I am a potential homeschooler of our 2 little boys, who are 3 and 2. My DH is really keen on homeschooling and I am gaining more confidence but coming at it from a last resort kind of angle.
So is there anybody else out there in BB land that are/ or could be homeschooling?
Halltribe. I always wanted to homeschool and everyone tells me that you cant beat the social interaction of school. also people comment how homeschooling is only really good for big families. I see you have 8. have you always homeschooled, so at one point you would have just been HSing one. how did you find this. How do you get the social side of school when homeschooling.
So you have a general framework to follow but what about things like sport, do you 'out source' any of these things?? are both you and you partner involved in different parts of the childrens schooling??
I have a million questions but i think its easier if i just ask you what the biggest hurdles you faced are and what the main advantages and disadvantages you have found over the years, for both you and the children. thanks is advance!!
Hi Becs - I will try to answer your questions as best I can.
Socialization - It is always the first thing people bring up negatively about h/sing. Firstly kids in general are usually as social as their parents are no matter whether they are in school or not. A child sent to school will learn to socialize with his peers a bunch of 5 year olds,etc. A h/sed child will learn to socalize with all ages. There is a huge h/s network out there with regular meetups for sports, educational trips, etc. Often the type of socialization kids get at school is not what we as parents desire or our children. I met my children or most other h/s children you will find that socialization is not a problem at all and these children are not introverted. When I started h/sing my first I was involved with other h/siing families (there are heaps of us around) and my oldest son is more outgoing than all my others!!!
Curriculum - yes you do need to cover all bases of the National curriculum, but in that you can add so much more and go so much deeper. There is 1000's of options out there of curriculum and styles, etc but ask lots of questions, look at as much as you can and you will still probably change around a bit to find what suits your child the best. At the end of the day nobody knows your child better than you. I use a mixture of Australian curriculum, a phonics programme from the States, and bits and pieces of other stuff. I am able to tailor make it for each of my kids different needs and learning styles.
I do the core subjects with the children and my hubby puts in the more practical side, experiements,etc. H/sing is a lifestyle decision and something you just incorparate into your daily life. My younger children and being brought up in this enviroment an are so quick to learn and read it blows me away. H/sing is not to be taken on lightly as it is a huge conviction and committment, do your reasearch. It is a whole nother world.
Check out the Aussie Homeschool site - they have good forums there to ask lots of questions on.
We homeschool.
Ds started off at school he was there for 2years and 2 months.
He left as he was being bullied and the school took no responsibility for that. Nor did they do anything to help.
Since then we have homeschooled we turned to it in desperation I have to admit.
Homeschooling has been the best thing we have ever done.
Dd has never been to school although she did go to kinder.
I have found homeschoolers make a special effort to "Socalise" their children. As already stated homeschooled children are not forced to socalise with other children the same age they are free to socalise with every age group, although they do tend to gravitate to other children around their own age.
I do the bulk of the teaching. The only time this really differs is if I am struggling with Maths. Dh is brilliant at maths and on the odd occation he teaches our highschooler a concept I am struggling with and ends up teaching me as well. lol
Homeschool and the smaller family. I homeschooled our son while we had a toddler, it was tricky but it worked out fine.
Advantage; Ds when at school lost his love of learning. He was being held back in maths and pushed ahead in english.
At home he has excelled at maths and is well above his grade level, with english, spelling and grammar he is well below his grade level. Since he has been home we have discovered he has Dyslexia. We have the freedom to teach the children at their level not where the system believes they should be. I believe this freedom has assisted our ds in learning to love learning again. You do have to follow your states requirements in Victoria these are the 8 key learning areas, but are free to teach what you wish providing you follow these requirements. Some familys follow the "National Curriculum" others do not. I have seen and read the National curric. and to my surprise we had already tought the children what was required at their age level without knowing we had already covered the NC.
There are many styles of homeschooling and not every style suits every family, same can be said for learning styles not every child learns the same way.
One of my kids is a visual learner the other is a kinesthetic learner. Knowing this I teach each child to suit them.
Disadvantages; I'm sorry at this time I can not think of any.
Sport; We let our children choose which sport they would like to do. Sometimes they do it for a few weeks, sometimes for a season, sometimes for a few years. We leave that up to them but if I have paid for the term, they complete the term. If I pay for the season, they play for the season. The sports they play are after school sports with school kids.
The biggest hurdle for us is I'd say family and friends that do not agree with our decision to homeschool on a long term basis.
A lot of people think "school" is the only way to educate our children.
My parents get it, my sister does not, so we don't talk about it. She does things I don't agree with and we don't talk about them either.
Dh's family are fine about ds homeschooling, he is their step grandchild but dd was another matter all together. It took them a while to realise that she is our child not theirs and we are homeschooling her as it's our decision not theirs.
Friends well alot of my friends are teachers, most were very supportive but one in particular took serious offence in the beginning. I was attacking her profession and way of life. Now though, 4 weeks ago she said she can see how ds and dd have matured since we started homeschooling and now agrees it was a wonderful decision.
I think the hardest part of homeschooling is deciding to homeschool followed by which curriculum to use (if any).
Homeschooling does not have to expensive. Do you have a library card?
If you like the idea of homeschooling but are worried about choosing the curriculum there is always "Distance Education". It's sort of school in a box. Homeschooling school curricula.
It took us a while to find our groove and settle on curricula that works for us but now we have there is no turning back.
I'm sorry about my spelling and grammar. I'm very tired tonight and my spelling and grammar are the first things to fail me when I'm tired.
Last edited by fromscratch; May 14th, 2011 at 11:02 PM.
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