Questions about reasons for homeschooling, and homeschooling schedules

[mommy22boys]

Hi,
I've been reading the "why do you homeschool, short and sweet answers" thread. And I know these are the reasons you give to people that ask... but what are your actual reasons for deciding to homeschool?

My DS is 3 and I am planning on sending him to a Montessori preschool until kindergarten and then thinking of starting homeschooling after he is done kindergarten there. I'm just wondering if you homeschooling parents think that it makes sense to send him to preschool when most kids stay home (even children of parents who don't ever want to homeschool) and then homeschool him when most kids go out to school. The reason I want to send him to pre-school, is just I guess to interact with kids his age, he's quite shy, and also to kind of introduce him to learning and school.

Also, what is your schedule like? Do you have the same months of school as public schools do (Sept. to June)? And the same days of the week? (mon-fri) ?

[cappuccinosmom]

Actual reasons to homeshool...too many to list.
A few: Flexibility and freedom, not being held back or pushed forward but rather self-directed, a felt obligation as parents to be their primary teachers and directors of their education, real life socialization (as opposed to classroom socialization), distrust/dislike of the institutional school system, desire for faith to be an integral part of their daily education.


Schedule--we school year round. With the cyber school, their official school year is like everyone else's. But we do other activities throughout the year, and I fill in the summer with supplements and curricula that I've pulled together. The daily schedule: mornings are school, afternoons we do whatever. That will change next year as my son will be doing a virtual classroom setup, so he will have 2 morning hours and 1 afternoon hour where he has to be at the computer. Officially school is Mon-Fri but there's really no reason learning can't happen on the weekends. We do a lot of hiking and nature study on the weekends, and they get continued literature exposure on the weekends through my dad who is reading through all the classics (and more) with them. If they want to learn something, we take the time to learn it, even if it's on a "day off". For instance, my 5 yo is obsessed with figuring out numbers and number systems, so if he wants to spend a drive to the zoo asking me addition problems, it's all good.

[Momma Aimee]

My short and sweet answer is a "summay" of our family educational mission statement. with .

the BIGGIES beign:

* we feel children should not be in a large peer groups all day long, we want to build a better foundation for our boys in God, and Maturity.

* we feel that academics are pushed too hard too young, espcaily for boys and espcailly for our SN boy behind in impuse control and maturity as it is ... double wammy in a bad setting to start.

* I want to be able to meet indivdual educational needs -- I was gifrted and in LD as a child, no one knew what to do with me and i hated school , hated it, hate .. i got good grades and so on one bothered with me, i read rather than caugh trouble so no one noticed me. I don't think my boys would choose to hide in teh coat closet and read when bored and get by like i did.

* we can travel when we want / need to visit far off family, meet the needs of aging parents and to travle with Dh

* DH is FLEO and we worry about safty and secrity in school

the others are iceing on the cake ..

Packard Homeschooling Statement
Mission and purpose

We the parents have the moral and legal obligation to craft, mold, and guide our children into adulthood as functional, ethical, moral and productive people ready and willing to serve God’s Glory and to be productive members of their community and good men / fathers and husbands. Trustworthy, successful, and competent. Deuteronomy 6:7 “You shall diligently teach your children My words as you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

We can, and should, use all resources available to us, such as the state school system, but the end result the responsibility is ours alone. The education of our children is our mandate from God who blessed us with the children, and to Him alone are we ultimately accountable, and to our grandchildren. This not a burden we can, or would choose to, hand off to any other individual or organization.
It is wise to remember that Modern institutional education began only in the last 100 years in American and that this great country was founded through the efforts of those who were schooled at home or in one-room schools; at the time the norm and the expectation for all education. It is also important to remember that Home-educated students typically score 15-30% points above public-schooled students on standardized academic achievement tests. Our intent is for our children to excel when considered with their peers and it is our duty as parents to give them every means necessary to do so.
While we are teaching our children to study, research, and write, we need to remember that they are establishing and perfecting tools that they will one day use to God’s glory. Both tools of knowledge and academic skill as well as tools of faith. Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Socialization:
•Young children are impressionable; we the parents are morally obligated to ensure that the models the children are impressed upon by are worthy.
•Children should not be expected to exercise sound judgment regarding actions and associations independently until they are of an age to be able to make such moral decisions.
•The family must be the most important circle for children till they reach the age of accountability and can be a motivational force within their peer group.
•You cannot effectively compensate for 30+ hours/week of a humanist worldview with a few hours at home when the child is already tired or emotionally done. The influence of the school system on young children is a very serious thing.
•It is very difficult, even impossible, to tell a child the MUST listen to an adult (teach or other) then to tell them NOT to listen / believe certain things that person says, or not to trust that adult or believe him / her on certain issues. That is an unfair situation to place a child in; and will effect child ability to learn anything in that situation.

