*** Homeschool List ***

[ngb2w]

I couldn't agree more! I have been on the board since '99 and anyone mentioning they homeschooled was flamed by the masses! What a difference a couple of years makes.

That was my experience, too. I'm pleased to stumble upon this thread and to see so many responses.

We just started our third year of homeschooling today! We have used k12 from the start and have been extremely pleased with the whole curriculum. I have two dds, 8 and 3. Have been DVC members since '99. I used to frequent this board when we first joined DVC but drifted away and recently re-registered to gather some info for our upcoming October trip to BCV.

Last week, I called and added on 3 nights at Fort Wilderness...we have never stayed there before but wanted to check it out. One of our goals in homeschooling is to include travel as much as possible...this year we bought an Airstream (in pursuit of that goal). So far, we have spent 16 nights in it checking out the State Parks in our state. We hope to expand our horizons more next year. Once we feel more comfortable with all of the systems, etc.

Thanks for starting this thread!

 

[westjones]

Last week, I called and added on 3 nights at Fort Wilderness...we have never stayed there before but wanted to check it out. One of our goals in homeschooling is to include travel as much as possible...this year we bought an Airstream (in pursuit of that goal). So far, we have spent 16 nights in it checking out the State Parks in our state. We hope to expand our horizons more next year. Once we feel more comfortable with all of the systems, etc.

Thanks for starting this thread!

We bought a camper (a popup) too when our kids were around 8 while we were homeschooling. We use to go in May while most kids were still in school, and we camped with several other homeschool families. It was fun, and we would do our lessons in the camper during the day (shorter versions of our regular lessons).

Have fun with your travel! One of the reasons we wanted to homeschool was so that we could travel with the kids. They have been a lot of places!

We are no longer homeschooling at this time. I say that because I have no idea how we are going to feel about Middle School this year, and if we might find ourselves back homeschooling again. It is all a journey. I do miss the flexibility of traveling in the off season. Hope you have a great year!

DJ

 

[Kerlynne]

I have found this neat site, that has tons of info. So what I will do is paste some info that could help/encourage.

The Social Homeschooler

Q: How are homeschooled students doing socially?

A: It used to be that if you announced that you were going to homeschool your children people would ask you, "How will your children learn anything?" Now that fears have been put to rest regarding homeschoolers' academic achievement, the most commonly asked question is, "But what about socialization?" The assumption is that children will not learn to get along with others and will not develop good social skills unless they go to school. However, several studies have been conducted over the years that show that homeschooled children are more self-confident and less peer dependent than traditionally schooled students.

According to research:
A 1986 study found that homeschooled students have significantly higher self-concepts than their conventionally schooled peers.
A 1986 study found homeschooled students less peer dependent than private school students.
A 1989 study found that homeschoolers were just as involved in out-of-school and extracurricular activities that predict leadership in adulthood as were those who attended private schools.
A 1991 study concluded homeschooling parents carefully address the socialization needs of their children in every area studied (i.e., personal identity, personal destiny, values and moral development, autonomy, relationships, sexuality, and social skills).
A 1991 study looked at adults who were homeschooled. None was unemployed and none was on welfare; 94 percent said homeschooling prepared them to be independent; 79 percent said it helped them interact with individuals from different levels of society, and they strongly supported homeschooling.
A 1992 study found homeschoolers had significantly lower problem behavior scores than do conventional school students.

Many people believe that homeschoolers spend all their time around the kitchen table, but that simply is not the case. Since homeschooled students do not spend six hours a day in a classroom sitting behind a desk, they have more time to participate in activities outside the home like music, sports, and Scouts. Also, whereas schoolchildren rarely have the opportunity to interact with children who are not the same age, homeschooled children interact with and learn from people of all ages, genders, and interests.

Q: Will my children be able to succeed in the "real world" if they do not go to school?

