Back in 1998 when we first began thinking about homeschooling I went to my trusty AOL and looked for a chat regarding homeschooling. The chat hosts were great and extremely helpful! If you are considering homeschooling here are some things you need to do.
1. Know the laws regarding homeschooling for your state. You can go to A to Z Home's Cool website and click on your state. They are listed on the left side.
2. Follow the laws. If you need to contact the school district, then do so. Usually you need a "Letter of Intent to Homeschool." In Orange County, Florida, they sent me a form letter. Orange County has a great Home School office.
3. Once you let the school district know, then you are on your way! Follow the laws.
Now what? I know many people have come into the chats, either AOL or A to Z, wondering what to do NOW? "I've pulled him from school, now what?"
First answer: CHILL! Your child will not get "behind" (whatever that means) and he WILL learn what he needs.
Well, now YOU get to decide what to do! I would suggest that you DO NOT purchase a boxed curriculum! Let me repeat this, DO NOT buy a curriculum! If your child is younger, say, 10 and under, I would do a lot of PLAY! Read a lot, play games, TALK quite a bit about everything! Explain a little about the bank (no they do not give us money, it is actually OUR money), the post office, and dry cleaners or any place you go! Take a look at my Learning Math blog post for math ideas. There are a couple other blog posts that are relevant. Also, do not underestimate DVD's from the library. Kids usually love Bill Nye for science. OR you can get videos from History Channel, TLC, PBS and Discovery channel all from your library! Pick a subject, say, Ancient Egypt. Get books and videos about that subject from the library! If you need to keep track, for a portfolio, write down all of the books read and the videos watched. If your child doesn't read yet, read books to him! Even if he does read, nothing compares to quiet time on Mom's bed listening to Mom read a book out loud. (For all of you moms out there, put some feeling into it when you are reading!)
Once your child is older, over 10 or so, then I would add some more structured education. After playing with manipulatives, counting coins and learning to write the numbers, now is the time for some simple math workbooks. You know the kind, from WalMart. Let him play with those but DO NOT force it! Make it fun. A good way to begin grammar lessons would be using Mad Libs. They are funny and fun! We did a lot of Mad Libs during long driving trips with the kids. You can explain what a verb, noun, adjective and adverb are and then you are on your way! If your kids still have questions during the game, then help! So we've covered Math, English, History and Science (don't forget Bill Nye and other videos) so what else do you need? Your child will be well-informed and ready for the middle school and high school years!
I have to respectfully disagree with the "structure" part. I didn't have much "structured education" in my middle and high school years. I had enough of that while I was in public school, but that is another story. There was the unfortunate Math tutors who had the displeasure of attempting to teach me just enough Math to get through life with my dyscalcuia in middle school. Then there were foreign language classes in High School. I still turned out all right. Once you realize that learning is FUN when you get to learn what interest YOU, it's quite addicting. I still spend most of my time reading (including books below my "reading" level), watching discovery channel and writing fanfiction. We went to the library every two weeks and I always checked out as many books as I was allowed to. And because I wanted to write "good quality" fanfiction that wouldn't get flamed so I obviously had to proofread and learn about grammar and such. I applied my critical thinking skills by extensively researching what I had seen on the discovery channel.
ReplyDeleteKids who need to jettison this "learning is not supposed to be fun" crap public schools teach definitely need a little push in the right direction. But I think it's more about providing opportunities to learn then adding structure.