Can anyone suggest how to start homeschooling?

Question

My 11 year old son is not only failing in public school, he is also getting behavior problems. We considered homeschooling him if he didn't pass 6th grade, but now it seems we will start now. We live in NC and know that all we have to do is send a letter of intent form and wait to get the card back before withdrawing him from his current school.

As this is our first time to try homeschooling we are not sure what exact activities and such will be most helpful.

Our son loves to read and is probably 3-4 grades ahead in reading comprehension and conceptualization. But his grammar and punctuation are more on grade level. His math is poor, probably about 3rd grade level. He absolutely hates math and we want to show him that math can be fun. As well as bring him up to grade level or above. We would love to homeschool him for the rest of his grade school levels.

Also, we don't want to have to purchase materials if possible. We would like to use the library and other cheap/free stuff

Answer 1

Talk with people who are homeschooling.  

They should be able to answer a lot of questions.

Look at the official state site for current information.

What "curriculum" do you plan to teach.

There many websites, google homeschooling.

Answer 2

yes ..we decided years ago to homeschool for various reasons for all 3 of our children. I t has worked out great for us ...this is how I did it

http://homeschoolanswers.blogspot.com

Answer 3

It sounds like you have all the basics in place as far as legal requirements, initializing contact with local support groups, and gotten a handle on accessing your state's benchmarks.

You are now at the stage of matching your child to a curriculum or methodology. All learners will have their particular strengths and weaknesses. You are now needing to take the time to figure out what type of learner your son is. Each methodology/curriculum needs to give information and practice opportunities in your son's strengths while providing successful strategies to help him deal with weaknesses.

You have already gotten some terrific clues. You see that he has strengths in reading and he has weaknesses in math. Delve into these cluse for the deeper information that they contain. I am guessing that you have a son that has a very one-sided learning style. Often kids that have strong disparities between skills are this way.

I would suggest that your next step be to research learning styles a bit and see if you can get a clue to see if your son may be strongly leaning to one style in particular. Once you find that, you can look for curriculums that match their content delivery and student practice activities to that style.

In our family we have extremes in learning style:

Since you mentioned that your son was advanced in reading, I will mention my son. He is way on the auditory end of the auditory-visual learner spectrum. He was a very precocious talker and had quite an advanced vocabulary. He loved words so much that it was a common sight to see him heading into the bathroom with the huge 4 inch thick college dictionary at the age of 9. We matched him up at the time with the Robinson Curriculum book list (tons of classics) to satisfy his voracious appetite for books and had discussion as a large portion of his day outside of reading nd math. This fed his strength and love for words. The match was a big success in that his reading comprehension and vocabulary standardized test scores both hit the 99th percentile mark.

The classics were enjoyed by my other kids too, but the match wasn't quite as perfect because they had other learning style leanings (one was strongly visual and the other one was kinethetic). Theydid not have the intense passion for words that my son had. But with each of them I found curricular matches or we created our own curriculum to feed their strengths.  Whearas my auditory son just needed to hear something once to get it, they needed to see and actively do to learn a new concept. All three of them are very creative, so we tie creative pursuits into their traditional subjects instead of having worksheets which are less effective for them. For my visual and kinesthetic learners we found hands-on unit studied, concept-mapping, and e-notebooking to be a great tool. It gave them a chance to interact with materials, reflect on their learning, and process the information visually.

Why did I tell you all this? I tell you because the curriculum's methodology match to your child's learning style can make learning enjoyable and maximize your son's strengths.

Here are a few search terms to get you started on your explorations of figuring out what type of learner you have:

Learning styles

auditory learners

visual learner

kinesthetic learner

sequential learner

global learner

A few good curriculum matches for specific learner types:

Kinesthetic:

For elementary years there is no better curriculum to feed a hands-on doer than KONOS. My kids adored KONOS! It is more work for the teaching parent than most curriculums because it isn't fully self-contained. You will need to take the kids to the library, buy craft supplies, make fieldtrips, etc to get the maximum benefit out of this curriculum; however, you will have a blast and will always look back fondly on the great memories you made. Buy, make, and play learning games. These kids learn best when they are playing it. Give them tools to make things. If you don't like the mess, get them some tools for creating things on the computer. These objects file away our of site yet keeps a kinesthetic's brain engaged for hours. For instance, if we were studying medieval history, my kinesthetic son would immerse himself in creating a castle and community in 3-D computer graphics. It takes longer than memorizing the vocabulary list of castle architectural elements, but the learning and enthusiasm builds revenue not measured on a vocabulary test.

Visual Learners:

Select curriculum with lots of pictures and charts designed not so much for decoration as for making content visual. Make wall charts of history with little figures that you make together and add to the chart as you study them. Use the internet and real books from the library often for information since they tend to be less expensive and more varied than a textbook. Download Cmap to make concept-mapping fun and easy. Give them computer tools to create electronic notebooks of their studies. The best word processor we found as far as graphics integration goes was PrintMaster Platinum. We never tried Math-U-See, but it sounds like a good visual and kinsthetic learner fit. Get lots of writing and drawing tools.

Auditory:

Everything that talks! Seriously! Begin a collection of dramatized history tapes and CDs. Your Story Hour is a good source. Make discussions a huge part of the homeschool day. Talk through what is being learned. Get Audacity (free, open source download) for your computer and let your son figure out how to make his own dramatized radio shows of what he is learning. My kids have a blast with it! There is a Spelling program designed for auditory learners now. I cannot remember the name, but it is made or recommended by Excellence In Writting Institute. It is done by listening to a tape. My son would have loved that. Spelling was his weakest subject (spelling is a very visual-based skill).

