A Mother Looking For Free Online Homeschooling In NC?

Question

Im a mother of a first grader in public school right now in NC and wish to homeschool. Im looking for free online homeschooling. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Free  online schooling would likely be a cyberschool/virtual school option provided by your public school system. You could certainly get information from going on your state and/or local school system's website (if it is even available)  Alternatively, there are tuitioned cyberschools. k12 comes to mind, but you need to see if you can use them in your state.  HSLDA's website should help there.  

Traditional homeschooling is parent guided education and the cost varies widely.  At the first grade level, you could get away with spending very little money. I doubt we spent more than $200 in first grade and even that includes field trips, art classes, sports, etc. We mostly used "What Your First Grader Needs to Know", library resources, internet resources and a couple of educational games and software programs.    And at this level, it can be difficult to buy "canned" curriculum materials.  You find that their interests, abilities and learning styles vary so widely.  You can buy one thing, find it is totally wrong for the child and have to go with something else.  This is where things can get expensive.  

I assume, from what you said that you are looking at next year for homeschool, but maybe I misread the intention.  If you have time to do the research, try to get in touch with your local homeschooling groups.  You can find some of them, along with NC homeschooling laws at the website.  http://www.hslda.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1

Also, you may do a search in Yahoo groups for your local area, homeschooling.  Almost every area has a Yahoo group these days.  Try to get to some of their meetings or activities and meet and greet.  Get to know them and find out about group activities such as co ops, field trips, play groups, etc.  Try to get to a curriculum fair.  There are generally many of them throughout the springtime.  

Best wishes to you!

Answer 2

I don't think that NC currently has a free public virtual school. Though new states come on every year. State virtuals are public schools so tax dollars fund them, so they are free. The daily experience in a virtual is nearly identical to the experience of traditional homeschooling, but legally the kids are classified as a public school students in most states.

Online homeschool options are available. These are not publicly fundeded like state virtuals are. There are either commercial private school programs where you pay tuition and register as a satelite homeschool student or they are volunteer run co-ops. I teach free 1st grade phonics and math online for first grade in Virtual Homeschool Group. It is an online course co-op run by volunteers and voluntary donations. The problem is that the first grade classes are about as full as I am comfortable with: 3 students for phonics and about 5 for math. However, we might have new classes opening up with a new volunteer that has contacted me. How about you e-mail me and I can show you a bit of how we do things in the online classroom. Then if the other class pans out or we get a seat available you can jump right in. My e-mail address is [e-mail]. The Virtual Homeschool Group website is at http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/. Just enter the Phonics and Phonics Intervention and the K to 3rd Grade Math Meeting courses to browse around some of the materials we have there. We can set up a time for you to link in to the online classroom vis the e-mail communication.

Answer 3

Hello neighbor.  

Our particular county does not have free online homeschooling.  I have taught my son since 8th grade and we use free resources from library and online and we buy cheap books at used book stores.

It takes more time this way, but saves dollars for other things.

You may also want to join some of the Yahoo support groups for homeschooling in your area.   They may have ideas to help you plan your curriculum.   They will also have ideas for activities to do with other home school families in your area.

Answer 4

from what I have read so far, in NC the parent or guardian must do the academic teaching or another homeschool instructor can teach one child from outside their home. In NC it is not permissable to use the online schools as the only source of education. I have not found any free online homeschooling that works in NC, but that is probably because it is not allowed in NC. I will be starting homeschooling my 11 year old soon and have been looking up the information for a few weeks now. The entire curriculium for public schools in NC can be found on the web and ownloaded.