Homeschooling

[wildeflowers]

I saw this topic and while we are not really traditional homeschoolers, I thought I might have something to add.

1. What made you decide to homeschool your children?
We are currently homeschooling my son due to illness. It is not meant to be permanent, although I have to say that I wish it would be. I think homeschooling is awesome, know lots of families who do it (most are quite successful, imo), but my husband is less than enthusiastic. I would say that we are probably opposite of you and your husband. Mine is definitely more concerned about socialization. I wish we could have less socialization in school. LOL

2. What difficulties have you had?
None, really, but we are really lucky. Since it is due to illness, the school (both the public school system we live in, and the private school we were sending our children to) are being extremely cooperative. I basically had the curriculum handed to me and we have a tutor to help.

3. How's it working, would you do it again?
I wish we could continue this for the rest of grade school. It is really working great for my son. The one on one is WON.DER.FUL. Although he is behind because of his illness, he should be able to catch up.

4. What do you like about it?
I love the peace. I love seeing my son during the day. I love that we can do in a few hours a full day's worth of school.

5. What do you not like about it?
That it's going to end. LOL
But seriously, sometimes it's hard to motivate him. Although we are getting a lot done, it's tough to catch up when you're behind. Some subject are falling to the wayside while we try to catch up with the core and foundation subjects.

6. Any other comments?
I think my point in posting was to tell you that if there's any subject or any time that you are having difficulty getting through to the kids, you have the option of hiring a tutor! It doesn't have to be you all the time. It can be expensive, but the cost is significantly less the private school tuition AND you still get the benefits of home schooling and a little less pressure on you. So be creative in your thinking. If I could get my husband on board, I would VERY heartily consider banking our school tuition and using it to pay for private tutoring to compliment home schooling.

 

[danielle82]

Quote:
getting involved in a homeschool group is great. If you read the book homeschooling for dummies, it talks about how children in public schools are very comfortable with children of their own age group, and not very comfortable with other children even just 2 years above or below them. Homeschooled children are better socially in wide age groups, they can communicate more effectively with children both older and younger than themselves, as well as with adults. Homeschooling for dummies was a book I read when I was trying to make up my mind whether or not to homeschool.
Also, to echo what someone else said, working and homeschooling would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Being a mother and wife (with all that that entails) keeps you busy enough, but throwing teacher into that equation really ties you up... at this point my husband is working all the overtime he can so I can stay home teach. It is working famously for us.

 

[Pelican49]

My Grandson was recently diagnosed with ADHD. The school thinks he'd be easier to "manage" if drugged. He's in pre-K. Yes I'm sure it'd be easier for them, too bad.

My daughter has been researching homeschooling the last few weeks, and having little strokes when quoted prices. Then she found K12.com Apparently it is actually run by the public school system, so there is no tuition. Most of your books & supplies come at the beginning of the year. Everything you need except paper and pencils according to the person she talked to. Maps and charts and such are also provided. When the children get older they even provide microscopes and slides and such. All needs to be returned at the end of the year, of course. She's doing some more checking as we have time. Even though the name of the place is K12, the free program starts at 1st grade. You're also assigned a teacher you can reach by e-mail, phone or in person with an appointment. If you want K, you pay for it. We're still looking, but it may be worth checking out. It's available in many, but not all, states.

My daughter works, so this would be mainly the responsibility of me, the Granny/Nanny. I don't mind a bit. In a few years his 1 year old sister can join him.

We have talked about other ways of keeping him social as he is a social little butterfly. We'd planned on 4H all along. He has to be 5, which happens in November. Community sports teams; soccer, swimming etc are good. And he has his friends at church. When he's old enough there's cub scouts.

I'm sure my daughter will be fretting and researching for the next year. LOL. Anybody familiar with this program?

 

[SunnyDawn]

Quote:
So glad to hear your daughter is not automatically taking the "medicated" route! Having been a teacher myself I do sympathize with the teachers that are already overworked and understaffed but as an Artist, that also suffers from borderline ADHD, I applaude her choice! Many folks (myself included) feel that ADHD is a natural side effect of being a creative person. Those of us with ADHD are open to a lot of stimuli and yes we do get distracted easily but we are also excellent problem solvers and tend to be very artistic/creative for the very same reason! Medicating all the children with ADHD means we are losing generations of Artists, Inventors, Authors, Musicians etc, etc.. It scares me to think of all the original thinkers that are having their creativity squashed because of the drugs we are so quick to hand out these days!

I'm sure you will enjoy that Grandson of yours! Teaching such a creative soul will bring great blessings and great challenges and will give you such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction! Don't be surprised though when he comes up with clever ideas that jump ahead of the current curriculum. Some days you may feel like you're having to rush to catch up to him.

