*** Homeschool List ***

[TNKBELL]

We were just considering e-schooling, but the strict schedule was one of our concerns. Bleh...I was really hoping to just have an easy year where someone else put together the curriculum...

I was also considering this option, if only everything could be just perfect, well that's only possible in two places...Heaven and Disney!

I need to get my act together and put everything in order!

Julie...that is a GREAT idea about the color card system, I did a similar version only it was all verbal, I think it makes more sense to add a visual to it!! You are a constant source of ingenuity!!

 

[disneyelaine]

This will be my first whole year HS my 10 yr old son. He is on the autism spectrum. I picked Sonlight to use because it is an all in one cirric. We started at the end of last school year and are breaking for summer right now. He is doing hippotherapy for the summer & we are doing hands on stuff, like we just sent away for larvae to watch them form into butterflies.
And we will be going to WDW/DCL in August.

I have an older son still in public school. He is going to be a freshman this fall and is doing fine there, loves marching band. But for my asd son, it was sensory overload and just not a good environment for him.

My goal to reach by Sept is to find a trombone for my Home Schooled son and someone to give him lessons this year! He wants to play trombone!

I'm glad to have a hs list on the DIS Boards!

 

[Tink561]

My oldest son graduated this past May. This next year, which we start on July30, I'll be homeschooling my two younger sons. They'll be in 9th & 10th grades. This year we're trying something completely different. We're doing online classes with the Florida Virtual School.

It's not what people typically think of when you mention charter or virtual school. They are still registered with our state & county as homeschoolers. FLVS is just a curriculum provider. We still report to the county. The advantage is that my sons will be doing work online with teachers who specialize in their subjects instead of me trying to teach things I'm not comfortable with.

We've done a couple of classes in the past but they'll be doing almost all their classes online this year. We're very excited... well as excited as teen boys can be about school.

Now that we have our daughter home and settled, I have to figure out what to do with an 18month old. What type of activities should I do with her?

 

[graygables]

We were just considering e-schooling, but the strict schedule was one of our concerns. Bleh...I was really hoping to just have an easy year where someone else put together the curriculum...

Before I turn anyone off of e-schooling, let me clarify that it didn't work for OUR family because we are on the road so much doing scrapbook shows. Oh, and working in Disney vacations whenever possible.

If it weren't for the heat the charter schools were taking this year over funding, I'm sure they wouldn't have been so persnickity, but they had to be, and I understand that. We just needed a little more freedom to be out of town and offline for more than a few days at a time. We school year round, but they operated on a more traditional schedule, so while I don't usually have an issue getting in our 920 hours, doing it on the school's sessions was more challenging. We also had times that we didn't have internet while travelling, so I had no way of logging hours which became a bit of a bone of contention at times.

So, while it wasn't a good fit for our particular situation, it may still work for you (if you aren't morally opposed to governmental oversight) I'll tell you, having a free computer, free complete curriculum (K12), and free internet connection was NICE and will be sorely missed.

 

[Harmoniebreeze]

hi! I don't know how I missed it, but I have never seen this thread before today. anyway I a new to homeschooling. I have completed K with my just turned 5 year old and it was a HUGE success. We will be starting 1st grade as soon as we get back from WDW. I also have a 2 year old and the older she gets the harder it is to homeschool my older one!

Right now we have the calvert 1st grade program which I feel will suit us fine. I am a former El. teacher so the more traditional the program is ....the more comfortable I am. I am still searching for a math program that will be fun and challenging for her.

Having a group would be a wonderful resource...most of my friends and family think we are just crazy for doing this! I must say for a second I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but the more she learned the more confident I became that this is what is right for us.

I would love to join and any advice anyone has for me would be great!

 

[FinallyBoughtDVC]

I will be homeschooling for the first time ever. I will be hsing my youngest - dd who will be 9 in September. My middle guy is 14 and having a great experience in MS - so we'll leave him there for one more year (my oldest has already graduated high school).

I decided to pull my dd out of our top-rated, highly sought after public school because of the ridiculous emphasis put on standardized testing. I have seen the rich and wonderful curriculum that my boys were lucky enough to experience decimated by this ridiculous need to place in the #1 spot on Long Island year after year.

I have worked on a theme for the year - based mostly on topics she would be learning in school (just in case we both hate hsing and she needs to go back) but with a richer, more in depth appeal. I have pulled in a bunch of different resources, including lesson plans found online (what a plethora of choices), incorporating themes across the curriculum (we're doing New York State for social studies and using NYS based literature for reading and writing and NYS ecological and geological features for science, etc.).

