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I am the mother of a very intelligent 3 year old. I am planning on home schooling him as long as I can. I have already started with the basics. My question is if any of you participate in home school coops and what is a good way to find other home schooling Christian families in my area.

Congratulations. Keep up the good work. My wife and I have been homeschooling our six year old for two years now. My wife does carry most of the load though I do teach him on several subjects after work, on weekends and on holidays.

Homeschooling does not have a summer vacation and is year round. It is actually a way of life and an approach to learning. I look for teaching opportunities around home and on outings. We had a dramatic storm pass through yesterday and I was able to show my son how the cumulus clouds were passing through, like it showed in our book on weather and clouds. He said to me they were going from west to east and I congratulated him on figuring that out.

To answer your question. Another poster commented that it is easier to home school now because of all the work that the first home school pioneers have made. That is probably the case. Even since we have been exposed to home schooling it has grown.

One of the first thing that struck me about homeschooling when we first got into it was how networked it is. Forget your old stereotypes of home schoolers being isolated. Home schooler moms are constantly emailing and phoning each other and going on activities together, sharing ideas and resources.

Before we got into home schooling we didn't know about these networks that were going on around us. Do some Internet searches for home school groups in your area. Some are formal associations some are just groups of families that have met and keep in touch with each other. What they almost all have in common is that they email each other. home schooling is a true electronic community.

Another way to find out is to start asking around. If you see a mom in the supermarket shopping during school hours with school aged children ask he if she home schools and if she is part of a group. Look for moms and playgroups at the community center and other places. You do have to ask around.

There are also home school conferences are in larger cities. I have met parents who have traveled several states to come to a conference in our city and corresponded with them by email later.

Yours is a very rewarding, though sometimes tiring, decision. Homeschooling is not what some make it out to be. It is so much more. It is a growing movement. People I see coming in are in it almost in spite of themselves. They have come to the decision of homeschooling out of extreme dissatisfaction with the public school system and what they see it doing to their children and other children. I have found that neighbors who do not home school support us because they agree with why we made the decision.

Good luck. Freep mail me if you want to network more on this.

Mr Sol