Any other homeschoolers on here?

[Pinenot]

I have been HS all 3 of mine for the past 6 years. I wouldn't change a thing!!!

 

[DuckyBoys]

Quote:
Hi Okiechick - I'm a single mom here too. Yes, it has been a struggle but in my opinion one that has been well worth it. I am lucky now because I work for the government but I am a field inspector and work from home. I do have to leave town on some day and overnight trips but my mom helps and my kids are old enough now that I don't have to be around 24/7.

I just love homeschooling and I wish I had 10 more kids so I could keep going for the rest of my life - but only 2 here.

I'm almost embarassed at how high my son's test scores were last year. They're amazing and my daughter is such a go getter and has such HIGH self esteem...she has a better self image than I do, for real.

Great to meet all of you!

 

[DuckyBoys]

Quote:
I'm not sure it's possible to damage her! Seriously - you could google Homeschool Statistics and get the answers your family wants to hear - but if they have already formed an opinion it may not help. I was lucky in that no one thought I was weird - in my family at least. There is SO much out there, try going to these sites and checking things out for ideas on curriculum/advice:

http://forum.homeschool.com/forum/default.asp

http://homeschoolbuzz.com/

http://wholesomechildhood.com/homeschoolvideos/

http://www.homeschoolspot.com/

http://www.homeschoolreviews.com/

http://www.homeschooldiscount.com/

http://homesciencetools.com

http://www.christianbook.com/

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/

 

[nmred]

I have homeschooled for the last 15 years, and we're still going strong! Our oldest didn't attend public school until his senior year, when we put him in the local Middle-College Highschool. This is a program where they attend college, take college courses, and earn college credits while they earn their highschool diploma. (By the way, I think this was the biggest mistake we ever made as far as his education was concerned. All he needed to graduate was elective credits, so he basically wasted his last year as far as I'm concerned. The other students weren't the greatest either. The program is designed to fit the needs of the kids who can't make it in a "normal" setting, i.e. trouble makers, drop-outs, etc. They weren't all like this, but the vast majority were. That kind of atmosphere was one of the reasons we opted to homeschool in the first place!) He wanted to go into the military and it's easier if you have a "real" diploma, which is why he chose to go in.

Now that he's gone that leaves two more at home: 3rd & 5th grades this year.

For math we have settled on Math-U-See. Love it! It beats Saxon hands down as far as I'm concerned. History this year is TruthQuest. We are liking it as well. It reminds me of the old Sonlight (they've changed it too much the last few years and it's not nearly as good in my opinion). We mostly take a classical approach and use lots of "living books" rather than text books.

KristenH, when we first started we got the "you're crazy" reaction, too. Especially from family. We continued on in spite of it. One of my favorite memories is of my father (one of the worst offenders/objectors) listening to a story that my (then first grade) son was reading to him say, "This homeschool stuff really works, doesn't it!" Our oldest was/is an excellent reader and was always well above grade level. At the time he was reading to my dad, he was probably on a 3rd-4th grade level. My dad soon became an ardent homeschool supporter. Keep one keepin' on. It works! and it's so worth it! By the way, I have used Writing Road to Reading with all three of mine.

 

[65browneyes]

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I'm in Arizona (no particular state requirements here), and would LOVE to find a secular curriculum for my 9th grader (next year). I'm a bit intimidated at the thought of homeschooling a high schooler, so am looking at the possibility of community college courses mixed in with home-taught courses. Any thoughts/suggestions?

This was my first year homeschooling. My story isn't much different, if at all, from many.

Two years ago, I took my honor roll, straight 'A', Rotary Ambassador son to 6th grade at our local middle school. He struggled throughout the year, barely passing his English class, and getting B's and C's in the other classes.

Seventh grade brought new struggles with his grandpa's illness and eventual death in January. I went to the school, called the teachers, the principal, asking them ALL to please keep an eye on him, if they felt anything was 'off' with him, to PLEASE call me. He and grandpa were SO close, and I knew grandpa's death would be hard on him. I asked his teachers many times during the spring how he was doing, if he seemed to be handling things, or if they noticed anything in particular. "NO, he's doing great." We watched him at home, etc.