Traveling to various locations will be a big part of our education (we CAN'T wait to hit the rain forest unit study in COSTA RICA)!

Anyway - I feel fortunate that I can do this. My dd is so excited - the whole family has decided this will be an adventure taken on by all of us. I did just order a bunch of books/curriculums from a hs website. We are not doing any type of christian curriculums, so I won't be able to review any of those.

I'll post as often as I can as to where we have our successes, what books/plans worked best, etc.

She has been at sleepaway camp since June 22nd and will be home this Sunday. We will start class on July 30th. She is very excited to know that her first quarter will be over shorter after her friends just begin their school year!

Good luck to everyone and their children - best wishes for lots of learning and lots of fun!

 

[disneydreamin-gang]

re-checking back in ourselves. We have decided to leave e-schooling (too many constraints on our time) and are reverting to traditional homeschooling. Because of the way our lives are at the moment, we went with Switched On Schoolhouse for this year, which I'm hoping isn't a huge mistake. DDs are both very computer-oriented and do well with learning most things on their own. It is a bit of a shock to our system, though, having to pay for everything ourselves now. Too bad there isn't a tax break for people who choose to homeschool...

We used SOS for 4 years. I loved it. She did the work and I checked in everyday to see what she needed to repeat or fix. No planning or trying to figure out grades. The program did all that for me. The problem was DD is ADD/Bipolar and was overloaded with information. So we are trying Charlotte Mason method this year. It seems to be less formal and more on learning basic subjects. After 16 years homeschooling and 3 graduated I need something less complicated.

I'm sure you will love SOS.

 

[Tink561]

We used SOS for 4 years. I loved it. She did the work and I checked in everyday to see what she needed to repeat or fix. No planning or trying to figure out grades. The program did all that for me. The problem was DD is ADD/Bipolar and was overloaded with information. So we are trying Charlotte Mason method this year. It seems to be less formal and more on learning basic subjects. After 16 years homeschooling and 3 graduated I need something less complicated.

I'm sure you will love SOS.

What are you using to implement the Charlotte Mason method? We've used parts of Ambleside over the years. That is what I plan to do completely with my dd when she is ready for school.

 

[disneydreamin-gang]

What are you using to implement the Charlotte Mason method? We've used parts of Ambleside over the years. That is what I plan to do completely with my dd when she is ready for school.

I'm sorry what is Ambleside? I have never heard of it. I bought books by Queen publishing. I met Sandy Queen at our convention and loved her. She was very helpful. I bought the lang arts she wrote, the books Pagoo, the Oak Tree, Ben and I and Tirza. That pretty much covers everything except math. I bought different programs for them as math seems to be DD hardest subject. I want to take it slower with her so she can grasp it. She gets frazzled pretty fast and once she is frustrated I cant seem to get her back on track. DS loves math but hates reading so i have ABecka readers for him. I can supplement lang for him from Sandy Queen. If I can get them to love learning I have half the battle won.

 

[Tink561]

I'm sorry what is Ambleside? I have never heard of it. I bought books by Queen publishing. I met Sandy Queen at our convention and loved her. She was very helpful. I bought the lang arts she wrote, the books Pagoo, the Oak Tree, Ben and I and Tirza. That pretty much covers everything except math. I bought different programs for them as math seems to be DD hardest subject. I want to take it slower with her so she can grasp it. She gets frazzled pretty fast and once she is frustrated I cant seem to get her back on track. DS loves math but hates reading so i have ABecka readers for him. I can supplement lang for him from Sandy Queen. If I can get them to love learning I have half the battle won.

Ambleside is a curriculum written that is very much in line with Charlotte Mason. It uses classic literature and has weekly schedules. It is based on how she taught and uses some of the same books as well as some more modern books. It is free to use. You just need your books and lots of those are available to print online for free.

You can do a google search for Ambleside Online

 

[antree]

Count me in DS5 starts school this year and I am so undecided on to home school or not.

 

[Blackunicorn]

...So, while it wasn't a good fit for our particular situation, it may still work for you (if you aren't morally opposed to governmental oversight) I'll tell you, having a free computer, free complete curriculum (K12), and free internet connection was NICE and will be sorely missed.