A: Those exploring homeschooling for the first time sometimes worry that their child will not be able to function in the "real world" if they don't attend school and have the same social experiences as schooled children. But what do schools really do? They separate kids by age and ability, reinforce class and gender, and limit children's interactions to short recess periods. Schoolchildren are forced to socialize with children only their own age and are trapped in a room six to seven hours a day, allowed to view the outside world only through a textbook. Where in the real world are adults forced to socialize with only someone their own age? Competition, bullying, consumerism, and cruel teasing are often the social values children learn at school. Homeschooled children are more likely to base their decisions on values they learned from their parents instead of feeling compelled to go along with the crowd and accept the behavior of what other children are displaying as the "norm." Because homeschoolers spend so much time out in the real world, they are able to communicate well and get along with both adults and children. They even get along with their siblings, and it is common for homeschooling families to receive positive comments about their children's strong, warm sibling relationships.


Excerpted from: Homeschooling for Success: How Parents can Create a Superior Education for Their Child by Rebecca Kochenderfer and Elizabeth Kanna

Website which i found, and will posted again from is www.homeschoolernetwork.fen.com

 

[westjones]

Many people believe that homeschoolers spend all their time around the kitchen table, but that simply is not the case. Since homeschooled students do not spend six hours a day in a classroom sitting behind a desk, they have more time to participate in activities outside the home like music, sports, and Scouts. Also, whereas schoolchildren rarely have the opportunity to interact with children who are not the same age, homeschooled children interact with and learn from people of all ages, genders, and interests.

This always cracked me up! My kids were in so many things, we were hardly ever home just for the day. There are so many things that kids can be involved with now days. It is amazing!

As I mentioned, we are no longer homeschooling at this time; my kids wanted to try public school and we are letting them as long as we don't have a negative experience (so far, so good). We could easily find ourselves back to homeschooling again at any time.

To those of you doing it now, enjoy these years! I loved our time together and I do miss it some.....BUT....for us it is all about experiencing new things, and public school is a whole new experience for us. DH says that homeschooling is really about taking charge of your child's education, and we are still doing that.

Good Luck everyone!
DJ

 

[tigertam]

I've been thinking along the same lines. I've been putting together an activity book/journal for the boys to get some writing and other things in a fun way during our trip. So far, all I've found are the kids pages at The Mouse for Less. Have you all seen those? They have some nice journal pages, and some good Epcot stuff. Today I've been working on making up my own "Mad Libs" type stories with Disney themes. We love to take Mad Libs on trips, but we've already done all their vacation themed ones, so thought it would be fun to make our own this time. I'd love to hear others' ideas too!

I wonder if we should start a new thread with learning ideas in WDW, so as not to divert this thread which seems to be doing a great job of "collecting" us all in one place?

Hi, Melinda,

The past two days I have been busy with the site you mentioned:
http://www.mouseforless.com/downloads/kidsdownloads.shtml
It has been a treasure trove for us. The girls loved the disney travel journal. We were busy today picking the ones they wanted and copying them. I downloaded all of them yesterday! I also downloaded the disney homework papers which were all about the countries in Epcot. Loved them! My oldest daughter wanted to start right away! They are both excited about their new school assignments before we go to Disney in Sept. and are also excited about my other ideas. So again thank you! That site fit in exactly to what I was looking for!

My Ideas that I had wereby the way only the girls that are 11 and 9 are doing this, the two boys are in HS and the little ones are 1 and 2.)

I wanted the girls to study the 11 countries in Epcot before we left. My goal was to make them do a project of their creative choice to exhibit the information that they have learned on the 11 countries. I think they are going to both choose to scrapbook all the countries and put in info in their pages and some fun photo's at the countries. We are going to do the passport idea found on www.allearsnet.com. This will mean they will talk to CM's at the different countries and have them write in their passports in their native language and in English.

We will be using the cd cluefinders 3rd & 4th grade summer activities books. I was at a yard sale, saw them and almost put them down and said "Oh I will look a little closer." I ended up finding some really nice maps of a couple countries in Epcot and some games. So I said, "add them in." I go home and was amazed that between both books it covered 10 of the 11 countries in Epcot! There's a really nice map, crossword puzzle with info, some facts, Eng. to the countries language words, country silhouettes you have to match, a word search of the cities, country riddles, and a can you find picture of the country that has pictures in it. I thought it would be a real fun way to learn some info about the countries.