Goals of Education:
•Generally:
To facilitate an education developing the ability to locate, understand and utilize needed information. To be a fully functional productive member of society that is able to think for ones self and make sound choices and demonstrate the ablity to reason and evaluate data and arguments.
•Specifically
•To read well, critically, for comprehension and for joy. To be able to find and expertly use reading to gather needed information on any topic
•To learn to research and gather information and data confidently and quickly. While evaluating the gathered information for validity and relevance and “trustable”.
•To be a critical consumer of pop culture and the media. To evaluate bias and its effects data offered.
•Confidently express self well orally and in writing, present information clearly and persuasively when necessary
•Be able to successful use a variety of math skills in daily life and for complex reasoning.
•To be able to engage in complex reasoning and use advanced logic in life and professional / academic endeavors
•Enjoy Art and Music and Lit for its intrinsic beauty as well as understanding how it fits into history and expresses and reflects the time period of its creation, as well as how it makes God visible in our daily lives. To recognize and appreciate universal truths.
•Understand history and politics so as to be able to make critical choices and make sense of current events with the end of being a fully participatory member of the electorate and the body politic personally if necessary.
•To understand the scope of science to an extent that allows for an understanding of current event and the working of the world around us. Also to allow for recognition of and respect for God’s inherent design in all.
•To understand the human body, its form and functions and care. To make wise personal choices in lifestyle and personal behavior. To be an educated and wise consume of health care.
•To build a solid foundation in faith and the Word of God. Both as it speaks to our lives in matters of personal choice and faith, and also as Lit and History.
•To be aware of other world religions / schools of thought / faiths. To compare and contrast them with our faith, and with each other. With an eye towards being able to understand others, live tolerantly and to understand world history and politics and current events more completely.

Other:
•No fear of bullies on the playground or being disgraced in front of our social group (class) when you struggle with a subject
•No opportunity to fly under the radar and get by with out truly accomplishing a task or learning information or skill
•Expectations
Age / dev app – not sitting quiet all day at age 5
Achievement – higher personal goals, not dictated by the average of a class of 30 (or even 20)


[lach]

That is our plan exactly. My daughter just did one year in a toddler Montessori program, and next year she will start in the Children's House. We plan on keeping her there through kindergarten, and then bringing her home. We'll do the same with our other kids, too.

My reasons for homeschooling are that I don't think that the curriculum in most schools is intensive enough. There are far too many gaps in what I consider very important subjects. Even though I live in a relatively wealthy district with very good schools, over the past decade the schools have experienced so many cuts in art, music, languages. I feel that I'd be doing so much afterschooling, sending her to a classroom for 6 hours a day seems like a waste of time. There is one private school nearby that I like, but at $25,000 a year that's out of the question. The kids are also well known for being snotty little sh**s, and so I doubt I'd send my kids there even if I won the lottery tomorrow.

[phathui5]

I could write a book about why we homeschool, but I'm at the library watching the boys while dd does her American Girl book club. Maybe I'll add reasons tonight.

As far as scheduling, we go year round, 4-5 days a week.

[laohaire]

I wondered about the preschool-then-homeschool scenario too. We ended up sending DD to the public preschool (not Montessori) because she showed an interest in it, and it seemed like it would be fun. She loved it for a while and then something happened and she didn't want to go anymore. We pulled her out. That's just my story, doesn't mean anything like that will happen for you guys. Also, the big thing is that we don't regret sending her. It was fine. Then when it wasn't working, we stopped. No big deal, no problem.

I don't know if I can express all the reasons we want to homeschool, but suffice it to say it just fits with how we live.

We are unschoolers (not radical, though). We consider it a year-round, every day sort of thing. According to the laws of our state, if we do that we can just do 2 hours a day. But especially for smaller children I see it as a whole-life kind of thing. When we take a trip to visit my parents or in-laws, I see the travel experience as part of it. When we make a pie together, that's part of it. We go out in the backyard together, that's part of it. We buy food locally and visit farms weekly and talk about where all the food comes from, and we do pick-your-own so she knows for a fact where berries and peas and such come from. She has swim lessons at the YMCA. We make puzzles. We read books. If she shows an interest in something, we'll look into it more together. So that's my approach, personally - you can see it's not really a schedule kind of thing for us.

[elizawill]

my short & sweet answer is because it works for us right now. my actual hope is that we will always homeschool though. i never considered any other option honestly. my kids have never been to school in any shape or form. i've never even visited a school to get a feel for it. when we moved into our home, i didn't even consider it important to know what kind of school district or school system we have in the area. homeschooling for our family is such a natural extension of who we already are. it feels very right & i hope it will remain that way for the years to come. if we do ever utilize a "school", i imagine they'd attend a university model. i'm not anti-public school at all though, as i do believe it works very well for many families. just not mine. just not now.

ETA - our schedule is flexible, but most similar to a public school year calendar. our new year begins in mid august and ends in late may. we don't have scheduled spring break or anything, we just take days off as needed. my state requires a lot of record keeping though, so it's nice to take the summer off and just plan for the next year. hth.

