Home schooling the do and the don't?

Question

Home schooling the do and the don't?

Answer 1

Do be prepared to work hard at it.

Do provide activities where your child must work with and take instruction as a group.

Don't feel bad if you cannot do it and your child must return to public or private school.

I have had many students in my classes that have been home schooled for part of their scholastic life.  They often do not have the skills to take instruction with a group and need lots of one on one attention.  I have seen others who return to school because they have passed the level the parent is comfortable teaching.  If the child has engaged in activities that require group interaction and group instruction they are able to move into the regular classroom with ease.

If it works for you and your children go for it, if it isn't working get help.

Answer 2

Do

you can chose what to learn

Dont

needs to be social

Answer 3

Do go into it with an open mind and the willingness to be flexible.

Do check out the laws in your state.

Do find a local support group and maybe even some email groups to join. These are good places to get your questions answered.

Do expect your homeschooling to evolve - what works in the beginning may not work all the through. What works with one child may not work for another.

Don't listen to the folks who say that homeschooling means your children are locked up in the house every day.

Don't believe that a regular school is the only way for kids socialize in the real world. Remember, if you want to learn something, you don't acquire the necessary knowledge from 20 other people who are learning, too - you get from those with experience (such as parents, older children, people in the community).

Don't expect to know everything that your children need and want to learn.

Do be smart enough to find the resources that can provide the information your children need and want.

Answer 4

I'm going to assume you're a parent just because it tends to be parents in here:

DO learn about the laws where you live so that you make sure to comply with the requirements.

DO connect with at least one homeschool group--even if it's just online.

DO commit yourself to your children.

DO put your relationship with your children above the academics, while still taking care of the academics in the way that you've chosen.

DO be a lifelong learner yourself and model learning to your kids.

DO explore a wide variety of approaches to homeschooling.

DO know that homeschooling is life itself: it's going to have its ups and downs, never a completely straight path.

DO go out lots--spend time in the community and everything else that makes up the real world (as a former teacher, I most definitely do not see school as the "real world"; neither do my husband, also a teacher, nor his family of teachers: his brother, his sister-in-law, his mom and dad). Although the homeschoolers I know tend to get out a lot, there are, admittedly, some who don't. Homeschooling should never mean being at home all the time (unless maybe you live in a cabin a few hundred miles away from anybody!).

DON'T go out and purchase everything that looks good--you won't even end up using half of it.

DON'T worry about naysayers. Many don't have enough information, many are unable to see outside their own experience, and others don't feel it's right for them and make the assumption that it must be wrong for others, too.

Answer 5

Do believe in yourself and your children's ability to find the right fit for your life of learning and joy will follow you.

Do find a way to let the child grow at a speed that is gentle to their being.

Do allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them.

Do look up Waldorf Education in the Yahoo groups for wonderful inspiration on creative schooling and meeting the child's needs on their natural growth and finding a rhythm in your home, life, and so on.

Do know that you are special for caring so much about your life choices.

♥ peace and light ♥

Answer 6

My husband and I homeschool in Illinois. We taught our daughter for high school and now help teenagers who quit or get kicked out of school. We work through our community college Literacy Coalition to help them get a GED. A student can enroll in this program as early as age 16.

If you are homeschooling younger kids (think k-8). Materials are relatively easy to find. If you are unsure of curriculum, one option is to replicate text books used in the school your child will be withdrawing from, Just copy info off the copyright page and look for similar materials on www.half.com . Sometimes you can find entire cirriculums on  there or on eBay.

Also a very valuable book that has necessary aspects of your core curriculum . It is called what your ?th grader needs to know. Edited by E.D. Hirsch.

You CAN do it!

The first year is the hardest.

Don't forget to network with other homeschool moms for support.(Find them at the children's room in the library during school hours).

Answer 7

DO choose curricula and activities with care.

DO be fun.

DO spend time with others.

DO NOT be impatient.

DO NOT be lazy.

