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A friend of mine is seriously considering home schooling his soon to be 1st grade son.

I told him that I knew lots of FReepers did home schooling and that I would ask for a good source of info / guidance / material concerning this subject.

Any and all info is very much appreciated - and thank you in advance.

LVM

As I am sure, you'll recieve more then enough advice on homeschooling, may I make another recommendation?

Make the kids or get the kids to join as many extracurricual activities, like the boy scouts, little league, kids soccer, the YMCA, whatever, the more the better. This way, he'll have the best of both worlds, both a good education, and also a good system for finding and making friends.

Hi, I homeschooled for 7 years. I currently have my children in a private school for a variety of reasons. We had a great time and I would definately return to homeschooling in the future. We have been taking the decision one year at a time, assessing all the factors involved. I still teach my kids fun stuff at home-we read and do projects.

There are so many ways to homeschool. I took an eclectic, balanced approach. The 3 r's we covered with traditional curriculum (workbooks). The subjects (sci, hist, geo, lit, etc) we cover by reading aloud "real books" (and listening to books on tape) and doing hands on projects. We also do a lot of educational field trips and take local children's classes on everything(art, music, science, ballet). They also have thier clubs (scouts, Awana). My library card is my main resource. We do one science unit (astronomy) and one history unit (ancient Greece) from library books and educational videotapes alone. There is always a field trip for any science topic.

Lots of good suggestions on this thread.
some of my faves:
Dumbing Us Down, by John Taylor Gatto
Homeschooling, a Patchwork of Days, by Nancy Lande
Homeschooling, a Parent's Guide to Teaching Children, by Samuel Blumenfeld

hslda.org for legal info

curriculum:
timberdoodle.com
Quality children's books at discount prices 864-0391 or 800-344-3198
Veritas Press 800-922-5082
Beautiful Feet books bfbooks.com

also do search on web for "great books" for book lists of classical children's literature.

Read, read, explore, go places, have fun!