When to start?

Discussion in 'Homeschooling' started by AHMcCay, Aug 15, 2015.

  1. AHMcCay

    AHMcCay New Member

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    I am very new to homeschooling.
    I am wondering when do most people start planing and thinking about homeschooling. Did you always know you would homeschool? When your child was 4.5 years did you just think yea lets not register them for school, I'll do it? Or maybe did it never cross your mind till you were pulling your child out of school?
    (I don't mean to say any of these with a rude tone, I just have NO CLUE what's normal.)
    My daughter is 14 months and I am a SAHM. The time has come for the descion to be made of MDO or not because everyone is already telling me about "socialization" for her. It seems like a HUGE cross roads to me like already at this age I'm suppos to make this descion of which path we will take with her life. But I'm being told by so many people I'm really jumping the gun, she's to young for me to be thinking about this now. Which I agree with, but I cann't imagine putting this life dicision (that I know NOTHING about) off until it's time for send her to school or not.
    I feel like for most people you don't think about this until your child is 4.5 years and you just go to the closet school to register. With the thought of homeschooling though i feel it will require much more than that, maybe other people are different though and the 6 months before you start kindergarten is enough time to learn local laws, find curriculum, a coop, a umbrella school.

    When did you realize or start thinking about homeschooling for your family?
     
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  3. Emma's#1fan

    Emma's#1fan Active Member

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    I thought about homeschooling before my daughter was born. We knew from birth that she wouldn't attend a public school. I know many people who are thinking about it , and their child is very young.
     
  4. Lindina

    Lindina Active Member

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    We adopted him when he was 2. Getting closer to 4, I started thinking about homeschool but I was the major wage-earner, and couldn't really consider it. We did put him in a little private kindy/playschool/babysitter at four, but the following year should have been kindergarten and we just knew he wasn't ready. Still wishing I could be home and teach him myself, we held off instead of putting him in kindy, and parents of three other boys with fall birthdays also held off a year. So he entered kindy a year later than he could have. It was terrible. Somehow we muddled through, knowing we had "that kid". But after fourth grade, we'd had enough. By that time, my husband had his own little upholstery shop, so he was "home". I bought curriculum, left lesson plans, and went off to work. Yeah, well, the best-laid plans.... It was not ideal by any means, but with me picking up the slack after work, weekends, holidays, and summers (I worked in public schools), he decided he was done and took his GED and was "done" a year before his former classmates.

    I was hoping to homeschool son's kids from the time we knew they were pregnant. But his wife's parents insisted the boy needed to go to Head Start, then kindy, then first grade... But by about 8 weeks into first grade, son had had enough and called me. Could I homeschool the grandson? (COULD I???) Then they had another, and we're about to start kindy/first with second grandson and fifth with first grandson.

    And that's how we got to where we are today.

    It's good that you're considering it now, so you can explore all the different facets of homeschooling. A word of caution, though -- you do NOT have to start "school at home" just because other parents are putting their babies into K3, K4... In fact, you might want to put off formal curriculum until your child's "first grade" year, or age 6/7. That doesn't mean you teach her nothing! Just don't do it in a desk with formal curriculum.
     
  5. 2littleboys

    2littleboys Moderator

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    We started talking about it when we were dating and discussing a life of marriage and kids. We left our options open until the first came along, and then explored the options with more intent to make a decision. By 3, our minds were made up.

    Homeschooling is huge in Texas. In my area alone, we have tons and tons of groups for babies through high school. We quite literally have moms who are pregnant with their first child already attending playgroups so they can get to know other families and talk about preschool curriculum (not that curriculum is necessary of a preschooler... but you know what I mean.)

    My point is that you'd be weird NOT to start considering your options at this point in my neck of the woods. :)
     
  6. MagnoliaHoney

    MagnoliaHoney New Member

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    I actually also talked to my now husband about it while we were still dating. (once things were getting serious). He agreed he was fine with that. Then we married, waited to have children, we would talk about different ideas of how we wanted our childrens lives to look like when we eventually had them from time to time, always agreeing we still wanted to homeschool. When I found out I was pregnant with baby number 1, I started seriously researching homeschooling. And picked what I wanted to use. And that was that.. I from time to time would take her to homeschool field trips and things (even when she was very very little). Just to get a feel for the people in the homeschool community where we live. Loved it.