Answer 8

Do: Take your time to find the method that works for your child.

Be a parent first, teacher second.

Tag team with the other parent if at all possible.

Ignore people who tell you it can't be done.

Use the opportunities available to get out and be a part of your community.

Travel.

Don't:  just read about it, do it.

Answer 9

DONT hire a s*x maniac as teacher

Answer 10

Do pick programs that work for you

Don't be a moo cow.

DO consider the merits of "unschooling" (e.g. do it yourself computer work, programming, science work, creative writing with the goal of getting published for real, hobbies that work, pastimes).

Unschooling is as simple as buying a guitar and working at it hours a day for years

Ice skating until you are good enough to do it professionally

Karate to Black Belt

As I said writing with a goal of getting published by print mags.

Paintings that hang in galleries, sell to businesses and people

This is an adjunct

Don't think or fell you need to have "summer vacations"

Real life is 50 weeks a year

DO explore every option.  Homeschooling is NOT or NEVER limited.

While this is YOUR chance to create YOUR education YOUR way, you do have to learn the basics and master them

Algebra, geometry, trig, science, biology, chemistyr, physics, English Literature, Grammar, etc.

Think of homeschooling as food.  You have to go with the basic food groups BUT you get to choose the entrees, main dishes, condiments, spices and deserts.

Homeschooling does NOT mean you have the RIGHT to forgo things, but you get a choice.  Greens are required, but you can choose from Spinnach, Asparagus, Broccoli or Green Beans.

And you can pick something to pour over them to make them taste better.

You still have to learn how to factor, but HOW you learn it and the speed and rate is up to you

DON'T avoid unpleasant things, DO tackel them in a manner that is pleasant and productive.

Answer 11

The skinny DON'T.

Let your kid grow up in the real world.  Warts and all.  

Watch the ciriculium (sp??) and work with your child on enhancing it, some summer reading, (huck finn, and horatio hornblower for my son a few years ago.)

Home school kids and families miss out on what makes us human.  Interacting with society.

Edit:

Sorry folks, reality sucks.  My science center sees 30-60 4th, 5th and 6th graders every day, all walks of life, public school, private, rich kids poor kids,  ESL students, Learning disabled , as well as gifted and talented; the whole spectrum.  The only group that consistently are under achievers are the home schooled group.  The parents of the home schooled get together and once or twice a year and put together a field trip.  

The parents hover over their kids like carnivores ready to pounce god-forbid their kid makes a mistake to the outside world.  The kids live in fear.  Real shame, they will never know what they are capable of.

Answer 12

Your question is not clear.  Are you asking whether you should or should not home school?  Or are you a current homeschooler who is asking what you should do or should not do while you are homeschooling?

Please clarify.

Answer 13

Don't be afraid to try it.

Answer 14

I chose to have my son go to great books academy, after we pulled him out of Private Montessori School in the second grade. It was a great experience for us as a family and for him academically.

We allowed him to make his own choice about going to a government school in Texas beginning in the ninth grade.

He is now a junior. He is a member of the National Honor Society. He was elected to the student council. He was elected president of the French Club. So much for the belief that home school children are socially awkward.

He has a 3.85 GPA and scored 1865 on his PSAT.

Wonder if he would have done better with a professional teacher? I wish I still had the cite, but when I was deciding whether to put him in home school I found a very interesting study where different home school children were compared based on their primary home teachers' education and licensed teachers that home schooled their own children actually scored lower than other parents that had graduated High School.

High School dropout parents did not do quite as well as those that had graduated, but only about two percent on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills(ITBS).

If I remember correctly the average home school student was in the top 18 percent of all students on the ITBS, and high school dropout parents' children were in the top 20 percent of the country on the ITBS.

The only advantage I can think of is maybe that you can build more of a resume like my son has built when applying for college.

You could put your children in government or private school but it is risky, and likely to lead to him or her performing about 30 percentage points lower than if they went to home school.