Experienced parent, help?

Question

Posting yet again...

In Texas, it's allowed to go by your own curriculum, right?

So if my parents and I wanted to buy books or check them out from the libraries to home school me, I can?

I've talked to my mom about it tonight and was explaining this to her, just to think about it and stuff. (for those who don't know, I'm in public school, wanting to be in home schooled.)I thought maybe that someone who has experience in this type of home schooling could maybe explain to my mother that learning like this, through books, isn't such a bad thing. I need someone to explain to them how they educate their children. I know no one can convince her, but it will just give her some info. and opinions from others.

If anyone would like to help me I'd much appreciate it. If you want her email, just let me know or if you just want to post here, that's fine.. I

ll let her see it.

Thank you for any help!

Answer 1

SCHOOL OF TOMARROW...is christian based..but is very informative and demanding.

Homeschooling is much easier..kids learn faster and learn better and learn more.....can go all through every grade level...studies show kids...do very well learn quickley and adapts intelligently....is tested once a year....makes most ly A's in all subjects...and in this case can learn about the bible and History of Christianity...and Gods Word....

Most kids are very smart and works at a reasonable pace....can go ahead or stay at age level at thier own pace...have vast subjects and vast resources...and if your in Texas...its based in your state !!!

They even have classes thier to inform you........

Very good system....and it works quit well........

and its real suited to the needs of the individual..not someone elses....ideas.......or schedules

Check it out!!

But can go to the board of Education thier and get requirements per your state code......worth checking into !!

Answer 2

Education is often more than just books.  It's some unschooling equipment, field trips and research.

The student has to do a lot of this themselves, the parent has to help.

You can only learn SO much from a book.

Answer 3

Find yourself a local homeschooling support group. Being able to talk in person or over the phone will do your parents wonders. If she wants to email me, feel free to have her email me!

Answer 4

First, let mom have some time to think about this.  If you just presented it last night, you've probably been thinking and researching for a while, so she needs some time to think and research for herself.

Since you mentioned the library, see what they have on homeschooling.  Lisa Whelchel has a great book profiling 15 very diverse (philosophically) homeschoolers and what their lives/homes/families are like.  It's called _So You're Thinking About Homeschooling_ and your library may have a copy (if not, try inter-library loan).  There's also _Real-Life Homeschooling: ..._ by Rhonda Barfield profiling 21 families.

Yes, in Texas, you can create your own curriculum and I highly recommend it.  Most textbooks are written with only the most basic facts, but "living books" (like you find in the library) are full of great stories and details of whatever subject you're reading about.  With homeschooling, if something catches your interest, you can keep on learning about it (unlike in public school when the class has to move on to cover so much material every year).  You might need a math textbook, but these can easily be found new or used on any of the numerous sites for buying and selling homeschool books.

Think about it this way - 200 years ago, there were virtually no real textbooks because most children learned at home with mom and dad as their teachers.  There was no need for textbooks, because there were no public schools.  So kids learned how to read and write by ... reading real books and copying paragraphs from them.  They learned math by calculating how much grain they grew or how many acres they needed to farm - real-life, applied mathematics scenarios (sometimes attempted to be replicated by "word problems" in math texts).

If it's a classical education you want (think Latin and classic literature), check out _The Well-Trained Mind_ by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.  They give tons of suggestions for homeschooling with or without "textbooks".  You could also see if you can get your hands on a copy of Mary Pride's book _Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschool_.  She details several different homeschool philosophies or methods.

Glurpy's suggestion to talk to other homeschoolers in your area is great, because they can fill your mom in on all the events and activities available to homeschooolers where you live.  They can also let her sample the wide variety of homeschool products and literature available.

If you really want to convince her about homeschooling, though, you need to jump in and do it.  Pick a topic you're interested in (say Marine Biology) and do some research at the library.  Write a list of questions you want to find out through your research.  Talk to someone at the local university about what all is involved, what they do, and why they do it.  Ask what they've learned or discovered  through their work.  When you've spent at least a month researching, type up a paper describing all you found out and present it to your mom.

Answer 5

Even though it might be legal to make up your own curriculum, I'd really recommend you use one that's already set up because it will be more complete.  There are many fine curricula on the market.  Try christianbook.com for a start; they have tons of educational materials.

Answer 6

Yes, you can go by your own curriculum, and what better way is there to keep the love of learning alive in a child.  Every family will do this differently.  I can explain what we are doing this year to see if that is helpful.  

For math, my daughter is doing an online class through www.artofproblemsolving.com.  We are also working through a book on algebra by Gelfand and preparing to take the AMC8.  I would be happy to just use the textbook from art of problem solving, but she enjoys the interaction of the class.  For literature, we've been discussing The Once and Future King, by TH White.  We also do a Jr. Great Books discussion with two other families.  For grammar, spelling, writing, etc.  we do a variety of things.  We've just finished the book Grammar Voyage from Royal Fireworks Press, so we spend some time doing 4-fold sentence analysis to solidify those skills.  We work through Sequential Spelling.  She works on her writing by sending stories and poems she has written to a friend of mine who teaches writing and literature at the local community college.  She is participating next month in the National Novel Writer's month - NaNoWriMo with a goal of 8000 words.  After the first of the year we will start working in a textbook called 'Put That in Writing' for work on more formal writing.  We also use Building Poetry from Royal Fireworks Press.  Vocabulary consists of Caesar's English and English from the Roots Up.  We play with Minimus Latin and Destinos Spanish.  She studies American History with my Dad, who is a history nut.  They use tons of library books and free resources like www.hippocampus.org and www.historysolutions.com.  Science is with another family.  We do experiments together from Singapore I-Science.  She also learns from CyberEd science which we purchased very cheaply through www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.com.  Art is a community class with other homeschoolers for a whopping $10/month.  Music is taken care of with her piano lessons and community choir.  We also explore various music appreciation sites and music theory sites.  We are also starting classes to learn how to produce shows for our local community acess tv station.  She also does tumbling and horseback riding, so as you can see it is a wide range of things!

Good luck, homeschooling can look how ever you want it to look.  It really gives you time to dig deep into things and really learn rather than just storing things in your short term memory just long enough for the test.