For the Animal Kingdom, I had read that in each of the rooms there was a field guide of the animals at the resort. I asked them to mail it to me. We will be studying them. I haven't thought about any other ideas for the animal kingdom yet or fun projects. Maybe I'll make up some game to learn the animals. Or have them make up their own board game to learn the info.
We did that last year in our coop and the kids loved it and owned the information!!!(this was for 7th and 8th graders!)

Well I am going to just post this. Everytime I try to write on this board my post gets deleted before I submit it. So, I didn't proof it or make sure it makes sense.

If anyone has other educational ideas or fun sheets to download that go with Disney please post!

 

[mom2boys]

I'd love to get on the "list". DH & I have discussed the possibility of home schooling our boys. Our oldest enters middle school this year. Our youngest has one more year of elementary school. My biggest concern is that my youngest is head-strong and since he and I have very similar personalities, I am concerned that it might be too much of a power struggle between him & me.

 

[tigertam]

I found the site to download the Animal Kingdom Lodge Field Guide:
http://www.wdisneyw.co.uk/resorts/aklguide.html

 

[TNKBELL]

Can't wait to add a little Disney to science!!

 

[laceemouse]

Can't believe how long this thread has been going!!! We were out of town last week. We went to Branson, Mo. We had a great time staying in a T/S and meeting my family (from Louisiana) there.....HOWEVER it was so HOT and CROWDED! We scheduled this trip a year ago before we made the decision to pull our 4 kids out of PS. We live in a great school district, but it was just not the right thing academically for some of our kids, and don't even get me started about all the crud my older 2 were exposed to at junior high!!! Anyway, I think that was the last time we will travel in the "school's out" time of year (except that I already have a Christmas trip to VWL booked!) Oh well, from now on it is off-season for us! We will get so much more time out of our DVC points now....WOOHOOO!!!!

 

[westjones]

Anyway, I think that was the last time we will travel in the "school's out" time of year (except that I already have a Christmas trip to VWL booked!) Oh well, from now on it is off-season for us! We will get so much more time out of our DVC points now....WOOHOOO!!!!

To us, one of the best parts of homeschooling (and what I miss the most) is having the flexibility to travel in off season. It is SO great! We always went on the Disney Cruise in September. The prices are LOW and it isn't as crowded (of course, you have to deal with hurricane season, but after 5 September trips on the DCL, last year was our first problem with a hurricane).

Enjoy your time homeschooling!

DJ

 

[Pixiedust34]

You can add me to the homeschool list!

I'm "Kel in MD" on the SL boards.

 

[4girlsmom]

I'd love to be added to the list. I am starting our 1st year of homeschooling in September. I will have a 7th, 4th and 2nd grader, and a soon-to-be 3 year old.

 

[Torontogal]

I might be interested in this. I am a very involved mother of 2 little boys. My oldest is in kindergarten and I am also spending time teaching him at home in order to give him a head start. Also, I am considering a career in teaching and do lots of volunteer work at the school.
Count me in.

 

[jonestavern]

bumping

 

[disneymom3]

I have a question for everybody--where is your favorite place to buy curriculum? My fav for prices is Rainbow Resource. I also love going to our local Northwestern Bookstore to browse. In fact, my birthday is Tuesday and guess what I am doing in the morning? Going to Northwestern and having a cup of coffee while I look at homeschooling supplies! I have just bought and/or bid on a few things on ebay, but then figured with the shipping worked in their, I am barely coming out ahead. Plus, I have not been very diligent and intend to start in Aug--second week--for this year and the English from the Roots up that I bid on doesn't end until next Sunday!! That was not too bright!!

Anyway, where else do you shop? This year, as I have posted previously, we are doing My Father's World, Rome to the Reformation and I have the main components. I am missing a few pieces and I will need to buy Early Bird Math 2A and 2B and Math 3B from Singapore math for the kids.

