Hi everyone!My name is Mary, I am a stay at home mom from Roseville, California (northern california..) and really looking forward to homeschooling my 1st grade, 71/2 yr old DS very soon! I will be registering him tomorrow with an Independent home school program and not sure if I will start homeschooling him then or when he starts his Easter break from PS. He is very anxious and wants to start soon, as do I, but have heard that is best to start when there is a break (exp. Christmas break, Easter break, etc...), I want for him to have a healthy and productive and happy start with homeschooling. Any advice is very much welcome. So glad I found this Spot
Welcome!!! My Phillip is the same age as your son. He'll be 8 in December! I've also got two girls, soon to be 13 and 11. I'm Jackie, in central Ohio.
Hi, Welcome. We're glad you're here. I visited northern CA once. We visited the Napa area. Wine country was beautiful. I hope you enjoy homeschooling as much as we all do.
Hi, I am new this year to homeschooling my daughters. Mine are 14 and 8 years old. The best advice the ladies here gave me was to let the girls have time to de-school. I don't know it that is the correct term but they had to get the public school mentality out of their heads. My girls are in 3rd and 8th grades so I don't know if your son will need to do this but I am sure the ladies here will have advice about that. I know if we hadn't taken the time to do that, and to let me get it through my head that we don't have to do "school at home", we would never have made it this far. We don't follow the school's schedule during the day but we do usually take off the days they take off because we also have two sons in 11th grade in the local high school. I love homeschooling so much. It has brought my daughters back to me. They are such a delight to be with now. Like they were before public school changed them. I love being with them so much. I hope you find all the ladies here as helpful and nice as I have. Beth
Glad you found us. There are a lot of great moms here with a wealth of knowledge and experience. We're in our 3rd year and loving it. Welcome
First day of homeschooling Thankyou all for your welcomes Today we are official! What to expect? My ds was asking last night; what do we do tomorrow? I said we can do some art, reading.. You see, we are waiting to hear from our resource contact today. How did you set up your homeschool area in your home? How do you set up to have work samples available for review? In a binder? Hanging file folders? I am excitied and nervous all at the same time Thankyou, Mary
Mry, the number one rule of homeschooling is that if it works for you, it's good! Some people set up a "school room" in a seperate room, others do school at the kitchen table, others spend most of their school time reading on the couch. We don't have a set school area, though we keep most of the books on two (ok, three now!) book cases in our living room. Each child has one shelf that is "theirs" to keep their stuff on; also they each have a drawer. As far as portfolios go, you can keep them in folders or notebooks, or an Artists' Portfolio or however you wish. Don't worry too much about this year. It's almost over, so just take the time to keep up in math and do lots of reading. You might want to start a Science Notebook just until the end of the year. Once a week or so, do a MESSY experiment in your kitchen. The library will have all kinds of resources for you in that area! Then have your son write it up and stick it in their notebook. Do LOTS of reading. My Phillip LOVES the "Hank the Cowdog" books. You might want to check them out. Just spend time enjoying your son!
Welcome! We pulled our 6yo dd right before Christmas- in fact a week before Christmas break. While the first two days were great because she was just happy to be out of there. It soon hit her that this was permanent and we did struggle for quite a while. We're just now at a point where things are running smoothly, I'm not hearing about ps anymore, not hearing any whining or grumbling about doing school. I was also sure to make sure we had something to do mid week with other homeschoolers because she's VERY social and I knew not being around other children her age would be difficult for her. We have park day every Weds and she's made new friends there- as have I. We have swimming on Saturdays now and will be starting and art class next month. Other than that she is now used to be home a lot and enjoying it. Some told me to take a couple months off and just have fun, but I can't do that with her. She'd think she'd never have to do schoolwork again!
Welcome, and a good bit of advice in homeschooling... "you control the curriculum, not vice versa..." Simplified: Don't feel, if you use books/workbooks that every little detail must be covered. If your child knows it, move on. We actually accelerated our first son, who is now 21. He skipped many grades in math, began algebra @ age 10. He's a college Sr.; Math Major (go figure).
That is true...just today we skipped several lessons in math for ds12. It was things that he already knew...mostly from just using common sense. When I realized he truly did understand what was being taught, I let him move ahead! He was so excited! I still say Jackie has the best advice about testing them until they do not get something...then start from there. That has saved us from some very pain staking frustrations with "I am bored" or "I hate this" or "but I already know that!" (can you hear the whining?) OH...and after he moved ahead several lessons he had a math test and got a 98%!
Welcome tcup! I hope you are already having a productive and fullfilling time homeschooling. And congratulations, Leslie, on that 98% 'Sounds like you've had some really good days, too!
