school for a few years and while I did like it, it just didn't work for our family dynamic at the time. Something to consider if it's offered.

[korki-rad]

First of all, greetings from Omaha. ;-)

Second, You are in a tough situation and must be incredibly frustrated! You've gotten some great advice here and I think that in your heart, you know what is right for your family.

As someone who seriously considered homeschooling, the best piece of advice I can offer is to just try it for a while, while your DD is still in school, just to see if its something that fits you and your family. Even here in Nebraska ;-), we were unhappy with how the school was handling our hearing-impaired daughter and thought that maybe it would be best for us to homeschool. I spent a summer "testing the waters," so to speak, going through each day just as I would if we were officially homeschooling. DD got caught up in the areas where she'd fallen behind, but I was definitely the one who learned the most. I learned a lot about the challenges educating a strong-willed, special needs child (and gained a greater appreciation of the difficulties the teachers were having), but also learned that I do not have the patience or talent to homeschool.

My point is not to discourage homeschooling (I think that it definitely has its advantages!), but just to encourage you to take the next couple of months to do a dry run. It can't hurt and will probably help your DD with a few extra educational opportunities.

If you do decide it's for you, do a search on online schools and you'll find a number of online academies, even for kids in lower elementary. I have said that if it ever becomes necessary for us to homeschool, I would most definitely use one of these to help guide our lessons and help keep us on track. Some of them allow you to do summer sessions, so it might even be possible to use them during a trial, if you decide to do one.

Best of luck! You sound like a great mom who is truly concerned with giving your daughter the very best possible!

[MBUS]

Hi.. just skimmed through the discussion, but wanted to add my 2 cents.

I am a homeschooler. I don't have a teaching degree or certificate. I homeschooled my kids from birth. My oldest DS was always curious about school. We offered to send him for High School or continue homeschooling. He chose High School. He has done very well. He is now in 10th grade, which makes this his second year of "school." He goes to a private school and is class treasurer, in all honors classes, and made honor or high honor roll each term this year. Middle DS was my hardest - we butt heads a lot. We sent him to the same school as my oldest, and he is in 8th grade. He has made nothing below an A. Youngest DS is in 5th grade and is still homeschooled. He has no interest in school and we plan to keep him home until high school (that is the plan anyway!). He's halfway through 6th grade math.

I LOVE homeschooling. I was able to choose curriculum for each subject for each child. We are active members of a homeschool group. We've done classes at MIT and the New England Aquarium. We've done homeschool book groups, field trips, etc. My kids were all in cub scouts, Sunday school, etc. They are well rounded kids. DH and I are very pleased with our homeschooling experience. It was not for religious reasons, and my kids are smart but not genius'. When oldest DS was little I would read "Growing without schooling" magazines at the library and I thought it sounded interesting.

It is a lot of work and time on the parents part, yes. It is a commitment. But it is so much more. My favorite resource is Rainbow Resource Center, Inc.. Their catalog is like a phone book, there are so many choices! Good luck with your decision and feel free to PM me, too.

Beth

[saremca]

We unschool until high school. Then they tend to find that they want more specific instruction. My two oldest tested out of high school on their yearly assessment tests by the time they were 14. Caleb is 12 and tested 9th grade level or above for all of his subjects last year.

I always tell people who are interested to give homeschooling a try and don't look at it as a permanent thing. You can always send them back to school if you figure out that homeschooling isn't for you.

My kids have had the option of school from day one. If any of them asked to go to school they'd go to school, no problem. So far nobody has asked.

[Disneylovinfam7]

Hello, I hope I am replying correctly, please forgive me, I just posted my intro and then saw the post on homeschooling.

I have been homeschooling for 6 years now. We are in Vermont. I started out when I only had 2 children, 2nd grade and 5th grade. I have since had 2 more, and have one on the way. Every day is different, every year is different, every family is different. It would take a full page to tell you 'all' about it. But if you are feeling led to do it, it's probably right for you.

I would be happy to answer any specific questions you have.