Okay, and WHAT do you do with a three year old who wants to do paper and pencil based activities??? I have loads of little games and matching the bugs and sorting colors and all that hands on stuff that three year olds are supposed to be doing, but my youngest gets really mad if I just print out one or two pages for him to work on. What a silly little man!! I have used the worksheets on Learningpage.com and I suppose since he doesn't care if he gets them right, I really don't have to worry about what level they are at, but holy toledo, I can't keep up with this kid.

My five year old has been telling me for the last several months that he wants to go to Kindergarten and is quite annoyed that he will be homeschooled. Today it finally occurred to me to ask him why he wants to "go" to kindergarten. He thinks it will be fun to eat in the cafeteria and not at home (I think he is thinking McDonalds here.) ANd he wants to learn more of his shapes. I don't know what shapes are left to learn (though apparently THAT is the problem--if I don't know them, how am I supposed to teach him??) Too funny. Glad I asked!

 

[mamo-4-wdw]

Add me to the list of homeschoolers. My DS15 has been homeschooled for the last 7 years and we love it. I use Alpha Omega Switched on Schoolhouse.It is set up on your computer and it even grades the tests for you.You don't have to "know" everything. I have learned so much just by helping him. We will use the online school for his last two years so he will have a"real" High School Diploma and can even have a graduating class. We are free to do Field Trips (ie Epcot ) any time and he doesn't miss anything when he is . Plus I know who his friends are and their parents. They come to my house and go to our church. This is Mamo from TN

 

[westjones]

Has anyone enrolled in Clonlara? ( http://www.clonlara.org/ )

We are not homeschooling now (did for grades K-4), but if we go back to it, we had thought about using this. Just wondered what others thought of it.

DJ

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I have a question for everybody--where is your favorite place to buy curriculum? My fav for prices is Rainbow Resource.

LOVE rainbow--I use the convention as well--but just b/c i like to touch and feel. But most of our stuff came from rainbow except Math & Spanish & Religion (catholic--RRC doesn't have much in the way of that).

 

[TNKBELL]

I also have a 3 year old(4 in August) I know exactly what you mean, they want to do school too! I purchased some of the K-4 componants from A Beka , the Readiness Skills book and The Art book, these are so fun and simple and gorgeous illustrations and the Art book has adorable easy crafts that develop thier skills of drawing straight lines, coloring, cutting, pasting, painting and there are plenty of "Shape" activities in there as well. Dd really loves this and it's just enough school for her. I also have a 20 month old Ds who has to do school but he likes to color for about 5 seconds then he rips up the paper and colors on the highchair and himself. This is a challenge with homeschooling but I have noticed that my 2nd oldest Ds easily adjusted to homeschool after being around his older brother and they learn so much just from being exposed to the terminology. One funny thing, The boys are memorizing the poem, "The Flag Goes By" the second line is " A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums" Dd3 proudly told Dh, A barrel of beagles a fuffle of bums" We got a good laugh, Hmmm, maybe she needs speech therapy!

 

[dfamily]

I was so excited to see this thread! As many of you have already mentioned it's great to combine 2 of my greatest passions - schooling and Disney! I'm gearing up for 2nd grade for my DS and some pre K stuff with my middle child, DD. Not sure what the 1 year old will be doing other than creating more chaos! This will be our second year using Sonlight. It's great to read about all the other Sonlight users out there. I frequent the forums there, but only lurk! I just ordered core 2 intermediate readers last night. I can't wait to open the big box. I love the classical approach although I can't seem to figure out how I'll handle all the chronological stuff when I have more than 1 doing school. I also LOVE the flexibility of taking vacation whenever it's convenient for our family. Our last visit to the world was in September '04. We're off to Hilton Head soon and I can't wait for all the teachable moments we'll have together there!

We will be formally starting school the second week of August. I'd love to hear about the schedules you follow. Can't wait to check back and see what's being added to this thread.