Are there any international homeschoolers on here? What country are you currently in? How are the rules and laws different than if you were to homeschool in your home country? How do you get around the outrageous shipping fees when buying curriculum? How is homeschooling perceived in your new country? Are you planning to go back to your original country? Will you continue to homeschool when you get back? We are Americans currently living in the Netherlands. I did enroll my kids in the neighborhood public school to learn to read and write in Dutch. I homeschool them in English reading, writting, and spelling. It is very difficult to be a full time homeschooler in the Netherlands. Your family has to get a special exemption from school registration for deeply held religious or philosophical reasons. This exemption is very difficult to get and is no longer available after your child begins public school. We do plan to come back to America one day. That is why I have made my kid's English education such a high priority.
Nice to meet you and welcome! So what you're saying is that now that yours are in the public system, you couldn't homeschool there even if you want to desperately??? So how ARE the schools there? What grades are yours in and what do they learn at that level?
I'm in Canada and where we live there is much freedom. Since my kids have not attended the schools here I don't have to do anything. If they did attend the schools here I would just have to send a letter to the district. It is pretty much the same as it was when I homeschooled in Michigan. My biggest problem is running into teachers who want to make sure I know what to teach. :lol:
That's right. Once you put your child in public school you waive your ability to ever homeschool. I didn't know this until after the fact. Thankfully the schools are good here. My kids go to school from 8:30-11:45 come home for a hour and a half to eat lunch, and then go back until 3:15 (Wednesdays all children get out for the day at 12:00). We have a 30ish minute English lesson at home everyday after they eat. My twins are 7. Dutch education at this age is mostly Dutch language, math, and play.
I’m an American, a former teacher, living in Mexico (My husband is English….When we married we couldn’t decide where to live :roll:.). My girls (4 and 2.5) attend preschool, primarily for Spanish and also for socialization (There aren’t that many scheduled activities for kids.). I am HSing during summer vacation, and the girls will be returning to preschool in the fall. I’ll start full-time HSing my older the following year (for kinder). I have never met anyone from the Netherlands who did not speak a minimum of three languages, so I can believe your school system is quite good. You are lucky on that account—plus you have tulips! Education rules are certainly not as strict here, and that has positives and negatives. It makes it easy for me to HS, but sadly a number of children throughout the country receive little or no education (though we are in an area where a large percentage of the younger population appears to attend school). However, I also have problems obtaining curriculum. The bookstores and libraries are pitiful. Mailing items is out of the question, and courier packs are killer expensive, things get “misplaced”, and custom fees are costly if CDs or DVDs are involved. I stock up on books on our infrequent trips to the States (one dedicated suitcase), use my Kindle, and con friends and family into bringing cases of books :twisted:. On your end, have you tried getting curriculum from England? The shipping charges might not be too bad. At some stage we will leave, and that is one of the reasons for HSing. The private schools in our area aren’t bad, but I just want to make sure that the girls will be prepared for whatever educational challenges might be thrown at them down the road (as best I can). Welcome to the forum! Donna
Are there any international homeschoolers on here? What country are you currently in? How are the rules and laws different than if you were to homeschool in your home country? How do you get around the outrageous shipping fees when buying curriculum? How is homeschooling perceived in your new country? Are you planning to go back to your original country? Will you continue to homeschool when you get back? We are Americans living in Germany. Homeschooling is illegal here for Germans but since we're here with the military we're allowed to homeschool. We have an APO address for our mail, so the shipping is no different than if sometihng was mailed to NJ. Eventually we will be returning to the states (could be next summer, could be 2012... gotta love the decisiveness of the Army lol). I certainly hope to continue homeschooling, this is pretty much our test year because right now my husband is pretty strongly against homeschooling (the only reason he can give me is "socialization") but he's agreed to kindergarten. I have absolutely no desire to place my girls into the public school environment... there are too many things that I don't want them learing from their peers.