    While my teaching style is evolving and I didn't really love the first curricula I chose (thankfully my daughter seemed to like it! lol), we have homeschooled since the beginning, she has never went to school, and we also didn't start formally homeschooling her til she was 6... now I have three children and have no plans of ever sending any of them to a school.

    All the socialization questioning is MOOT! Some people will think you are a nut ball... they will... but seriously start looking for some homeschool groups near you, even at this age (again some people may lecture you about why are you going with a baby... but most won't care!). In my area, I was really into LLL (Le Leche League). And about 20 members from 3 different groups started a homeschool co-op, all with babies at the time who were about 18 months old, now they are about 3 years old. It's not a co-op with classes, and such, it's more of a, hey I'm going to the zoo any one want to join us... hey we are going to the science museum, any one want to come? Believe me these kids get more "socialization-isn't that what we do to dogs not humans?) then any kid, stuck behind 4 walls every day with one teacher and only children their own age. At this "co-op" there is varying ages of siblings, and other friends with other children who come too... like I said my oldest is 9... I think at least one of the mothers in the group has a 12 year old... all of us have a 3 year old! lol We were all in LLL at the same time nursing our babies/toddlers). But, most of us have varying ages of other children too... so all the children get a pretty big mix of ages, and children to play with. (some of the moms have 6-8 children so a lot of ages in their mix of family alone).
     
  7. Jackie

    Jackie Active Member

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    We decided to homeschool before I was even pregnant, so it was done in a sense from birth. Like others have said, I made it clear that it was my desire while dating.

    As far as the law goes, in Ohio you don't have to report them until they are six years old on the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. That means that if your child doesn't turn six until the day AFTER school starts, you don't have to report him until the following year.
     
  8. my3legacies

    my3legacies Member

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    We didn't make the decision to homeschool until the boys were in 5th and 7th grades. We were both working and we needed both incomes. My boys were both failing in school - one because he just couldn't learn the material at the school's pace and the other because all his teacher required was 70% work so that's all this son would do at best. Then I got pregnant and was on maternity leave for 11 months and during this time, husband got hurt at work. Now we're both home. So I pulled the boys out in April and started our homeschool journey. I had to return to work because I am the major bread winner. But I would leave lesson plans with Hubby and he will do some things with them and they will do some on their own because they are big kids, and then when I get home, I check their work and go over anything else that I need to. I work full time out of the home, come home and spend 1 to 3 hours homeschooling them and spend time with our now 3 yr old. We already made the decision to homeschool her from the start. I am already researching curriculum for her.
     
  9. eyeofthestorm

    eyeofthestorm Active Member

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    We ended up turning to homeschooling when we realized my husband's work was going to make it hard to see the children once they were in school if we enrolled them in a traditional school.

    As far as when to start... I am not a fan of starting too early. That said, our oldest had a different idea. The year he turned three, we lived in a high rise that overlooked a charter school. He was fascinated with watching the students (high schoolers) eat lunch outside daily, and began asking to "do school." What I ended up doing was one hour a week, seated at a table. We would talk about a letter of the alphabet, read a couple "special" books featuring that letter, and do a craft. That satisfied him as "doing" school. Later we did lapbook projects and BFIAR (children's lit with integrated activities), but it was always very, very informal and natrual and play like until about first grade.

    For my other children, they were always around when their older brother was doing his lessons, and since they were free to join in (or not when they were very young), I didn't have to deal with figuring out "when" to start them.

    For all our boys, we started formally looking at phonics, handwriting, and counting around age five, adding in spelling the next year.

    We have always read aloud to our children, so that wasn't something we needed to start.

    Hope this helps some. Just remember, what works for others may not work for you/your child/your family. Read it all, then use what works for you all :)
     
  10. OvercomeSchool

    OvercomeSchool New Member

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    I knew I wanted to homeschool as soon as my first kiddo was born. I was a teacher in a Christian school, but I had burned out on traditional school and wanted something different for my kids.

    I started teaching letters and numbers very early, but we kept it casual and fun until age 5. Then I started checking every couple weeks to see if he was ready to be more serious about learning to read. As soon as his interest spiked, we were off to the races.

    Now I have three I'm homeschooling, and we love every minute of it. Our family is willing to make the sacrifice for this lifestyle.
     

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