Home School Q&A

[Deleted member 12999]

Bump... it's around that time. It's never too late if you have questions.

We pulled our kids out Xmas break when we first started.

 

[browncoat]

This is a cool thread. I was homeschooled myself, all the way through to college, and my wife and I are planning to homeschool at least until high school when we have kids. It is certainly not easy, but the individualized education that dedicated, well-educated, parents can give their kids is something that is very hard to duplicate in a classroom.

 

[Greschner 4]

My cousin and his wife (both Princeton grads) did home schooling for their 3 up until high school. If you have the tools, it's something to strongly consider for all the obvious reasons. Oh yeh, 2 of the kids graduated from high school (Univ of Penn/ Yale Medical School & Annapolis). Not bad.

 

[NHAtHeart]

Bump... it's around that time. It's never too late if you have questions.

We pulled our kids out Xmas break when we first started.

Hi Roland,

Have you come across a curriculum that you think would be good for young children? My oldest is 3 and we have been ad-hoc teaching her at home. I'm pretty certain we will be homeschooling our kids as I feel like public school doesn't do a good enough job teaching children. My daughter can read and spell simple words (dad, mom, sad, her name) and do basic math (1+1->5+5 etc). I think at this point if we did send her to a pre-school or kindergarten she would be extremely bored and probably act out.

 

[Deleted member 12999]

Like I said in OP there is a big religious subculture in homeschooling, but that has faded a little. I'll get you some links to some good stuff. Wife started with Seton (a popular catholic curriculum). I hated it, but it was good for a first timer. We're done with it this year and going a LA carte for all of our books.

Teaching Textbook in particular for math

 

[xcom]

Like I said in OP there is a big religious subculture in homeschooling, but that has faded a little. I'll get you some links to some good stuff. Wife started with Seton (a popular catholic curriculum). I hated it, but it was good for a first timer. We're done with it this year and going a LA carte for all of our books.

Teaching Textbook in particular for math

We used Seton as well and we liked it. However, for math, Saxton is the way to go in my opinion.

 

[browncoat]

We used Seton as well and we liked it. However, for math, Saxton is the way to go in my opinion.

Definitely second Saxon math. I used their curriculum through calculus, and went on to get a BA in math as an undergrad. Saxon math prepared me well.

 

[Deleted member 12999]

We looked at Saxon too... but this was really interesting and our son like the software component

http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/

 

[Cartoons]

This is a good resource for different home school curriculums: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805431381...=UTF8&colid=10G6WARV3M1ON&coliid=IH7MS5ZO5WBF

Cheers,
Tony P.

 

[NHAtHeart]

Anyone have a good recommendation on a kindergarten curriculum? I've heard the Abeka stuff is pretty good...

 

[kevin9]

Anyone have a good recommendation on a kindergarten curriculum? I've heard the Abeka stuff is pretty good...

We roll our own, pick and choose from different programs for different subjects and grades. One consistent piece has been Math-U-See for math. Very logical, hands-on, teaches the principles not just rote memorization. The starting level, Primer, should be good to start with for kindergarten.

 

[pastera]

Anyone have a good recommendation on a kindergarten curriculum? I've heard the Abeka stuff is pretty good...

A Beka is very good - my kids were in private school using the A Beka curriculum.

Contact HSLDA to join and then get in touch with a local co-op.

 

[Al-Jim19]

Read through this thread - very interesting.

Im a history teacher, public school, licensed for grades 5-12. I definitely recognise a lot of problems I've encountered in my school I work in. Only been teaching 2 years but it's been enlightening to see the real thing after having gone through school and then to college to be a teacher. I'm not a pro yet but I try my best. I guess my question is for parents in this thread and also those who choose to homeschool: ultimately, what can be doing as a teacher to give your child a better experience in school? Broad, I know, but maybe it can help me get better as a teacher and help your kids.

 

[kevin9]

Good for you AJ19 for wanting to do your best. Unfortunately most of the things that make homeschooling effective are likely beyond your control, such as low student-teacher ratios, individually customized curriculum, freedom from administrative and politically correct BS, integrated life and learning, etc. The amount of overhead in public schools, in every sense of the word, is a big killer to real education.

That said, I think first would be to give your students as much individual attention as possible, treating them as unique individuals with individual strengths, weaknesses and learning styles. Secondly, I think you should try to enlist their parents as allies in their education. Good luck

 

[Deleted member 12999]

Good for you AJ19 for wanting to do your best. Unfortunately most of the things that make homeschooling effective are likely beyond your control, such as low student-teacher ratios, individually customized curriculum, freedom from administrative and politically correct BS, integrated life and learning, etc. The amount of overhead in public schools, in every sense of the word, is a big killer to real education.

That said, I think first would be to give your students as much individual attention as possible, treating them as unique individuals with individual strengths, weaknesses and learning styles. Secondly, I think you should try to enlist their parents as allies in their education. Good luck

^^ This. There are going to be so many parental and family unit problems that will be out of your control. Good luck.

For math we started using Teaching Textbooks, which has been pretty decent for our needs. Wife is setting up some type of online science stuff for this upcoming year.

 

[Cartoons]

We roll our own, pick and choose from different programs for different subjects and grades. One consistent piece has been Math-U-See for math. Very logical, hands-on, teaches the principles not just rote memorization. The starting level, Primer, should be good to start with for kindergarten.

Another vote for Math-U-See. I hear they've also developed a phonics program as well.

Cheers,
Tony P.

 

[pastera]

Read through this thread - very interesting.

Im a history teacher, public school, licensed for grades 5-12. I definitely recognise a lot of problems I've encountered in my school I work in. Only been teaching 2 years but it's been enlightening to see the real thing after having gone through school and then to college to be a teacher. I'm not a pro yet but I try my best. I guess my question is for parents in this thread and also those who choose to homeschool: ultimately, what can be doing as a teacher to give your child a better experience in school? Broad, I know, but maybe it can help me get better as a teacher and help your kids.

You can't do anything and that is the honest truth.

The problem with education is not the student/teacher ratio or the money per student, it's the parents that believe the school is responsible for their children.

If your students have active, engaged parents then you will have great students. And, for the record, active and engaged does not include the ones who insist little snowflake can do nothing wrong and deserves an A for not drooling on his papers.

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