Homeschooling goes boom in America

**thesightofoneself** · 02-20-2009, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by Mamaof2rugrats

I'll be homeschooling mine. My daughter is 3 currently and we work with alot of preschool curriculum. I am always researching homeschooling and buying books already. I personally was homeschooled on and off and have never once considered doing anything but homeschooling my own children.

...."a lot"

**Patty A** · 02-21-2009, 11:42 AM

I homeschooled long before it was an accepted thing, you had to fight to withdraw your child from school. Then you had to write out what you would teach, what your school calendar would be, and submit it to the school board to be approved. Then they would tell you it would be BEST to dual enroll the child, both homeschool and public school at the same time. Then come to find out, even if the student did this they WAS NOT allowed at the school for school activities!

Needless to say when I first started homeschooling most people looked at us as if we were freaks. Then the next question was always "what religion are you? they always seemed to think that was the reason for pulling a child from public school.

Its about time it became more accepted!
Our state now had an on-line high school where the kids can earn credits. There is no cost if you live in the state, so be sure to check you local state for On line High School classes. In most places its called Electronic High School, its awesome and its so nice. They have many classes to choose from and it is really becoming popular. Even Jr High kids can log on and start earning High School credits!

All three of my homeschool children (oldest will be 30 in a few months)
went on to college. My son (the oldest) did so a while ago, but my daughters are both going now. Straight from high school to college and the college was thrilled to have them. They didn't even have to do any testing to be accepted right in to the college. They don't frown on homeschooling now like they use to, and are finally giving the credit that mom's and dad's that work with their children the credit they so deserve for having worked hard at making school a great learning experience!

I homeschooled for YEARS, and I loved every minute of it. Even the work, as when you finally see a kid that has struggled with something "GET IT" it is so worth all the work!

Hang in there, and know..... Follow you gut for what you need to do with each of your children. It won't lead you wrong and will lead you in the direction you need to go for each of your kids. You instink will kick in and you will KNOW what you need to do, and how to do it. Don't worry so much, enjoy the jouney, ask your kids offen what they are interested in. Kids love to learn, and if you make it fun they will eat it up faster than you can prepare for them. You will be surprised how you can turn something they love learning about in to a whole new way to teach them other things. Look at mini-units, thermatic units, the computer is an awesome aid to help with setting up lessons.
Don't pay for them, there are tons that are FREE, and they offer all kinds of things. Also look in to free homeschool helpers, free teacher aids (you can get books and posters and all kinds of things, Free). Don't be so caught up in worry, enjoy it, and don't stress the little things. It can be so fun, and you can turn so many things in to a school lesson........have fun with your kids. It is a real learning experience for both you and them!

**YankeeMom** · 02-21-2009, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by thesightofoneself

...."a lot"

*snark*

**peanut** · 02-21-2009, 12:54 PM

LOL! Okay grammar police! Back off! LOL! I know the hard way that you do not have to know everything in order to teach it to your children. You simply need to pick quality resources to do the job. How? By getting people who do know to "make recommendations". I always laughed that we had a 'curriculum advisor' in my dad (he has a masters in education and science), an English advisor in my sister-in-law (a journalist), an ecology/botany advisor in my DSIS#2 (a forester), a health advisor in DSIS#1 (a doctor), a computer advisor in DBRO#2 (a electrical engineer who specializes in computers), an industrial arts advisor in DBRO#1 (who has 2 1/2 tradesman certificates), etc.... Yep...just plug into your resources!

I'm glad to hear things are looking up in the US. A couple years ago homeschooling in SK, Canada was still largely for people doing it for religious reasons. I tried to sell a book that wasn't from a religious angle and was basically ignored at the conference. Nope, won't do that again. Though northern SK has a more balance HS movement than the south.

You want to upset those people, just mention the fact you make up your own curriculum and watch them label you as 'unchristian' and walk away. Nope...I'm glad I'm finished.

Would I do it again? Yep, but I'd move. Living in an environment hospitable to my children and our approach to education would take higher priority than DH's job.

