Home Schooling

[LasVegasMac]

Home schooling information.

[GOPrincess]

I'm always glad to hear when someone else likes K12, I'm starting it with my two youngest this fall. Thanks for sharing your positive experience! :)

[FourPeas]

One of my favorite books is Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families by Nancy Lande. Tell your friend to skip the first entry, though. It's long, preachy and IMO completely unrealistic.

[Jeff Chandler]

I highly recommend the Saxon Math series: http://www.saxonhomeschool.com/index.jsp . What I like about Saxon is the fact that they break up their lessons into units instead of chapters. It's called programmed learning, and it simplifies lesson plans. You take one step after another. When your child has mastered the subject, you go on to the next unit. There are plenty of practice problems, too.

 

If he can locate other books with the same sort of structure, he'll find that teaching will be much easier.

 

When purchasing textbooks, used is almost always better, because you can locate older, less PC-socialist-anti-American books. If he can buy used textbooks he will save a bundle. I've actually found many excellent books in thrift stores, and paid next to nothing for them.

 

The best thing he can do for his child if he hasn't learned to read is to teach him phonics.  Saxon also has a phonics series, but I don't know much about it. I am a big believer in reading. He should give his child plenty of reading at a comfortable level for pure enjoyment, with more difficult reading sprinkled in regularly to increase his skill. Read books out loud to him, too. That helps him to learn how words are pronounced, and how sentences are read. It also teaches him to love reading--it's a bonding exercise, and he'll forever associate reading with parental love.

 

Almost every moment he has with him can be a teaching moment. Use his natural curiosity about the world and about life as jumping off points for learning.

 

Good luck to him.

[Domestic Church]

Here are some favs:

http://www.rocksolidinc.com/

http://learninfreedom.org/homeschool_hotlist.html

http://www.gomilpitas.com/homeschooling/articles/052800.htm

http://www.EnchantedLearning.com

[Kosh5]

Much information has already been posted to this thread. I cannot add much to it (vanity: ok - add www.visionforum.com to the list).

I will add two personal perspectives. As the father of 4 (soon to be 5!!!) with 3 of them being homeschooled, I have observed two important aspects of homeschooling in our experience:

1. Homeschooling is less about teaching than it is about teaching how to learn. When you exit primary school and either enter the work-world or secondary education, you quickly discover that no one is going to spoon-feed you information and knowledge (ala classic primary education in the U.S.). Instead, you must learn things for yourself - at your own pace and largely at your own initiative. We look at HS'ing as the venue for teaching that to our children at an early age. It is the classic "give a man a fish..." principle.

2. Homeschooling is a lifestyle. We have found in our lives and the lives of everyone else we know who homeschools that the entire family lifestyle is structured around the principles of HS'ing (note: around the PRINCIPLES - not necessarily the teaching of data). Thus, every vacation becomes an adventure in history (Colonial Williamsburg, Philadelphia, Valley Forge, etc.), natural sciences (Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc.), or some other aspect of education in the sense of expanding your knowledge, intellect, or skills. If we had any interest in vacationing at Disney (we don't), it would still pale in comparison to the other opportunities of Cocoa Beach, Kennedy Space Center, the Everglades. Those can be just as entertaining to both child and adult and provide an informal educational situation. Few things compare to walking beneath a full-sized Saturn V rocket - no matter what your age.

Many aspects of HS'ing are intimidating for the newbie. Much is also dictated by local laws (HSLDA is the best starting point for such information). In the final analysis, however, the decision to HS must be one that I believe must be supported by both parents. It is not for the faint of heart, but I cannot recall anyone who has ever regretted the decision to do so - despite the inevitable changes it brings to a family.

Just one man's $0.02...

[old-ager]

Here's a good Christian home schooling materials, including video courses: http://www.abeka.com/

[LasVegasMac]

You folks are simply awesome!

A heart felt "Thank You!" to each and every one of you!

I told my friend that I would send him the results of my inquiry. That's out. I'll send him the link to this thread.

FReepers Rock!!!

Again, many thanks to all.

LVM

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Unless his circumstances are very unusual, it is a waste of time.

[tutstar]

LOL
You're saying homeschooling is a waste of time?

And your experience is?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Homeschooling my odest through the end of third grade, utilizing all the material and participating enthusiastically in the grift, er, cottage school that was so lucrative and so widely extolled by the local lemmings, er, homeschooling parents. I got to see the business operations of the owner and chief pimp of that particular homeschooling scam, listened to the paranoic, terrified, hyperbolic rants of the other homeschool parents about all those scary black kids and children of divorced parents. Also got to view firsthand the end result of homeschooled high school graduates - of girls whose chief aim (if they were willing to wake up at all) was to work in a daycare until some poor, unlucky sap married them, and of guys who were going to be incapable of apprenticeship or supervision, who were all going to be "internet entrepeneurs".

My guess is that those guys are still flipping burgers - this was a few years ago.

I was not impressed.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Typo - homeschooling my OLDEST.

[Registered]

Sorry to hear you sucked at homeschooling. Not everyone can make the grade...so to speak. :-)

[Fred Mertz]

Sorry about your luck.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

ROFL - No, it wasn't us who sucked - we did very well compared to the rest. We left it like you toss out a bad potato, because having our children tarred by inclusion in a group of mediocre lesser lights wasn't an appealing thought, and we'd come to definite opinions about the other homeschooling parents by then - all of them negative.

It was cultlike, and we had to turn away from it.

[B Knotts]

Well, your anecdotal, anonymous attack on homeschooling has certainly convinced me! </sarcasm>

[Registered]

Yeh, sounds pretty rough.

Although I have never been involved in any homeschool cults, as you were, my experience with successful vs. unsuccessful homeschooling families has led me to conclude that a great deal depends on the leadership provided by the "big cheese", the "king of the castle", the "buck stops here" guy, the "I wear the pants", the "my way or the highway" guy...you know..the father.

Btw, did you have to get deprogrammed?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Never said a parent shouldn't be able to homeschool, depending on circumstances - however, given the propensity of some folks who could be described as right wing to march to the beat of noisy pitchmen, buying books and scaring the bejeesus out of themselves by thinking about that big ol' scary outside world, I'm just pointing out my feelings that there are negatives, and that homeschooling is neither panacea nor superior in and of itself.

In other words, engage your brains before doing something just because someone claims that it is more conservative, more Christian, or that it will somehow diminish liberals.

See if it is right for you and your circumstances.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I needed no deprogramming at all. Other people in the house? Practically.

And I got the added pleasure of getting an admission that I was right all along.

[WestTexasWend]

I'm not a homeschooler, but I'd like to second your Saxon Math recommendation. Saxon started here in OK, and my daughter (now 16) started it in 1st grade. She has consistently scored three grade levels above her age, and when she transferred to the area's best prep school in 6th grade she was three semesters ahead of the kids there. It gives kids a great foundation on which to build, and even the children who struggled with other subjects seemed to thrive on Saxon math.
BTW, I was lucky enough to talk to Mr. Saxon himself on a local radio show a few years before his death, and he stressed that parents shouldn't waste money on computer games/programs that claim to teach math or spelling...said they simply cannot be taught in such a passive manner.

[cyborg]

Unfortunately, some people do have bad experiences. I've been in homeschooling forums where parents' motivations have been to get their children away from black children (no matter how well mannered the black kids are) and other non-christian undesirables. CP's experience shows the need for parent education and research into homeschooling groups. I am glad CP got the kids out there. Having said that, I'm a HUGE supporter of homeschooling children. That's my number one option. Homeschooling education does not limit what a child can do. Sky is the limit.