I've homeschooled for a few years now. So, why do I still feel butterflies when I stare at that first, blank lesson plan form I use?? I started to ponder this when I glanced at the coaster I keep on my desk (for that blessed cup of coffee that gets me going on school mornings). It's a photo coaster but instead of a photo, I have a copy of the verse, 1Peter 5:7. Ahhh, thank you Lord!

I've finally got the schoolroom completely cleaned after a summer of crafting in here and now I only need to get the first 5 weeks of plans done..."only", sheesh! We're starting on September 7th but my husband has next week off so I'd like to get it done before he starts vacation. I love the teaching part, and normally even the lesson plans but that first set of lesson plans still makes me skip a heartbeat. Anyone else have this??

I home schooled one of my sons from the 6th grade on. The company that I received the books from provided lesson plans. Have you tried Google for help? I know that this can be a daunting task but it is all worth it in the end.

Our curriculum comes with lesson plans for each subject but I like to put all the subject's lesson plan on one form for the whole week. It's also great to use that form to schedule in some neat experiments or art projects to help cement what the girls are learning in other subjects. I could go off all the individual plans but I teach two different grades at once, and the form I use is split so I can just glance at one paper for both girls. I also, when making the lesson plans, pull out all of the appropriate worksheets, quizzes and tests that we'll need for that week and put them in a file folder per day. It gets my day going so much better and really doesn't take that long but the first one of the year still scares me sometimes, :lol: .

We home school. I need to get our curriculum loaded onto the computers so my kids can start. I have one loaded but need to do the other two. Also waiting on the younger two's math discs. We do just about everything on the computer-so much easier. I actually don't like home schooling but do it anyway. To me it would be a lot easier to send my kids away for a few hours every day. :mrgreen:

Another homeschooler here :) I have a Senior and a Freshman this year, the years have just flown by! Enjoy every minute, time goes by so fast.

I really love homeschooling and having all that fun. We live in NY and the homeschool requirements are a little frustrating now and then (my girls need to complete more work than the public school kids in our district and I need to file 11 papers per child per quarter!) but I think it's totally worth it all when my girls get that "Aha" look when something new clicks with them. My oldest would probably like the computer work but my youngest wouldn't. So, to make everything even, we do a little bit of both, challenging them to learn from a medium they're not comfortable with while still working with what they do like.

My goodness, that's a lot of paperwork to fill out! Our state's (KY) requirements are not that strict.

I know. It's 11 pages per child per quarter, then at the beginning of the school year I need to file 12 pages per child and at the end of the school year it's another 11 pages per child. We also have to do state tests every other year and do extra work. By state standards, I need to teach foreign language and technology (wood-working) before the sixth grade but public schools aren't enforced in that. Our local school district doesn't teach either class until seventh grade, though they're required to. Other area school districts do that but ours does not. Very frustrating!

On another note, I finished my first week's lesson plan and pulled all the worksheets and workbooks today! YAY! Tomorrow I'll finish the last 4 weeks worth of plans. :-)

This is our 6th year to home school.
I have a second and eighth grader.

I guess I have a different perspective on this. I was homeschooled from 5th grade on. I HATED IT! I hope your children don't feel the way I do ten years after graduation.

My daughter taught her children at home for several years, but last year they tried cyber school instead. She and her husband were happy with the results, and are continuing cyber school this year.

I'm concerned about the socialization that the children miss out on when they are schooled at home.

I homeschooled three children for nine years. They all decided that they would like to try public school, especially to get the diploma, prom, dances, etc. My oldest daughter just graduated from high school, a year early, and is now in the first year of college. My youngest daughter is a sophmore. They have been on the honor roll, straight A's all across the board, and having been named academic achievers every year. We used School of Tomorrow and always started where they left off the year before. There wasn't any planning to it except for field trips, science experiments, gym, etc. Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again.

No way would I have home schooled my kids. I looked forward to having the school days to myself. I didn't drive and they never had a babysitter, except when I was in the hospital, except for school I was with them 24/7, that was the way we thought it was suppose to be.

