ping a ling
Christian Home Educators of Colorado
I will see if I can find some more.
You want metmom. She has the homeschool ping list.
If they are struggling, have you considered testing to rule out learning disabilities?
We didn’t homeschool, but if we had it to over, we would. My first place to look for help is with local home schoolers. They know the ins and outs and local requirements and problems. If you can’t find a local organization, try the local Republican headquarters. Several homeschoolers bring in their kids to help out with mailings and such.
ping
BTW - I am retired Army (Field Artillery, MI, Chaplain)
My son is a Regional Manager with Cisco...fed team, lives in Monument.
Give me a holler if I can help more. My profile has more contact information. I live about 50 miles south of you.
I teach homeschool enrichment courses at the high school level. I have a few contacts that might be of assistance.
I am willingt to bet that any local Church has numerous homeschoolers. You may want to try that route. That would give the benefit of a local support structure as well.
We generally use Bob Jones curriculum, and supplement with other stuff.. edhelper.com is really good for extra worksheets..
My wife is a consultant and homeschools ( from colorado btw) can get you started in what is best for your family. If you would like to chat with her freep mail us and I will have her give you a call.
Homeschool along with tutors!
You can contact Gateway Home schools in Memphis, Tenn. They are great and can help.
Wow lots of questions :) I pinged DaveLoneRanger on this to get it to the homeschooling ping list :) I think he is the right person!
I’ve been homeschooling for 7 years now — I have 12 year old twins. We’ve used lots of different “stuff” — but right now we’re using Switched on Schoolhouse from Alpha Omega and love it. We’ve also used Calvert (which is good for first year homeschoolers because it tells you what to do etc — complete curriculum in a box from a private school in MD); K12 is another we used — I can’t say anything positive about it, so I’ll keep my mouth shut LOL; also tried the eclectic approach and still do this to some extent for life learning and subjects that the girls want to learn themselves. Some people unschool, others use classical methods — it’s really up to you and what works for your family.
As for where to start — I would say FIRST get a membership to HSLDA — the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. This is a GREAT group and will help you comply with the letter of the law in your locality.
This is also the time of year for all the homeschool conferences and bookfairs. Lots now and into the summer. You can SEE the curricula, touch it, etc. etc. Makes a huge diff to me.
I would also find a local support group ASAP. That too is critical to getting off to a good start.
Last thing — give yourself and your kids a chance to de-program from being in school. Lots of people start out thinking homeschool has to be just like “real” school — set times, an hour on each subject, etc. That’s not how it is for anyone I know. Meet some homeschoolers in your area and ask them about their days — I’m sure you’ll get a whole host of tales! Fundamentally though, see what works first, and give your whole family the flexibility to change when something isn’t working (or let you know that it is working). Our house — we do a lot at night and my children sleep in. It’s not very . . normal per se, but my husband works some weird hours sometimes. They also travelled with us a lot when they were little (and before I went back to school myself). Hubby takes on a lot of the educatio responsibility now, and my parents will be in the near future. How we do things changes by the needs of each family member — everyone’s needs are considered. Sometimes school gets pushed aside if other issues are more pertinent (family members ill/dying, religious holidays, friends in need, opportunities for other life lessons). Homeschooling gives us the flexibility to meet these needs and educate our children about the world without them having to “fail” a class or grade because they missed that specific moment the teacher was saying something, or because of some arbitrary number of excused or unexcused absences.
http://www.hslda.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1
Check the requirements in your state.
I have always used Switched on Schoolhouse however it is probably not the best when remedial work needs to be done.
Abeka has dvd courses. You can do 2 ways...one is you send the work to them quarterly and they grade it, the other is to do that yourself. You still have the dvd’s for instruction, those do have to be returned to them. I have friends who use this and love it. If I could afford it I would use it.
Alpha Omega has cd instructional cds....Saxon math also has instructional cds.
http://themathworksheetsite.com/
This is a must. The kids need to be able to do certain things in a certain time frame. Having them do the 5 min drill is a good place to start the older kids so you can see exactly what they need to work on.
I also know some folks that love Math U See but I don’t know if they offer instructional videos/cd’s. As far as I know every curriculum offers teacher books to go along with the student books so instructional help may not be such an issue in the lower grades.
Consider joining:
http://www.hslda.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1
The laws vary state to state, and they can help keep you out of trouble.
Find a local home schooling group. Look for a church in your area that supports home schoolers. You might even ask at the kids’ former school.
Finally, if the children have learning disabilities, a public school environment might be able to provide the most special education assistance.
forgot about Bob Jones, they have instructional assistance available and are definitely scripture based.
If you do home school, hslda.org is an essential resource.
Might try Calvert School, http://www.calvertschool.org/home-school/. Very detailed curriculum, complete lesson plans, tests, excellent support. Good placement efforts.
That said, K12 online school fit us a little better—plodding nature of Calvert was not a good fit even though materials were excellent. The K12 math course we used was first rate. http://www.k12.com/ You were on your own for placement in some respects.
In both cases you need to do placement carefully. Kids often go in at a grade level below current public school placement. And don’t make them study all day. Mornings with activities in afternoon or something.
If the kids have weak areas, the one thing you don’t want to do is start them in at “grade level” with a curriculum like Abeka or Saxon math.
We used Saxon and Abeka, and I love both curriculums, but you need to do some remedial work first and bring them up to grade level if they’re struggling in certain areas, otherwise, you’re all going to get discouraged pretty quickly.
I haven’t homeschooled in years, but Saxon used to provide tests to determine which math book to start in.