Homeschooling

[luckyyou]

Wasn't sure where exactly to post this so this may be the wrong area but I'm looking at homeschooling our daughters. Granted I have time as our oldest is only 2 but as I told my husband I want to do all my research now so that when school time comes we already have our decision made and everything set up.

Is there anyone here that homeschools? I'm in PA. I spoke with our superentendent and he sent me basic info and what I would need to do with the school but I'm looking at different teaching methods and cirucculms. All the ones I found are based around religion which I don't want. I want something structured but also that has freedom where I can take them to places to learn and accompy their lesson (i.e. Fire saftey is a requirement in PA and hubby is a volunteer firefighter so I would be able to set it up with our Chief to take the girls out there for a day and learn all about fire safety and all that) I'm just not sure where to start looking

 

[JASMAK]

No, but its very common here, and I have considered it. I am in Canada

 

[Planning Mama]

I am considering it as well, and there are plenty of programs. I suggest using one that ties to online. That way you can have the materials needed sent to you. There are even religious ones if you would like to have classes integrated with your beliefs.

 

[Eternal]

I'm considering too, I'm in the uk though.

 

[Joss_Taylor]

I'm stalking this post! I'm in WA and my LO is only 5 months but I want to have every thing set up and decisions made before the time comes. I considered private school but we only have a religious K-12 in the area. I'm debating whether or not to send our kids to the private high school in the next town over. So many tough decisions, it's so hard trying to make the right one.

 

[luckyyou]

I really want to and all the ones i saw dont start using online til at least middle school. PA law (not sure about other states) if you want copies of the books and everything they use they have to provide them to you for free. its just a struggle finding what "school" i want to use. if i want to use their stuff or a different cirriculm

 

[JJKCB]

can I ask out of sheer curiosity, why?

I would love to read the reasons you think it would be better

does it not feel like robbing the child of an important character and social building aspect of their life, my son has come to life since joining school

 

[CandyDay]

I am in Canada and I homeschool my son and will with my 2 year old when she is older. We didn't buy a "curriculum" per say. We have bought books and workbooks from different sources and we use that. And when we go out and shopping etc I use that as teaching moments as well. We also joined a local homeschooling group.

My children get important character and social building aspects out of every day life. My son is very sociable and talks to people every where we go. So he learns socializing from people of all ages. We joined a local group and we go out to that. He also does sports. The nice thing is I don't have to worry about him being bullied and when something good or bad happens I am there when it happens and we can talk about it. And then he learns the proper way to respond to good and bad happenings. I do stay out of it as much as possible (because face it who likes a mother always jumping in) but at least I know exactly what happened. And we can later talk about it so we can correct or reinforce his behaviour.

There are lots of homeschooling resources available. Brain Quest workbooks. Kumon work books. McGuffy readers to name a few.
https://www.mcguffeyreaders.com/

 

[Kassy]

can I ask out of sheer curiosity, why?

I would love to read the reasons you think it would be better

does it not feel like robbing the child of an important character and social building aspect of their life, my son has come to life since joining school

Oh no, it's the socialised brigade again. Kids can do all of those things outside of a school.

 

[JJKCB]

can I ask out of sheer curiosity, why?

I would love to read the reasons you think it would be better

does it not feel like robbing the child of an important character and social building aspect of their life, my son has come to life since joining school

Oh no, it's the socialised brigade again. Kids can do all of those things outside of a school.

when I was 'home schooled' I missed out on tonnes of thing and it seriously damaged my ability to socialize not to mention made me a larger target for bulling as the 'odd one out' and I was 12 before being removed after I had already developed a lot... talking from experience and asked politely for reason parents consider it 'better' but by all means be sarcastic and rude in your reply

 

[CandyDay]

I think with homeschooling children can easily be under socialized. But parents can easily make sure that that doesn't happen. There are lots of activities these days that parents can take their children to, to ensure that they do get socialized. It would be easy for homeschool parents to forget to make that happen and harm their children by keeping them home all the time and doing "school stuff" and forget to go out with their children, thus jeopardizing their children's social development. I think things have changed enough that that should not happen. People are not as isolated as it used to be. There is no excuse for a homeschool child to be undersocialized. If they are it is because that is what the parents have chosen to do. (I hope that answers your question in a non judgemental fashion)

I also homeschool because I like that I can tailor their learning to what they like. If they like a specific animal or vehicle or sport we can look up info and worksheets about those things and learn using those. I do make sure they get a well rounded education as well. But I can use their likes to help make learning different subjects interesting and fun. If they really love something like my son likes reading we can forge ahead at his pace in that subject. And not stay focused on his "grade level" only. If a subject is difficult we can try different ways of learning it that works for him. I'm not bound by any one way of teaching and he is not bound by one way of learning. He gets all the help he needs when learning something as I only have to teach my 2 children and not 20 to 30 children. So my attention is not as divided as a teacher in a school is. Those are just some of the reasons why I feel homeschooling is better.