My husband was homeschooled from 5th grade on as well. He didn't care either way but my girls love to be homeschooled. They have friends in public school and even private school but they like it at home. There were times over the summer when they'd ask me to do some workbooks. It might change as they get older but they're going into 2nd and 3rd grade now and pretty happy. I'm so sorry you had a bad experience.

Each family is different and has different needs. I totally respect each different situation. I was public schooled and was fine with that. Friends of ours send their kids to private school and that's what works for them. Our neighbor's do the cyber schools and they like that. I might do that when my kids get older but for now, I love spending time over the text books with them. And they love the hands on approach. And they have some self work they need to do each afternoon so I quilt while overseeing them doing their self work. It's a little piece of heaven in the afternoons in our house, :D

My kids don't have any desire to go to public school! I wouldn't say they love homeschooling or doing lessons but they love the flexibility and not having to ask or wait to go to the bathroom and being able to have lunch when we're all hungry and being able to do lessons in their pajamas, not to mention getting my full attention when they need help. They all do outside activities so they are around other kids but not all kids their own age. IMO it's better for them to socialize with people of all ages. My kids are very social and can easily converse with younger kids, older kids or adults (which is not a good thing sometimes-we have to reinforce the 'no strangers' rule every so often).

I know this is a joke but it's one I always think about when people talk about socialization:
"My wife and I were also concerned that our children would miss out on the socialization available in the public schools...so once a week we take our kids into the bathroom, cuss at them, push them around, steal their lunch money, and offer them drugs, and that seems to take care of it."

I guess I am much older than most of you... My son just finished his Masters in Public Administration. He had never been to a regular school until he started Jr. College. He loved being home schooled and has great plans to one day home educate his children... We started many years ago when we were really "strange." We had our ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade those years for anything.

I ran across this the other day and thought i was neat.

10 reasons I (Don't) Homeschool
http://www.5kidsandadog.com/2010/08/...nt-homeschool/

And i have to agree, its a lifestyle of learning!

I homeschooled my kids from 1997 till 2004 when my youngest graduated and went to college. It was a lot of work (I also worked part time as an RN during all of it...but it was worth it!

Text books and workbooks are used for cyber school, and the parents still oversee and help the children. Some work is done on the computer, but much of the work is hands-on.

It's so nice to read all of the positive comments about home schooling .

I don't know anything about this topic so I wondered about sports, music, art etc???
How does that work in?

Well, for sports we have a local league of baseball and soccer teams. The baseball leagues are run through all the local churches and each church has a team. The soccer teams are through the three area schools. My oldest is thinking of joining the soccer team next year and I'm stocking up on Neosporin. My girls are taking piano, guitar and lap harp lessons and they have music workbooks. We do buy all the supplies to teach various arts, using various art mediums at home but there's also a local art society that gives art lessons to children and we attend that. The outside programs do help with the "socialization" but I also agree that children need to be able to relate to adults as well. I love to watch my girls easily converse with an elderly friend at church and then turn to a younger child and meet them on their level as well.

OOPS

You just reminded me of something. I went to Catholic schools growing up (Utica NY) and I took a lot of lessons outside the school, for example the art museum etc I was in Girl Scouts and took swimming lessons somewhere else Our school didn't have many extra-curriculars. My brother played baseball through the city as well. Seems we spent way too much time in church when we should have been in school!!!

That is exactly what we did. We were members of a homeschooling group and did field trips about once a month. They now have baseball, basketball, and football leagues for the homeschoolers. The ones around here generally have to have several towns together to have enough people, but they get together once a week. My son took piano lessons and worked part-time. He got together with friends to hunt, target practice, swim, etc. He always stayed busy! When he got to college, he immediately got involved with the Student Government Association and served as V Pres., then President.