Melissa

[Chrissi]

We're cyberschoolers and we LOVE it. We've been cyberschooling for 4 years (because Pennsylvania doesn't like to make homeschooling easy for families ) and it's been a godsend for us. Much less pressure than homeschooling, but I KNOW for certain that my son is getting a private school quality education for public school prices. And it's so easy and so much fun. I teach reading, spelling, grammar, handwriting, creative writing, 2 foreign languages, art, music, health, safety, and phys ed and my husband teaches math, science, technology, and social studies. I'm really looking forward to next year - my 8 year old starts learning French and Spanish (and so do I since I don't speak them yet).

He's becoming very independent this year. He opted to quit karate this spring ( I loved watching him spar in karate class.) in favor of fencing (foil, sabre, and epee) and competitive swimming, so we're going to be spending less time working on Japanese next year, but we'll continue Italian along with French and Spanish. Fencing requires some knowledge of French anyway. We'll probably add Russian and German in 6th or 7th grade as well. We love languages. Our family's goal is to visit a native-speaking country for each language that we learn together. The more we learn, the more places we have a reason to visit.

We initially began cyberschooling because my husband worked nights and spending time as a family is important to us. If we hadn't been cyberschooling, my husband and son would have only seen each other an hour a day, maybe, and a few hours on Sunday. This way, they see each other for every meal that my DH is at home, for school work, for extra-curriculars, and they have time to play together - Legos, Wii, toasting marshmallows over the firepit in our backyard... We see too many kids who are either raised almost entirely by their overworked mothers or who are raised by the school and their after-school babysitters.

We also live in a fairly poor, rural district. We moved here for the wide open spaces, the playground across the street, and the low rent. (You wouldn't believe how little we pay for a 3 bedroom farmhouse with a huge backyard in the boonies!). But our neighbors are beleaguered small family farms and mom & pop gas stations and grocery stores. It's not a place that boasts sending lots of kids to college. When the district discovered that we were going to cyberschool, the admins were initially curt and rude to us...until they found out that our son has ADHD and that a traditional classroom wouldn't be a good fit for him. Then, they thanked us for keeping him at home.

In the end, do what works for you. You need to answer to yourself and and your family first and not worry about what other people are going to think. If you feel like you can do it, you'll get it done.

[Sweetpeama]

We have homeschooled since birth using a combination of unschooling and sonlight for history/geography, language arts, reading, and science. We use a reason for writing for hand writing and singapore for math. My oldest is finishing up core A with readers and language arts 2, science k, is in the middle of singapore math 1b which considering she started earlybird a the middle of May 2010 is not bad. She took art, music and american sign language through a local home school co op. Next year we will be doing core b, language arts and readers 3, science b, singapore math starting either finishing up book 1b or starting with 2a. We are leaving it up to her if she wants to work on math over the summer. She will be taking art, music, to chi do, and german if I get 2 more students through the co op. Our co op as well as one on the east end of our county go from k to 12. It is about a 3 hour drive from one end of the county to another plus families from several surrounding counties participate as well. Once the are in 6th grade they can attend another co op that has more advanced classes including ap level. Something none of the public or private schools in the area offer. She would be going into 1st grade in public school. My youngest we will continue to unschool as well as having her go to speech therapy and ocupational therapy both private and at the school. She will also have 15 to 20 minutes of preschool once a week. We could enroll her in a preschool for special needs where she would go 3 hours a day 3 days a week. After talking with a number of families who have had children in this program and learning that ever single child started to become whinny, clingy, defiant, uncooperative, and displaying behaviors like biting, hitting, kicking, pinching, and scratching we decided against that placement.

[Sweetpeama]

continued. She would get an extra day of speech therapy there, but it is group not individual. She will be 4 the beginning of October has global developmental delays that she is fast catching up on. She graduated from pt in January of this year. She also has Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Children with CAS do not benifit from group speech therapy and can even regress. She does have 10 to 15 minutes of group time at private therapy where every child has his or her own therapist so they are still getting the 1 on 1.