 

[3goodeggs]

Also, recently it has been noted in the news that ADHD is not necessarily applicable when the child 'diagnosed' by the school system (they aren't doctors) are usually the youngest kids in the class. They need to be kept home and hugged for another year before the school system gets a chance to devalue them.


oh, that sounded bitter didn't it? well...I am. There is a HUGE difference between a kid that turns six in the end of November and a kid that turns five in the beginning of November. The youngest will always be three steps behind. and the oldest two steps ahead.
They teach school. They should know that. It may not be a big deal when they are in college, but it is at this age.

I think connections academy is virtual public school from Florida, flvs. google them and see what is available.

..and, you can take that year and keep him home. start him next year.

 

[PineappleMama]

Quote:
I know here in Texas that the K12 gets State/Federal Funds and therefor you're still subject to the Standardized Tests... was TAKS, now we're converting to STAAR... I loathe those tests... There Is No Such Thing As A Standard Child... anywho, that's why, while free is awesome, we turned that down as a possible for us.

 

[Pelican49]

Sunny: Thank you for the encouragement. He's very bright and has a vocabulary beyond his years. I hope he is creative. I used to love to draw and color, but he's really not interested much in coloring. But that could come in time. He is very interested in my piano, no banging, just picking at keys. So piano lessons are on his horizon.

3goodeggs: He wasn't diagnosed by the school. He was diagnosed by his pediatrician, then sent to a specialist for an "evaluation". She deemed him ADHD.

Pineapplemama: I understand the need for some kind of testing though. To make sure the child is actually being taught. My niece homeschooled all 5 of her girls through a private religious homeschool group. The girls still went in 2-3 times a year for progress testing. The 2 oldest are now in college. The next 2 are in high school, then there's the youngest, she's almost 7. So my niece will be at this several more years.

 

[PineappleMama]

Well, the way they used to do the tests they were a tool. Found the kiddos strengths and weaknesses and the teacher then made a plan to encourage the strengths and strengthen the weaknesses... and then the test was given the next year and you'd see if it worked. If the scores were the same across, or lower, than the child did NOT improve that year. I remember taking those tests in elementary. Hey it's test day, took the test "do as good as you can" and that was it. No big freakout, no spending the year practicing proper bubbling techniques, no pep rallies and packets and notes to parents... just a low key diagnostic tool. And, IMO looking back now, it worked. I still have some of my test scores and I could see where I was weak in this grade, and then next year that it was higher... and my strengths hadn't dropped either.

But the TAKS/STAAR... completely different kettle of fish. 1 because the test now determines a LOT of funding for the school. 2 because teachers performance and even pay is based on it 3 thus the teachers are pretty well required to teach everything 'to the test' and ignore anything not on it... handwriting for example 4 the kids are pressured day in and day out in school and out pass this test or you fail for the year you let your school down you let your teacher down you let your parents down STRESS 5 teachers are NOT given a copy of the test to teach from, ones three years ago yes, but not the current one so they have to hope what they're teaching is on the test... based on DS's performance last year, after nothing but TAKS prep for eight months, after being forced to skip S/SS class to do bonus packets, after all those telling him he'd make a high 80/low 90 on the TAKS for him to get mid 70's... donno if it's the stress or if their practice is just not in line with the test but either way DS got to feel bad... and he complained about the extra tutoring, said it made him feel stupid, and the others that were pulled. I could understand if the practice/previous tests indicated that a child might fail... but pulling them out of class because they were ONLY expected to make 85%... not cool. Particularly when the result of skipping Sci/SS was that both of those grades dropped a good 5-10 points... which brings me to 6 that schools now care more about the test than they do report cards. If you're willing to sacrifice a child's report card grades by forcing them to skip state required subjects not electives here, then you are putting too much emphasis on a test. And remember that was in addition to the 50 minutes 5 days a week all year long in Language Arts. Used to it was a tool, for teachers, parents and students to HELP students. Now it is a mold that no matter the size or shape of the child they still try and force everyone to fit into... and now in Texas they aren't even giving honest results any more... they're skewing them to include what the students MIGHT make next year, what other kids made, etc to try and make it look like more kids are passing than actually are. And for some reason when they announce that overnight the school's improved everyone is happy? I don't get it, if you KNOW they are skewing the results... not giving you an accurate read out ... on purpose just to make the school seem like it's doing better... why would that make you happy? I'd much rather just see the facts and what you plan to do about it! Meh, there's rant for you... happens every dern time I get on this pet peeve... sorry 'bout that.