**YankeeMom** · 02-21-2009, 01:07 PM

Originally Posted by peanut

LOL! Okay grammar police! Back off! LOL! I know the hard way that you do not have to know everything in order to teach it to your children.

Thank you! I thought it hypocritical that the poster who can't use proper capitalization is correcting others' grammar

**HomeschoolMom** · 02-21-2009, 04:13 PM

We homeschool too. We're in our 9th year. DS is in Gr 7, DD in gr 4.

We have a great homeschool group with over 60 families. We do 6 week segments of sports throughout the year, and usually 2 field trips a month. You sign up for what interests you.

We also have monthly "Mom's Night Out" meetings for support.

I've always used a varied amount of resources for our curriculum but this coming year we'll be scaling back on the spending and using more free stuff. Probably from our many books that we own as well as the library and internet.

Someone made a comment that the numbers sounded low and I have to agree. If our little group has over 150 children then 60,000 for our whole country sounds low. Those numbers probably only reflect the number of children registered with school boards. I'd guess that about 30% of kids in Ontario being homeschooled have not been registered with their school board. Just a guess though.

Nice to know there are so many hs parents on this site!

**MommyBliss** · 02-21-2009, 05:04 PM

I'm homeschooling my 4 kids. It's brought us closer together as a family and made it easier for us to teach the kids basic manners. I really do love it.

**thesightofoneself** · 02-21-2009, 05:11 PM

edit: not going to start a fight

**peanut** · 02-21-2009, 05:20 PM

Actually, those numbers do sound low. I hear Alberta alone surpassed 10,000 students a few years ago. I'm not sure about SK. A lot of people don't register here...even though they're supposed to.

The school boards really don't know much about how homeschooling works...or are purposely obtuse. We found the local one to be next to useless in helping us with our program. I received more help off the Internet to be honest.

In fact, if it weren't for the Internet we would have given up on homeschooling after moving here. It literally saved our homeschooling butts. So I guess I'm not surprised when I hear of homeschooling families "flying under the radar". There's really nothing to be gained by registering with the school boards...unless you're running a 'school-at-home' type of program where you're trying to use school board curricula...in which case I say "Good luck!". We could never get that to work here.

**trying to be frugal** · 02-23-2009, 08:20 AM

I have four children ages 19, 15, 11, and 7. We have homeschooled the 19 year old from 5th grade on and the others have never been in public school. Our oldest graduated at almost 17 and our 15 year old has about another year and a half. If I put them in a room with other well adjusted kids, homeschooled or public, not even the biggist anti-homeschool critic could say that they lacked socialization or communication skills. As an added benefit, my almost 7 year old can read at a 3rd grade level. It has worked for our family!

**boysnberries** · 02-23-2009, 08:43 AM

I'm a homeschool mama, too.

My oldest boys (11 and 9) are still home, but my younger ones (7 and 5) are in school this year for the first time (private school). My girls (3) go to 3 days of preschool at the same private school as my younger 2 boys.

We've been taking it on a year to year approach, and we use The Well-Trained Mind as a source book for finding our curricula.

**UUMomof3** · 02-27-2009, 04:39 PM

We did homeschool and are now using a virtual cyber-school. I know lots of homeschoolers hate those, and I'm not looking to start a fight. But we've found it pretty great; I'm not teaching all day and building curriculum all night.

I suspect if I'd had a great social network like it sounds like others here have we'd still be full-on homeschoolers. But the only people I could find turned their backs on me when they found out we're not Christian. I kid you not, literally turned their backs on me and made themselves a little circle like animals defending their young.

I'm thrilled that there is so much school choice available.

**celina** · 02-27-2009, 04:54 PM

love how people are afraid your devils kids would eat them....good for you for protecting them..and their attitude, NOT christian...at least IMHO as a christian...

its the same as when people find out i homeschool my kids..they dont know if we can socialize...(in canada its only 60k people in the country vs alot more in the us)

i would LOVE a virtual homeschool...what is the web addy....(i wonder if they allow canadian students...)virtual i think would combine the best of both worlds (depending on the vschool i guess) freedom to discover and move at ones own pace...and some structure and takes some guess work out of it..of what do i teach for mom...