In May, 2 weeks before the end of the school year, I get a progress report with mostly D's on it. Asked WHY I wasn't informed sooner, the teachers said "We've done our job. We told you he was getting poor grades." HUH??!!?? Told me in MAY! At one point, his math teacher snidely asked me, "What do you want us to do, call 120 parents??" No, I wanted them to call me! But, if calling 120 parents is what it takes to assure good students' success, then YES, call 120 parents.

That's when his homeroom teacher decides to tell me she noticed he was struggling a bit after grandpa's death.

I was SO done. Pulled him, bought a boxed curriculum and haven't regretted for a second that decision. His grades are ALL back up to A's. He's responsive to me as his teacher, he LOVES homeschooling as much as I do. It's a LOT of work, but worth every bit of it!

 

[BirdBrain]

Chicken-mama,
Try looking at www.amblesideonline.org. There is a religious component to this program, but it is easily modified to your needs. It is a free online curriculum. You just have to come up with the books. It uses a lot of stuff that is available free online and has been wonderful for our family.

 

[Omeletta]

Fellow homeschooler, here! We've been learning at home 7 years now. I have 4 daughters, 14, 11, 7, and 6. We LOVE IT!

Tanya

 

[ChicknThief]

Homeschooler here!

 

[DuckyBoys]

Quote:
I'm in Arizona (no particular state requirements here), and would LOVE to find a secular curriculum for my 9th grader (next year). I'm a bit intimidated at the thought of homeschooling a high schooler, so am looking at the possibility of community college courses mixed in with home-taught courses. Any thoughts/suggestions?

I have noticed that History is the hardest thing to find that is secular, I make my own curriculum for history - but not because I'm looking for secular - I'm just into it. I know that lots of people want to try and maintain a secular approach to homeschool, that's pretty understandable - BUT - by not considering the religious materials you really will exclude LOTS of very very very good curriculum. We're not religious but I've been using the religious stiff from day one. We skip the actual Bible stuff - but I really appreciated the morals taught throughout some of them.

Math - hands down the best math program seems to be Teaching Textbooks - especially for high school. I will warn you - it is very expensive.

Science - Apologia seems to be the best homeschool curriculum, I'm a scientist so my science standards are pretty high, but it is religious so you'll have to be able to gloss over some things you may not agree with. Scientifically though, I liked it and felt it presented stuff correctly.

language arts - Vocabulary from classical roots is very good, as is Rules of the Game Grammar, Analytical Grammar...do a search on Amazon for any of these and you will probably find them.

Bob Jones University puts out a good Economics text - we used it, skip the religious stuff if you don't like it. I've never run into any religious stuff in curriculum that I felt was offensive in any way - that was never a problem for us.

Literature - pick books you enjoyed reading in high school and do those. We did that and then I usually purchased literature study packs from Christianbooks.com

It will be very hard to find good quality curriculum that doesn't have some religious aspect attached to it so I would encourage you to look at reviews and explore the HS forums to get an idea if anyone else has used it secularly before. Pretty much eveything can be made secular. The religious curriculum dominates HSing though, and they have the highest quality stuff in my opinion.

 

[LeeLeesFarm]

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Hi Chicken-Mama !!

I do use the local Jr College with my 15 yr old girl, and actually find that can be enough work for her (and me when the homework comes home), but what I did for ages 13 - 14 was I called the local middle and high schools and took any / all books that they were ready to throw away.

California has some sort of "law" the teachers tell me, that the schools CAN'T SELL the used books, so they just throw them away .... huh?

Anyway .... I got excellent History and Literature and Science hard-bound text books. With a Literature book, I even got the Teachers Q&A book to go along.

Browsing thru eBay or just google search "used homeschool text books" is another way to save money and see what is out there ......


Lee

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