[farm] homeschool info?

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Vere My Sone

Inactive
I am looking for useful homeschool info-how to get started, etc. I know several of you out there homeschool. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[ 05-30-2001: Message edited by: Vere My Sone ]
 
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stillprepping

Membership Revoked
http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/

we've been following the robinson curric for our 5,9 & 12 yr old for 1.5 yrs, its one of the best curriculums we found.

intensive readin, writin, and rithmetic. we print out all their books on our computer and bind them in an inexpensive glue binder. some of the books go back to 1905, which may sound weird but these books have outstanding vocabulary, sentence structure and a christian theme and are heads above the crap that schools are letting kids read nowadays.

for math we use saxon publishing, which you can get discounted from robinson, but here's their website anyway: http://www1.saxonpub.com/home/home.html

i suggest going thru *everything* at the robinson site. theres (probably) several hours worth of audio interviews of dr. robinson, all worth listening to before u make any decisions.

good luck!
 
CrystalWaters

CrystalWaters

Membership Revoked
We love home schooling because we can add the subjects and projects that we like most.
You will be happy to find that once you get started so much will just easily fall into place...There are many websites that you can print free worksheets and other pages from.I often use www.enchantedlearning.com and www.freeworksheets.com
I find it much easier to deal with home school than the public school system in general.I have to mail an attendence sheet monthly and call the Board of Ed at the beginning of the school year to get the forms and return a form stating that I am home schooling for that year.
My sons are doing much better at home.I do purchase some books from Abeka.
 
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amarilla

Veteran Member
Hi,
We're very partial to Sonlight (www.sonlight.com) for Science. They are pricey but the kids love it and pick up the books on their own. Even for the other stuff, they have great book lists even if you can't afford the history stuff.
There's a book called "Things we wished we'd known" by D. Waring. It is short essays by different families on what they wished they'd known before starting. It will give you things to think about.
Your local bookstore (even Borders) will have 1-3 magazines on homeschooling, Homeschooling Today which is unit study based; maybe Teaching Home which is Christian, Home Education Magazine. There is also Homeschool Digest for "serious" homeschoolers. H Digest is deep but will give you a lot to think about.
We like Greenleaf (www.greenleafpress.com) for History since it is chronological.

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Swampthing

Membership Revoked
Homeschool Your Child For Free

Lauramaery Gold and Joan Zielinski

$13.87 at Walmart

More than 1,200 Smart, Effective and practical resources for Home Education on the internet and Beyond.

Unbelievable! This book has everything you could imagine. We don't homeschool but we do view the school system as a supplement to what we do at home. We use lots of "homeschool stuff," but this book has really helped us out a lot.

[Edited to correct spelling & punctuation errors made by my husband who evidently still could use a little homeschooling himself! Mrs. Swampthing]

[ 05-30-2001: Message edited by: Swampthing ]
 
Shock Wave Rider

Shock Wave Rider

Inactive
Christian Liberty Academy provides all the test and school books each year. You can go all the way to grade 12. You actually are what they call a sattelite home school so you don't have to worry about the state laws if enrolled with them. I don't have their address handy as son is now 23, but we used it all the way through and it was great. Reasonably priced as well.
 
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Heather

Inactive
Once you decide what curriculum you are going to use, there are lots of places on the net you can buy it for real cheap. This year we are using Switched on Schoolhouse by Alpha & Omega. My daughter (8) loves the computer, so we're both looking forward to getting started with it. I saved over $100 by getting it from this link:

Homeschool Talk & Swap

Last year I got all my stuff (A Beka) from eBay for a big discount also.
 
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stillprepping

Membership Revoked
crystal,

i'm looking for a vocabulary building 'program' or course for our children, ages 7-12. although i have our kids look up words they dont know, they're not really 'studying' and i dont think they're learning new words as quickly as we'd like. ideally the course would also have periodic testing.

any suggestions?
 
V

Vere My Sone

Inactive
Thanks everyone,
We're thinking about home schooling our 3rd grader (who actually did 3rd grade work this year) next year. He'd be a piece of cake. Extremely motivated to do his work.
 
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Laurie the Mom

Senior Member
Hi! The first thing to do is to go to the Home School Legal Defense Association website, www.hslda.org (I'm not sure how to put links in posts yet, sorry!), and get the laws for your state. Every state has different requirements and you need to find out about yours. The next thing to do would be find a local support group - they can help you with the ins and outs of dealing with your particular school district and all kinds of other things. :) HSLDA probably has your state group listed, contact the state group and they can direct you to a local group.

Your library probably has lots of books on homeschooling, it would be a good idea to read some of them and sort of get a feel for what type of curriculum/teaching style you might like. And there are LOTS of websites. A good one to begin with might be http://homeschoolfaq.com/

That should get you started! :)

Laurie
 
Jesse

Jesse

Membership Revoked
Well you're all going to love THIS post I can see! (NOT! lol).

From the looks of things lately "Home-Schooling" has become just as organized as Public Schooling, though it will always be superior no matter what.

I'm just not big on structuring things all that much since it has proven to be an impediment rather than an asset to the way we (humans) naturally learn.

I do NOT agree that we need to register our children with anyone. We chose not to do that, and we also chose to use a method most commonly known as "Unschooling," which has worked very well for us. We've had 5 kids, (aged 24,23,almost 22,19, & 12) but only have one left at home now and she's already completed "High School" requirements and is working on a formal "High School Diploma Course" which she will be finished in a few weeks. BTW, - Harvard accepts these diploma's and so far our 12 year-old daughter has a 96.4% average on her finals. Not bad.

If you just move the geographical location of what goes on in a conventional school room to your living room/dining room or wherever, then so many of the potential benefits of choosing to Home Educate are lost in a flurry of workbooks, assignments, and reports to District School Supervisors.

Do an internet search on "Unschooling" and you'll see what I mean. I could provide you with links, but...I wouldn't to limit your creativity by making this exercise too...structured! ;) - Jesse.

[ 05-31-2001: Message edited by: Jesse ]
 
Jesse

Jesse

Membership Revoked
Dancr:

Thanks so much for putting all of this together. This really is terrific and comprehensive information for anyone who is considering Home Educating and for those already doing it.

I recently lost many of my fav. links because our hard drive had to be replaced and I hadn't backed up my bookmarks. I have changed my approach to that situation now! :rolleyes: - Ahhhhhh hind-sight!

Again, I can't thank you enough for putting all the best of the best in one place. Your son has a *great* mom! :) - Jesse.
 
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