Considering Homeschool - Need Feedback - Page 6

TheRealJuliane · #76 May 31, '12, 7:18 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by journey00

DITTO TO EVERYTHING!!

We just finished our 1st year of homeschooling. I took my 3 children out of a wonderful Catholic School that we loved. BUT...I was tired of the school getting their best hours of the day instead of me!! I was scared to death but I prayed A LOT for God to give me the grace to be able to do this.....and he did. I fully enrolled my 12 yr old with Seton Catholic Homeschooling and I ordered the 1st & 2nd grade curriculum from Catholic Heritage Curriculum. After tweaking it...I figured out pretty quickly that Seton is basically school-at-home and my child was not liking it. I work from home so I needed to find something that will work with our family. I pulled from many sources and we now use Time4Learning which is an online curriculum & it is graded for you and it matches your state guidelines. I pay $50 a month for my 3 children...yes, it is secular but my kids love it and their customer support is great! We add our own Cathechism through daily living, www.mycatholicfaithdelivered.com, RE classes at our parish, Saint movies from Netflix,
EWTN, etc. and of course Sunday Mass and any other Mass we can get to throughout the week. We are eclectic with an unschooling bent.

They do dance lessons, competitive soccer, basketball, softball, swim team, horseback riding and many other activities.

My children are not weird or unsocialized at all....they are very sociable and talkative & can carry on a conversation with anybody. In fact, people are surprised when we tell them that we homeschool...they say "but you don't look like homeschoolers"..I guess that's a compliment..I'm not sure..lol. I asked them if they want to go back to regular school and it was a resounding NO! We will re-evaluate every year and will continue to do it as long as it works and I feel that God wants me to continue.

They now get along well as opposed to when I picked them up from school they were so crabby they fought with each other & I wanted to leave them at school!!! Now, I LOVE being with them and enjoy their company.

Your daughter is very young still...check out Time4learing and Catholic Heritage Curriculum, it is a very very gentle program but very thorough. The key is to find what works for YOUR FAMILY...there is no wrong or right way to homeschool...you can be very rigid or very relaxed..it is up to you. There's also no ONE right reason to homeschool...reasons vary & that's ok.

: clapping:

Happy for your family!!! That is just what I always experienced - I had to relinquish my sons to school and pick up the leftovers in the afternoon....Burned out shells, sometimes, and then they STILL had to do homework on top of all that!!! We won't even get into the bullying...Well, I never did get to homeschool my sons but my older one sees the abysmal condition of both public and many private schools and says his own children, when he has them, will be homeschooled. that there really is no other option. So, all is not lost.

MariaG · #77 Jun 2, '12, 10:33 am

I have not read through all the posts, but I am not here to disagree with anything others have said just to give you my own experience.

I homeschooled my two older boys, public school for the youngest, had to go to work to help pay for college for older boys. In my experience, the new homeschool parents who failed were the ones who tried to create all of their own curriculum. That is a lot of work. No you don't need to buy one, but you can. I always bought one and used it as a starting point. You don't have to follow the whole thing but use what works for your family.

And take into account what works for you. Yeah unit studies are a great way to learn but I had a very difficult time teaching that way and since I was the teacher, my limits and capabilities needed to be factored into the equation.

We personally did a more traditional setting, with separate subjects, finished in 4 hours and then went and explored the world! We also belonged to a group that met every other week for various activities. Some were formal lessons taught in a group, other times it was things like making rockets and shooting them off.

In my area, (no catholic schools) the public schools were willing to work with us and allowed my kids to go to computer class or PE or in older grades, science and history.

The great aspect to homeschooling is you can do what works for your family, the flexibility.

I will tell you though it is a lot of work. People get paid to do the job of teaching children for a reason. And if you want your child to know the difference between a subject and a predicate, to understand the solids and gases, you will have to put some effort into it. Rewarding and worthwhile. But effort.

Kindness · #78 Jun 8, '12, 12:26 am

Just wanted to chime in to reassure about college. I homeschooled for a short period and in that time met a ton of great families Catholic and others. A family I know are homeschooling six, their eldest son was accepted at many great schools and chose to attend Notre Dame. He loved it so much that the next child in line a sister attends Holy Cross (I believe that's the name of the school, please correct me if I'm wrong) the sister school of Notre Dame. She chose it for the strong music program. Holy Cross students can take classes at Notre Dame and partake in all activities, so brother and sister were both in the Fighting Irish marching band at the same time.

We lived in Seattle and Washington State has a program called Running Start where High School Students can take classes at Community College up to a total of two years college credit. Many homeschooled Students I knew/know did/do this and start a four year school at 18 (or younger) as a Junior. The University of Washington ranks as one of the best universities worldwide and many homeschooled Students I know have a degree in hand from the UW by 20.

Many states have programs such as Running Start.

TheRealJuliane · #79 Jun 11, '12, 2:30 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kindness

Just wanted to chime in to reassure about college. I homeschooled for a short period and in that time met a ton of great families Catholic and others. A family I know are homeschooling six, their eldest son was accepted at many great schools and chose to attend Notre Dame. He loved it so much that the next child in line a sister attends Holy Cross (I believe that's the name of the school, please correct me if I'm wrong) the sister school of Notre Dame. She chose it for the strong music program. Holy Cross students can take classes at Notre Dame and partake in all activities, so brother and sister were both in the Fighting Irish marching band at the same time.

We lived in Seattle and Washington State has a program called Running Start where High School Students can take classes at Community College up to a total of two years college credit. Many homeschooled Students I knew/know did/do this and start a four year school at 18 (or younger) as a Junior. The University of Washington ranks as one of the best universities worldwide and many homeschooled Students I know have a degree in hand from the UW by 20.

Many states have programs such as Running Start.

A lot of universities seek out homeschooled students. They know that these students are serious, well-prepared, and very well balanced. Not prone to party. An asset to the community.