Homeschooling - SUPPORT GROUP

[DMRippy]

Quote: I put a link up to the youtube.com lessons a few posts back. The program we have is OLD, Really Old. Piano Discovery is what it is called but you have to have some special sound card that is older. My hubby got an update so it could run on windows xp but doubt it would run on a newer computer..... well maybe because they have compatibility modes it could. We still have not set it up. Maybe next week. The program teaches music. How to read it and everything. There is a duck game you have to know the note to shoot the duck. There is a rhythm game too.

 

[DMRippy]

I talked with my neighbor at the farm. She started homeschooling this year with her oldest son (4th grade I think). She was HS in CA so it was not new to her. What was news to me was how many parents are taking kids out of school because of common core. When she called the school the secretary told her they were swimming in paperwork from all the parents withdrawing their kids. Maybe when schools pocketbooks get hit some they will rethink common core. I saw this on FB a few months ago but it hit home. Why would you ask an elephant to climb a tree like a monkey? Why would you think all kids can preform the same?

 

[MeepBeep]

Maybe when schools pocketbooks get hit some they will rethink common core

I highly doubt taxes are going to go down, thus a vast majority of the schools income isn't either when students don't attend, I pay the same taxes regardless of having a children in school or no children...

I also doubt school policy is going to change anytime soon, we live in a day and age in America where all institutions are climbing all over the next institution like rabid monkeys to be more 'politically correct' and until that warped 'King of the Politically Correct Hill' mentality and game is forever lost and over, things are only going to get worse...

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:
I didn't say taxes would go down. What I said, not so clearly, is the state gets federal money for every child in school. When those kids are not there they don't get paid by the feds.

My neighbor also told me they wanted her to fill out all kinds of EXTRA paper work but that paper work would have put her kids under the watch of the PS system AND they would have been paid as though he was actually in school. She didn't fill that paper work out as she is using an umbrella school with no government overseeing.

 

[oldrooster]

Quote:
I didn't say taxes would go down. What I said, not so clearly, is the state gets federal money for every child in school. When those kids are not there they don't get paid by the feds.

My neighbor also told me they wanted her to fill out all kinds of EXTRA paper work but that paper work would have put her kids under the watch of the PS system AND they would have been paid as though he was actually in school. She didn't fill that paper work out as she is using an umbrella school with no government overseeing.

So true there are horror stories that for some reason or another schools try their best to make kids repeat a grade so they can get more money. I had a cousin whom knew of one such young man in that situation, long story short the PS system in his area tried several illegal maneuvers to prevent the kid to drop out and get a GED and enroll in a JR college....

 

[MeepBeep]

I didn't say taxes would go down.  What I said, not so clearly, is the state gets federal money for every child in school.  When those kids are not there they don't get paid by the feds.

Yeah, but on the flip side less students equals less overhead and less staffing so it the end it balances out as a wash in many instances... Federal money only accounts for a small portion of their revenue in most areas about 8% nationally, and depending on the state, state money can be insignificant as well depending upon the area... In Illinois Chicago gets an exponentially huge chunk of State school money, rural schools get very little... At the end of the day most of the schools operating money is from local taxes, at least in my State...

At the end of the day I honestly don't believe the schools care one bit about home schooling and the loss of students to it... With a high school graduation rate of about 65% for the Chicago school system and only 84% for the State overall they have bigger issues to deal with in regards to attendance already...

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:
In a way that is kinda true, but here they have a budget based on the number of students. Everything is set and approved before the school year. Number of teachers and support employees, books, computers..... when the students don't show and the money has been spent it is just gone with no replacement money. Somethings can be fixed like firing teachers but they are still out for other things......Somethings are a FIXED amount and will not change like utilities, gas, buses.....

OH I forgot to mention.... in my county they lost over 30% of teachers this year too.... just didn't want to deal with the mess that was coming with common core. The learning curve just got bigger with new teachers and new curricula for students..... sounds fun! LOL.

 

[Rainier]

Hi Everyone,
I have home-schooled my children for many years. We tried a variety of different routes depending on where we lived. Different states have different "rules" about homeschooling your own children.

My oldest (22 now) was home-schooled from the age of 8 until he graduated at 15. He received his certificate in IT (something or other) at 17 and now works full-time and helps to take care of his dad in a different state.

My girls I started homeschooling in 8th grade. Up until then they did online public schooling but it was a lot like homeschooling in that I was able to tweak what they did, graded tests and kept track of homework. When they hit 9th grade the online no longer really worked for them so I again went to traditional home schooling. Here is the link to what we used up until high school. http://www.k12.com/

My youngest is on the spectrum and we really needed the flexibility to teach him in a way that he could learn so again I did "traditional" home schooling. I found almost all of teaching material either free or low cost online. I stocked up on educational computer games (especially helpful for math) and bought Homeschool tracker to help keep track of everything.

The girls graduated from high school a year early. They applied at a private Christian college, were accepted and just finished their first nine credits and started their next 12 credits last week. They only had a one week break between ending one semester and starting the next.

I know how hard it can be but in the end it is so worth it. Everyone told me how I was damaging my kids and how they would never have a future in anything but flipping burgers. I took great joy in telling every single one of “those” people about the girls graduating and being accepted at a private Christian college!

Homeschooling my kids was the best decision I ever made about and for them!

 

[KristyHall]

I have a question about supplemental homeschooling. Both of my parents worked to make ends meet so homeschooling was not an option. I had a lot of problems in school, so my parents supplemented my education during their free time. Before my sister and I reached kindergarten we had already been taught to read, Is pent weekends and summers going over educational things by my mom. So the question is, has anyone here done this? Supplemented what the school did not do? I am considering doing the same for my own children, if and when i have children. It seems like a good way to be flexible with time when free time is so limited in our lives, while keeping an eye on the education of one's children.

 

[Rainier]

I have a question about supplemental homeschooling. Both of my parents worked to make ends meet so homeschooling was not an option. I had a lot of problems in school, so my parents supplemented my education during their free time. Before my sister and I reached kindergarten we had already been taught to read, Is pent weekends and summers going over educational things by my mom. So the question is, has anyone here done this? Supplemented what the school did not do? I am considering doing the same for my own children, if and when i have children. It seems like a good way to be flexible with time when free time is so limited in our lives, while keeping an eye on the education of one's children.

Probably the best thing that I learned about home schooling my kids was learning is everywhere, and I do mean everywhere! We do a lot of camping that I turned into science, ecology, and geography. We have a lot of farmers markets which I used as lessons in culture, farming, and math. We go to the beach a lot which I used for science and ecology. The kids also volunteered at local places doing things like working at food banks to cleaning parks.

We only did it once due to lack of money but we went out and saw J pod (resident Orca pod in Washington State). We spent weeks working that into every lesson for them. We covered history, math, social studies, language and english/writing.

I'm sure there are tons of other things that I could have done or other people did that I had not thought of. That is the beauty of it. The only thing that limits you is your imagination (and depending on what you want to do money).

Every situation is a learning experience or one lost!

ETA
I thought about this more and the other thing I wanted to say was to make it fun. My girls still talk about the things we did that were "fun" based learning like J Pod and camping. Those lessons are burned into their brains.