I give all of you homeschoolers a lot of credit. When mine were little homeschooling was in its infancy. If I had kids today, I would definitely home school. I would love to see my dgs's home schooled. Maybe if more were, the schools would change for the better.

In the past mine have had piano lessons, they played soccer at out local YMCA, baseball at our YAA, my daughter has been on the swim team at the YMCA, and we also still attend a homeschool co-op where we meet once a week for classes with other homeschoolers. There we have had chemistry, biology (complete with dissections), art, art history we take field trips etc. Its been a very rewarding expericence to be involved with our homeschool co-op.

We had a local co-op but the founders disbanded it when their own gradutated. :-( But, our neighbors have and still are homeschooling 10 of their 11 kids! They've been an inspiration and a shoulder to cry on many times. Some of their kids are cyber schooled, some not. And their youngest has Downs Syndrome so she goes to a program at the public school that helps her with her speech. All three schooling mediums work for them and it's great. We still do the field trips and have lots of fun.

The only "church" based extra curricular activity we have is the baseball league. With the other activities, our girls interract with kids from all walks of life, this side of the tracks and the other. It's heartbreaking sometimes, to see the abused or neglected come in, but I don't want my kids to be blind to what really goes on in this world. Seeing these scenes, they really step up to the plate and learn to reach out to these kids while still treating them like they would anyone else. My heart bursts with pride everytime my daughter's share their snack with a little boy who's parents never make one for him or even come to the classes.

For sports my kids swim at the YMCA, one does dance, and one does Karate (haven't found a 2nd activity for the oldest yet-none she wants to try, anyway). The curriculum we use has electives in Art but we haven't used them. My kids are all very artsy craftsy though, so they do plenty of art on their own. No music though-I never had music in school. If they want to try something I will find an instructor for them.

In NY we have to teach music each year until middle school and then they need a few credits in it then. But our curriculum has the art and music electives so I just buy those. The music elective teaches the children the different notes and how to read a staff. It works for the state and the school district so it works for us, lol! Today I managed to get all 5 week's worth of lesson plans filled out and half of the sheets for those weeks pulled and filed appropriately by day. Tonight I'll finish pulling the last 2 weeks' worth of papers and file those...when I'm not babysitting a 10 month old crawler, lol!

That's funny. :lol:

In Indiana there are no regulations whatsoever. We are supposed to school for the same number of days as the public schools, but the definition of a school day is up to us. If a child is removed from public school a letter of intent to home school has to be filed but otherwise there's no requirement to notify anyone. There's no testing or paperwork requirement either. To tell the truth I wouldn't mind some testing so I could be confident my kids are on track for their grade level.

I wish it were that easy for us. We do have to file an intent to homeschool form each year. And we have to mark the hours we teach and have to have at least the same days as public school and at least 990 hours clocked in one school year. And, I'm required to keep a log of our hours and keep all of their schoolwork so that if the school district comes to us and requests to see something they did 2 years ago, I can show it to them! They rarely do that and I'm sure they have those regulations for those who abuse the homeschooling privelege but my attic is filling up with file boxes, lol.

We homeschooled for kindergarten last year! Absolutely loved it. This year we decided to go with a virtual school - basically public school but at home. I'm really excited about it. We start next Wed and dh is upstairs right now getting the school room ready for this year. Need to make room for the new books and computer!

Re socialization, there have been studies done on this - and actually homeschooled kids can learn fantastic socialization skills. It's easier for them to deal with people of all ages rather than being used to just their peers. It's been fun watching my 5 yo walk up to an adult and start a conversation - and then lead a toddler in some activity.

We also regularly enroll him in art classes and classes at the Discovery Ctr - plus this virtual school has field trips. It's so much fun getting to experience all of this with him!

My husband and I have two sons and we homeschooled this throughout. I am so glad we did. If I had it to do over again I would definitely do it again. I have never regretted it. Now our sons are adults and married. Each have their first child (well actually one is due tomorrow!) and they and their wives say they are going to homeschool. I am so grateful to the Lord--an answered prayer for sure!!