Homeschool Thread (Educator)

[Remudamom]

Hello all! We homeschooled our five children from K through 12 but we're finished now. One finished with college, one in college, one accepted, one applying and one still thinking it over! It was good for us! Keep up your hard work.

 

[Armywifeandmama]

We homeschool as well. We have infants and a K/1st grader. I always planned on homeschooling and never plan on utilizing the public school system at all.

 

[Armywifeandmama]

We use My Fathers World and are going to try Heart of Dakota for next year.

 

[mama2my4]

We homeschool as well. I have one in 2nd, one in K, one in pre-K and a three year old. We just moved to PA from NC and the laws here are MUCH stricter. So we are now using PA Cyberschool, where before we just used the CM philosophy. Not sure how I like the new program yet. My youngest has had to have several surgeries and is being evaluated for Autism. I guess we will see how the rest of the year plays out....

Nice to meet you all!

April

 

[cassie]

I would suggest that anyone homeschooling their children to get the book Homeschooling For Excellence by Colfax. The Clofax's did such a good job of homeschooling their sons that all three were accepted into and graduated from Harvard on full scholarships. The three boys were adopted, so it wasn't genetics.

 

[mama24]

I just saw this thread. My oldest son was in a public charter school for K-1, then I homeschooled him until almost the end of 4th grade, when we moved from IN to NC. When we moved, he asked to go to school to make friends. This year, partway into 7th grade, he told me he'd had enough, school was such a waste of time, please homeschool me again. So I am. And I'm doing it differently now that he's older. I'm just kinda letting him do whatever he wants, and I have been pretty amazed at the results. He spends at least an hour a day on Khan academy, he loves it. He's about 3/4 of the way through his Algebra I book, and he reads novels constantly, and also likes to read history and other things as well. I have been thinking I need to try to get him to do more writing, but I'm not sure how to go about it since he hates writing so much. He is a beautiful writer when he does it, though.

My younger 3 children are at a private school. My youngest is only 3, in the primary class, but my 2 middle boys are in K and 2nd grade, in the same class together. Their school is wonderful! Most of the teachers hold master's or are working on their PhD's, and they use research based teaching practices. It ends up looking a heck of a lot like unschooling done right. I have to say, if they went up through middle school instead of only 5th grade, my oldest son would be a student there, too. Mainly b/c he doesn't really have any friends in our neighborhood. We moved to the country in the fall, and there aren't many kids around. I have been searching for months, and there are no secular homeschooling groups in our area. They are all very religious, and I am not comfortable with that. But he seems to be ok with it, and it's working for now. He has Asperger's and has always been kind of a loner anyway, but I think he gets bored being home with just me and his siblings.

 

[tcwiley]

I home-schooled my sons from 9th-12th grades. We used K12 curriculum through California Virtual Academies. My sons have autism and the regular classrooms had too many students and too much stimuli for them to learn. Also they needed to take frequent breaks which aren't allowed in the reg. ed. classrooms. Long story short, when they switched to high school the school's weren't following the IEP's and the teachers were so random about how they ran their classrooms that is was way too stressful. My sons both graduated with their diplomas last year and are working on the family farm with me now.

 

[DarkWingDuck]

I was home-schooled from the 8th grade until graduation and absolutely loved it. If I ever have kids, I'd want to offer them the same experience that I was blessed with.

 

[HeatherLynn]

Hey guys I have a quick question. I am going to ask on several forums where I talk to homeschoolers but I would like solid imput. A homeschool group I am part of arranged for Standford achievement tests to be given at a local church for homeschoolers. My children have never had real standardized testing. I have given them placement tests for reading and math to ensure we are on track though. I am registering them for the testing as a tool for next year. My son is going into middle school and my daughter is only a grade behind so I want to make sure we are solidly on track. Is test prep necessary or does it just skew the results. I am a tad worried about how they will do simply because they are not used to this sort of testing. We don't ever do multiple choice. Everything is written answers, essay style which I think shows a better understanding but may not translate well when having to do multiple choice.

If I want to prep them for the testing a bit anyone have suggestions on texts for this. I have seen various workbooks but I am just not sure how any stack up. The one I saw specifically for the standford tests said the test prep seemed fine and the format was close to how the test was done but they were not sure on quality because their child scored poorly. How did you guys feel about them when you were homeschooled and took these. I am a touch worried my daughter will freeze up. I was consiering a book on test taking techniques to help her with that skill a bit.

 

[smac]

Hello everyone.
I have been teaching from home for 7 years now. My oldest son is in the 9th grade and youngest son, 7th grade. We have used a lot of different curriculum that I have supplemented with loads of information available on the internet, various books, library, etc. If anyone has a question about some of those available, I can tell you our experience with many books, DVD courses, and a few online streaming classes.
For years, I would grade myself as a teacher by their papers. Such stress! Both of my boys are such a joy to be around and I get compliments from people both known and unknown about how polite, caring, and intelligent they are. Now, I have learned to grade myself by those comments instead of some of the test papers I get back. You can certainly tell when they have made effort to learn or not. One thing I love about our home school system is that we do not proceed to the next study until the current one is completely understood, even if that means that we extend the school year just a little. Hey, a mom's got to give them incentive. That would never happen in public school, in fact it was one of many reasons that I took them out. I had a student who refused to do his school work, would stuff his assignments in his desk to hide them, and I was called for several parent teacher conferences. Each day, I had to enter his classroom to check his desk for myself to insure that the stack of work he had as homework actually came home. Most assignments did not help him learn. Classroom work he refused to do and busy work! No wonder he just stuffed it! Every week day he had no time for anything but school work until bedtime. Public school took my son who once loved to read and turned him into "hater of all books."
I knew God was calling me to do something different by him. Sometimes it can be difficult to be totally honest and transparent, but truth be told; I just didn't want to listen because my youngest was entering kindergarten and soon my days would be free to do as I wish. You may or may not know this, but when God calls you to do something, it is something to benefit you and will be much more joyous than ignoring His voice.
As more public school problems arose, my young son entered kindergarten was disappointed that he wouldn't learn to read yet, became bored, and was bullied. I finally decided to be obedient and begin the journey into home school. Sounds like we were in a terrible school district, right? No, not at all. Home prices are doubled due to people wanting in this area for our great school system. The principal of the school was a friend of the family. The teachers... we went to high school together. I knew & liked them all! No doubt, it just wasn't the path we were to take and Someone was trying to make that clear in no uncertain terms.
Within the first two weeks learning at home, in what was supposed to be my hobby room by the gym; young son learned to read, and I got to teach him that. Oldest son was smiling and happy to read, finally learn his multiplication tables, and get to study his favorite subjects in science. I cannot express the joy that filled my heart and would never have believed that I would have ever viewed my new teaching position as anything more than obedience and doing the best for my kids.
Now we drive quite a distance to be active with our cooperative group once a week. I teach 2 Classical French Cooking classes this year and have been a teachers helper for several years as well. The support among other parents and grandparents has been a true blessing when the going gets tough, and it does sometimes. It always helps me to remember how and why it came to this. It helps to remain focused on the goal before us. Have you placed your stone of remembrance?
Both my boys are excellent students and wonderful young men with high expectations for themselves. Their Mom & Dad could not be happier about the way thing are.