Actually, I am kind of opposed to government oversight, but I'm getting kind of desperate. I *wanted* Oak Meadow, I though my husband and I agreed, but he recently announced that if he didn't find a different job by the end of the year we'd be short $400 a month. Sooooo...either I get a job, or I find another curriculum solution. I know I can assemble my own curriculum, but our son is 13, and I really wanted *someone else* to figure it out for me.

 

[disneydreamin-gang]

Ambleside is a curriculum written that is very much in line with Charlotte Mason. It uses classic literature and has weekly schedules. It is based on how she taught and uses some of the same books as well as some more modern books. It is free to use. You just need your books and lots of those are available to print online for free.

You can do a google search for Ambleside Online

WOW! I checked it out. I had no idea there was such a thing. The stuff I bought from Queen Publishing is pretty much the same thing. All the dictation, copy work are in the lang books. the other books are the reading, science and history with everything laid out in daily lessons.
Thank you for the information. I will certainly look at it closer for next year.

 

[fortheluvofpooh]

I would LOVE to HS my DD(6), I think she needs it. I used to be satisfied with our public school but now realize I was wrong. My DS (11)is smart , so I thought, but now I feel that the school is letting the kids down. They don't do near as much work as the neighboring school districts. other schools have at least one report a month that the children do, not ours. my son has had 1 YES 1 report to do his entire schooling. Sadly I realize though that I do not have the time it takes to dedicate to homeschooling, ( I babysit 3 children, have 3 of my own and take care of my aging mom). I will though work with all of my children on my own and have them do reports and worksheets at home. So many nights last yr my ds had NO homework. Not this yr, I will see to it. I just wish I had researched the schools before we bought the house.

 

[FinallyBoughtDVC]

Well - I just completed my daughter's IHIP. Whew - that was a workout. At first it was so daunting, but now that it is done I feel like we have a clear plan of what we have to do, what we need to accomplish, how exactly we are going to get there and a time frame within which to complete it all.

I'm going to hand deliver it to the school today, as I still have not received acknowledgment from our "intent to home school" letter we filed July 1st (they had 10 business days to respond). I think we may very well be the first family to decide to hs in our district - so, they may not be all the familiar with the protocol...not to worry, we'll teach them!

In any event - any other NYers HSing?

 

[emh1129]

This will be our first year homeschooling. Ds will be in kindergarten and I have no idea what I should try, curriculum-wise. We really just need to stick to the basics for this year, I think, so I don't know if we even really need a curriculum. Any ideas?
My ds has a lot of attention-span issues, so that makes it a bit challenging.
Thanks for any help

 

[meandtheguys2]

My wiggler liked Miquon Math at that age. It wasn't labor intensive, but was interesting! And cost just a few dollars.

Read away to the little guy, and get something simple like Alphaphonics for phonics, and enjoy your year playing with legos, coloring, doing science experiments, etc.

My humble opinion!

I hope you enjoy your first year!

 

[Ellester]

This will be our first year homeschooling. Ds will be in kindergarten and I have no idea what I should try, curriculum-wise. We really just need to stick to the basics for this year, I think, so I don't know if we even really need a curriculum. Any ideas?
My ds has a lot of attention-span issues, so that makes it a bit challenging.
Thanks for any help

Have you looked at Five in a Row? It is such a nice, gentle introduction to learning. It's also very inexpensive, especially if you utilize the library. http://www.fiarhq.com

We also enjoyed Miquon, although we are using Math U See now. My dd5 just finished up MUS primer and really enjoyed it. You have a fun year ahead!

 

[jaycns]

Hello (again) fellow DIS home schoolers and new home schoolers!!

I am sorry to have been gone so long. Being that we are currently about a month and a half from our WDW trip , the planning threads have been strangely alluring.

And I would once again like to thank you guys for turning me on to Sequential Spelling...my once struggling speller has improved by leaps and bounds. I am so very pleased with the program! Thank you so much for the recommendation!!

 

[meandtheguys2]

Have you looked at Five in a Row? It is such a nice, gentle introduction to learning. It's also very inexpensive, especially if you utilize the library. http://www.fiarhq.com

We also enjoyed Miquon, although we are using Math U See now. My dd5 just finished up MUS primer and really enjoyed it. You have a fun year ahead!

We went from Miquon to MUS, also. I forgot about FIAR! We had a ball with that. Although I sometimes had a hard time stretching it through the week!