Thanks for the info, I'm trying to decide what to do and would appreciate any view points about virtual charter schools, The program we are looking at uses the K-12 homeschool curriculum it requires testing for grades 3rd and up.
We are considering it due to the cost of homeschooling and then supplimenting it with Religion, Latin and a writing program.
Please tell me what you all think.
TNK--Overall I have been very impressed with the curriculum through K12. I have a friend who used it and she liked it overall. However, for me there is way too much oversight. I don't need someone to tell me the way to teach my kids, when and how much they should learn. While it is a lot of work, I would rather do it myself. I have found this last year that I really need to not get fancy which in turn brings up my costs. I started the year using WinterPromise which sounded great, but didn't fit my kids well and ended up costing a fortune. I am now using the History of US books with activities from various books I have gotten from the library. Much cheaper adn I am covering the same thing.
Sane thing with math. I was thinking I would put my boys in Moving with Math for three years each. NOw I have done Kindergarten with them, and I use the Lakeshore Learning catalog to see their ideas for good math topic picture books, request them from the library, do some workbook activities and play games out of Peggy Kaye's Games for Math. DD I am moving into Teaching Textbooks one of these days soon, but in the meantime she is doing Singapore math which is one of the cheapest out there and I feel very throughough.(I never know how to spell that!
)
Maybe if you gave us some ideas of what you are using the great minds
on here could find some ideas for you to keep costs down. I am just one of those people who don't want to give the school system so much control. Though I was tempted to sign up for MNVA too.
As for the HSLDA article, I will do Sha_lyn's job here
I think you have to be careful about the source of the study. HSLDA is VERY against virtual schools, so they sure wouldn't post an article in support of them. Not saying at all that they made it up or anything along those lines. I am a member of HSLDA, but I still think their view may be slanted.
TheRatPack--that is one reason I don't believe in tests.
DD gets all nervous when she has a "test." Heck, I even dropped spelling this year because I was sick of all the drama!
Well, that and that she was too high for her comprehension level and didn't know what the words she was spelling meant!
Decided we needed more of a focus on vocabularly in our lives.
I think the recommendation I have come down to for new homeschoolers is to cover your basics--reading, which may entail grammar, spelling, and writing as well as phonics if you need it still, math and something for science. (Janice Van Cleave has the most awesome activity books!) And then read, read, read. I have found that the books we are reading for history about the time period we are in have had much more of an impact than anything else.
I'm sure this was a very tough decision, but I wish you and your boys the best. It will be interesting to see what they think of school now that they've been homeschooled. I'd love to hear how it goes for them.
