Is there anyone here that home schools?

Hi everyone! We really appreciate all of the good messages and suggestions that everyone has been sending us via PM and regular email. Thank you! Last night, however, our computer crashed and we lost everything and I mean everything!!! All of our 7 month adoption agency , homestudy, and country ---research is gone! We know now----we should have had backup!--Oh well, we will be more alert to this in the future! anyway---we must be gaining patience so we can deal with adoption. Can anyone who emailed us---PM us with the information once again? Unfortunately---we are overwhelmed with what we lost and all the address to who even emailed us. We don't want to put our email address on this message board, but if you have any info. on agencies, homestudy, camps, costs, anything that was helpful- ---please PM us. We are in Missouri and would like to adopt a child 8-15. Sorry we don't know who emailed us personally---so if you don't hear from us, you now know why. We do look forward to hearing from you!! We will be very grateful for any help anyone might have in order to start the process over. Thank you, and have a good day!

I'm so happy to see things are going well for you Brandy! I've been homeschooling for 4 years now and love it! We are adopting a special needs child from India and plan to homeschool her too of course. We use the TJE philosopy of homeschooling. It's kind of an unschooling for the early years, classics mentor approach for the teen years type of philosophy. You can read more about it in the book [Edited To Remove the URL to a Retailers Website]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize it wasn't ok to post a link to the site where you can get the book. I thought it was just adoption agencies that were taboo *sigh* The book is called "A Thomas Jefferson Education for the Twenty-first Century" by Dr. Oliver Van DeMille. Please PM me if you'd like to find out where you can get it.

Hi, I have homeschooled for years, and i actually started a christian school as well. We have used the ACE pace program, and the ABEKA program I like the Abeka program better because they are more challenged and they have videos to help out where the teacher is actually teaching the subject with classroom setting. My daughter wanted to go to high school in a very small classroom setting. So......we moved across the lake and she attends a high school where there are about 25 students in her whole graduating class. I preferred homeschooling over large public schools with alot of peer pressure. If you need more info or phone numbers for ordering material, i will gladly help you. Our state is friendly on homeschooling as long as you educate your child. Maxi

Brandy, Good to hear you're enthusiastic about homeschooling--that is half the battle :) I haven't used Saxon math but many people I know have and swear by it. Also, Handwriting Without Tears has gotten great reviews by folks I know. I have never used a single pre-packaged curriculum, but put things together on a subject by subject basis. I like the Spellwell spelling books and "Key to" math books, both available from Rainbow Resource Catalog. I agree with a previous poster, that getting in touch with other real live homeschoolers in your area may be the best place to start. My experience is that knowing a bit about who someone is and what their goals are for their child help me know whether their recommendations for curriculum materials will work for us. Also, most will be happy to let you see what they use, and you can spare yourself some costly mistakes. Also, 100% of moms I know who pulled their kids out of school later say that they bought WAY WAY too much stuff the first year--in fact, at our homeschooling group's book swap days, I regularly benefit from this phenomena, since I get free hand me downs of the untouched books they bought and never got around to :) Welcome to the world of homeschooling--we love it and are happy to share what we know. Peace, Mal

Brady, don't mean to butt in on your conversation of homeschooling, My daughter has been homeschooled all of her high school years. There is a homeschool called electronic classroom of tommorrrow here in Ohio. (ecot) My daughter has had very good success with it. And it's done all by computer, they supply the computer and give you an allowance each month for the internet service, this way you don't have to worry about any books at all. Just a Thought. They have their own website you can get information there.. Again Sorry for butting in. jswing

I have to young sons and fully expect to homeschools them throughout their primary education. As for cirriculum, be careful. I looked into one company that I had heard spoken very highly of. It was riddled with revisionist history and racial stereotypes. I called the company to comment and was met with "Well it's been this way for 50 years." Obviously! There are a lot of great resources out there. It is great if you can find a homeschool group or co-op in your area. You can search for this stuff online.

I homeschool and it has been a great experience. My daughter is really enjoying it. We use several different programs. The math program I use is Math-U-See. It is a God send. Truely a miricle in math technique. We use Bob Jones Science and Language, cursive and reading curricua by A Becka. My greatest advise is to attend a homeschool conference. I dont know where you are but there is one mother's day weeking in Arlington,tx.

We home school and have used or are still using ABEKA, Rod and Staff, Alpha Omega Lifepacs, Teaching textbooks for Pre Algebra, Daily Grams & Easy Grammer systems, McGuffie Readers, Explode the Code and Alpha Phonics. We mix and match using several different products each year. Good luck on your HomeSchool Adventure!

We're another homeschooling family! I started simple preschool activities with my 3yr old recently. We do a lot of hands on stuff, painting with water colors, sidewalk chalk, nature walks, reading him stories and having him narrate back or answer simple comprehension questions, etc. There are also some great free online resources for homeschooling - especially preschool. Letter of the Week comes to mind. I'm going to be using that website as well as the Weaver preschool curiccula this year, mixed and matched with anything fun I come across. I found a great preschool worksheet book at Sam's Club for about $7 and wipe off activity books that teach sizes and shapes, opposites, tracing letters and numbers, etc. for a few dollars each at our local school supply store. Once our kids are older, we plan to use a relaxed Classical Education approach, probably with Story of the World as the history spine, and a Charlotte Mason/living literature approach to the other subjects. I'm a science geek by training, and am currently teaching science for a local homeschool co-op a couple of afternoons a week, and they are letting me teach science that relates to what they are learning in history/literature (ie, when they learned about ancient Egypt in history, I taught about mummification/anatomy and levers and pulleys used to build the pyramids, the Nile River ecology, and Egyptian flora and fauna in their science class).

Most of the mothers I know that home school use Accelerated Christian Education all the way up to Highschool then switch to Abeka. I have home schooled and public schooled my children. For my LD/ED child Home school was more ideal. I was able to get all my schooling for her free from the recycled book something?

your kids are blessed that you are even considering this option in homeschooling. It has changed my kids...when your children are with you 24/7 they learn self-control and details of how to act etc. My kids are constantly getting compliments....I believe its a GOD thing and all our hard one on one work at HOME.

JNMom, I use ACE and love it. I also use Math U SEE and Abeka. Great curr.

QFMama you're right about hands on schooling. In Australia we saw a hands on [URL="http://www.reptileshows.com.au"]reptile show[/URL] with a company called Snakebusters at a shopping mall (they were there for a week). Certainly a far superior learning lesson than "chalk and talk".

actually i would like to say home schooling is good enough. due to your problem you can do home schooling. best of luck. happy schooling.