Answer 4

Check this site out. www.freewebs.com/hsacademy

Answer 5

You need to go to hslda.org. They are very helpful.

I use A Beka with my daughter. Go to abeka.com.

Answer 6

For Language Arts my recommendation would be to use a curriculum that is heavy on literature and uses it to teach grammar.  There are several out there that do that, one is Total Language Plus, one is Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Hewitt Lightning Literature is a great one, and is what I have been using this year.

For Math I recommend that you have him take a placement test to determine where he should start, and just start him where he is instead of worrying about him working at grade level at this time.

Total Language Plus and Learning Language Arts Through Literature are both available at http://www.rainbowresource.com

Lightning Lit is available from http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com

Here are a few Math programs that have placement tests available, while normally I recommend teaching textbooks first, Life Pacs might actually be more realistic for someone playing catch up.  Saxon is very solid, and would work well also.

http://www.teachingtextbooks.com

http://www.saxonmath.com

http://www.aop.com/lifepac/Subjects_Math...

Direct link to lifepac placement test:

http://www.aop.com/lifepac/Support_Place...

As far as not purchasing, you can do that but it gets a little difficult  especially when it comes to math.  You could ignore my suggestions for Language Arts and probably find all you needed at the Library, but math is sequential skill and he is already struggling in it, so it would be best to get a curriculum that will fill in all the gaps.

Answer 7

I would say, since he's had trouble in school (both academically and behaviorally), you give him a period of de-schooling.  Let him get rid of all the baggage that he has from his school experience.  

Definitely unschooling is a way to do that.  Let him decide what he wants to do for a while.  If that means no school for a week or two, or a month or two, so be it.  Let him rediscover himself, his interests, his natural abilities.  Then, when he is ready, pick up the pace, always keeping it at a level that works for him.(as far as standardized testing, unschooling is not necessarily no schooling.  You can cover those things he needs to know while letting him decide the rest.  http://www.unschooling.com/ )

Also, homeschooling using library materials is wonderful, as well as educational programs on TV, field trips, classes offered in the community such as art and sports.  Homeschooling need not cost a fortune.

Good luck! :)

Answer 8

Here is a place to start find a local homeschooling group

http://www.ha-nc.org/NCsupportGroups.htm

You will get lots of ideas for free or inexpensive curriculum and materials.  Plus you can get to gether for co-op classes field trips etc.

Homeschoolers are very resourceful and willing to help.

Start the paperwork to homeschool him and find your local support group now so that you can get started before he is even out of school.

Also if he was having such a hard time you also might consider deschooling for a little while for both parents and child

http://sandradodd.com/deschooling

http://sandradodd.com/pattiedeschooling

Here is also a great website for homeschoolers that has the answers to almost everthing related to homeschooling

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com

Answer 9

Like several others have said, you may want to give him some time to relax academically.  The key with unschooling is to see where his interests lie and assist them in making the most of them.  It may take him awhile to find his interests, as schooled kids have become used to teachers telling them what they may and may not study.  This would be a good time to establish household routines, like chores and meals.  

This will also give you a chance to think about your homeschooling goals and look over various materials and see what you think will work for your child, you as the teacher, and your budget.  This website has information on various curricula and supplements a book by the same author:  http://www.cathyduffyreviews.com/index.h...

"Discover Your Child's Learning Style" by Mariaemma Willis can help you with the whole learning style.  But before you buy anything you might want to discuss it with him; you know, tell him that you'll make the final decision but you're interested in his opinion.  

If you think he is really that far behind in Math you could try Singapore math.  They have free placement tests and they have a different approach to Math than most school systems.  You can check out their math curriculum at this website:

http://www.singaporemath.com/ .  

You could also try having him read books about and by different mathematicians:  Euclid, Pythagoras, etc.  One book that intrigued me with math was "Jurassic Park".  There is also a fictional book called "Math Curse" that is supposed to be good; it may be for younger kids but maybe that's for the best.  You could also try lots of hands-on stuff like cooking (measuring, halving recipes, etc), letting him help you balance your check book and work on bills, or going to the favorite field trip for homeschoolers: the grocery store.  Let him add up the cost of everything you buy and see how close he gets to the check-out total; weigh and calculate the cost of produce; price compare; discuss taxes.

And maybe the two of you could spend a few days just exploring the library.  Take a few big bags and each pick out several books to read independently and together.

I wish you luck with everything, and I think you are making a wise decision.

Answer 10

Have you been to www.hslda.org yet? They can help you figure out where to start legally and then go to the library to see what they have for you. You may have to buy some curriculum but you don't have to buy every thing. We were having problems with math so we just started looking into new ones. Math u see is a great program my daughter is already improving her basic skills and we've only been using it 3 weeks. Its a little pricey to start with at about $100 but we figured if it worked for her then it was worth it. They have a test you can give him and you may have to go back a level or so but it may be worth it for him to go back to where he gets lost and start there. After all you can only build on a strong foundation. If the foundation is weak so then will be the structure and he just won't get it.  As for the rest of the stuff you can probably get away pretty easily with the library. You can use historical fiction for history along with a regular history book. Story of the world is excellent. We really enjoyed it. I will say be ready to learn a lot your self. In the year I've been home schooling I feel like I've learned more about myself and children then I knew before. The best part is the patience God has given me to keep going even on those days where it seems school is impossible. We don't always finish everything and we are rarely at home but somehow it's still working. God Bless and Good Luck