 

[Dragonfly]

I done loads of research in to home schooling. But I sent my son to a school as I had too much at home with a new born for a while and he kept asking to go to school so I wanted him to experience this. And now I see home schooling is best for my son, school was worse than I expected on him. I hope to home school him in future but the times not right at the moment. I done enough research to to see that you arnt damaging your child by not sending them to a school.

 

[summer rain]

We home educate our boys. They socialise far more outside of 'school' stuff than the school attending children we know and are happy and outgoing. My second eldest was extremely shy since toddlerhood and we have tried sending him to part time after school lessons in various things and he really hasn't thrived in that environment at all so I think proper full time school would have been worse. As it goes he is a lot more outgoing now and can handle social situations a lot better now, though he still learns better one on one.

I know in the US different states have different laws and guidelines around homeschooling, for example some require you follow a curriculum either one set by the state or made by a company to fit certain requirements. Other states don't have any requirements at all. In the UK the law is very flexible, we mainly follow an unstructured approach though we do some formal written work using textbooks usually used by private schools here. The only set curriculum we follow is maths and the entire thing is online. I was skeptical at first about that but their maths has improved since using it, they were already ahead of their age group as it was and my youngest BIL who is a year older than my eldest was asking my eldest to explain certain maths concepts to him as he just wasn't 'getting' them at all.

 

[summer rain]

Whoops double post!

 

[Wriggley]

can I ask out of sheer curiosity, why?

I would love to read the reasons you think it would be better

does it not feel like robbing the child of an important character and social building aspect of their life, my son has come to life since joining school

Oh no, it's the socialised brigade again. Kids can do all of those things outside of a school.

when I was 'home schooled' I missed out on tonnes of thing and it seriously damaged my ability to socialize not to mention made me a larger target for bulling as the 'odd one out' and I was 12 before being removed after I had already developed a lot... talking from experience and asked politely for reason parents consider it 'better' but by all means be sarcastic and rude in your reply

if your going to jump on someone for being rude i suggest you look back at your own post!



anyways i opened this thread as its something i have thought about but home schooling in our area is pretty alien - ive been talking to mums at my sons gymnastics whos kids are starting school is september and they have said the schools round here are not the best :/

I really do think my sons would have a better education if home schooled but my oldest has just started nursery because i was noticing he was really wanting to pay with other children and gain his own Independence and to me he is the type of child who NEEDS to go to school for himself.

so i have no idea what to do... settle on a 'okay' school because I know school would suit him better then home schooling him or home schooling him to better his education???

 

[kittylady]

I am also looking into home education. There are facebook groups and yahoo groups for people looking into home education or doing it. They organise group meet ups and socialization so I think the only reason you would not socialized would be if the parent didn't make an effort to.

I feel that school is too rigid and doesn't encourage learning out of interest, rather out of necessity. I also believe it can be detrimental to socialization as school children are segregated by age whereas home schooled children if they go on such outings socialise with children of different ages and are not left out because of age.

I also feel I can be more influential as to what she learns at certain ages.

I feel as it isn't the norm people find it odd and therefore not a good idea, however a lot of HE children go on to do really well at college and uni as they have had a more rounded education and not subjected to so much rigorous testing.

 

[OmiOmen]

I am in the UK and home school. My son is not officially school age until the end of the year but we are getting into the swing of it already.

Google is a good place to start looking for information and there are plenty of local groups on facebook and Yahoo groups. Pintrest can give some great inspiration of activities and information too. You could also buy a decent book for the basics, there is even a 'homeschooling for dummies' book if you want a quick read.

In America it seems different depending on your state and anyone reading this in the UK looking for the legal side the site Education Otherwise is fantastic.

As for the people who think it is negative it is worth looking at the academic research into home school V's state school. There is not a lot of it out there but it does exist, primarily it has come out of America and Canada. I do not have the references to hand but anyone interested should be able to find it. One bit of research suggested that home schooled children had 85% higher scores in emotional intelligence and maturate than that of state school students. Other research showed that home educated students that follow some type of structure scored substantially higher on standardised testing, along with some other types of tests, than state school students. That research did also show unschooling provided lower marks. I am not suggesting everyone should or can home-school or that there will be people who do not fit into these findings but it is interesting to know.

As for socialisation it can mean 2 things. Firstly it can mean socialisation into the system which many parents do not want anyway. Secondly (and normally what people mean) it can be about friendships and how you relate to people. But the overwhelming majority of home educators do not just forget to socialise their children! Many of these children have a lot more planned activities than those in traditional schools. Also they mix with a much wider demographic because at school your friendship is based on people almost the exact same age as you and either having a common interest like a sports team in common or just because you sit next to each other in class. Many home educated children have better social skills not worse because they learn to deal with people from different ages/backgrounds/races/ethnicity/different interests/religious belief/ect. Also a school is made for learning not socialising and very little of the day is set aside to socialise so sending your kids to school is not a job well done on that front either. Nor does sending your child to a school even guarantee they will have friends and they may end up with no one to talk to at all and be badly bullied. Now I am not saying these things happen to every school child but they can and do happen so let us not pretend they don't.