[Daffodil]

Why I homeschool:
--School is boring and takes up too much time (and a lot of that time is wasted on activities that have no educational value.)
--School teaches kids not to think or care about whether they're actually learning anything.
--I don't like the emphasis at school on rule following and unquestioning respect for authority.
--My kids can get a more individualized education at home, and can spend more time on their specific interests.
--Homeschooled kids can spend more time outside and get more exercise. It's also easier to make sure they get all the sleep they need if they don't have to go to school.

As far as schedule, we have none. We're not quite unschoolers, but we don't do anything different based on the day of the week or the time of year. We don't have any particular time of day devoted to learning, either.

[CariOfOz]

Actual reasons... well the 'it works best for us right now' is basically it in a nutshell. I started homeschooling my now 8yo when he was in K... I finally got fed up with him being sick ALL.THE.TIME! (weekly, puking, fevers, tummy bugs, etc etc) so half way through the year I talked to his teacher and she thought it was a great idea. We planned to reconsider when grade 1 came around, and at that point decided to keep on for that year as well. Then grade 2... well why fix it if it wasn't broke? Here we are in grade 3 now, with younger brother doing grade 1

Our biggest reasons are:

• Freedom! We did NOT enjoy being tied to a schools calendar
• Health - the boy has been MUCH healthier since being home.
• Choice - he gets a say in what he wants to learn about
• more natural - it's not natural for a small child to be in a non home environment for 6+hours a day. We likely accomplish MORE than public schools, in a fraction of the time. Then they can go be KIDS!

[karemore]

We first decided to homeschool because we live in a beautiful neighborhood that happens to be in a horrible school district.

I researched the private school options and finally decided to consider homeschooling. Once I started reading about all the benefits of home education I was sold. (It was DHs idea, he was already on board)

For us, it was easier not to send DD to preschool. She's fully on board with homeschooling because we've been doing it and talking about it for a couple of years. It's just a way of life for our family. She understands that other kids go to a physical school building, but we do it here. I think it would have been much harder for her to understand why I was pulling her out of school once she was comfortable there. But DD is a very sensitive child who needs extra time to process transitions.

We spend time in our classroom whever it works out. We were in there today because it was a rainy saturday. The weather was nice during the week so we were at the park.

We'll go year round but always stay flexible when friends are out of school.

[MrsJewelsRae]

We have so many reasons why we homeschool, but originally, our primary reason was because we are conservative Christians and we didn't feel right for us to have our children in public school, plus I really did not and do not feel comfortable with having my children away from me at such a young age. Our other reasons include social reasons- we didn't want our children to learn "socialization" from same age peers in the system, not entrusting my children to strangers, introducing children to sex ed far too young imo, too much homework, flexibility of homeschooling, and now that we've been at it a few years- academic reasons. My ds is at a few different grade levels because of his own strengths and interests, he's reading several grade levels ahead and doing math a grade or so ahead, but his spelling, writing and science, etc are all at grade level- he couldn't have this flexibility in public school, not to mention we have SO MANY options for curriculum that suits our and their (the kids') preferences and needs- it's just marvelous! We also feel it helps promote family bonding, my kids get to be so involved with their baby brother and they love it, they would be missing so much if they were gone from him all day. Plus I really feel it's important for kids to have time to be kids, they're only young once, so on nice days we'll sit outside on a blanket and read and read and read, or chuck the books altogether and just play when they are little. I personally feel that my kids have so far gotten a more in depth education while spending far less time "schooling" than traditional public schooled peers. I'm sure there's more but I'll stop there!

My kids didn't go to preschool, I didn't feel it was necessary and they were too young to be away from me for my comfort. We went to the park and they played and interacted with kids there, we'd get together with friends' kids, took swimming lessons, etc. But I certainly have heard of homeschoolers who had their kids in preschool even though they had plans to hs eventually- whatever works for you and your family.

Schedules- we're fairly flexible but we do stick somewhat to public school schedules as far as M-F, I like to get hs done before lunch and we do take it easy during the summer but we don't stop altogether, I don't want them to regress, etc.

[lmonter]

Originally Posted by mommy22boys

but what are your actual reasons for deciding to homeschool?

Also, what is your schedule like? Do you have the same months of school as public schools do (Sept. to June)? And the same days of the week? (mon-fri) ?

My actual reason is because when my oldest was barely 18mo I was having major anxiety issues about sending him to Kindergarten. He's one of "those" busy kids that a teacher would hate to have around, and I guarantee he'd be off in the principal's office at least once a week. He's just constantly moving, asking questions, chattering away, chasing circles (um, yeah, he did and still does wear out a friend's golden retriever, even when she was a puppy), etc.

From there, we just want to be able to tailor how the kids learn to their style (again, my 6yo who doesn't sit still? detests, absolutely detests worksheets/busywork), exploit their interests (oh, you want to learn about volcanoes and the earth's crust and space and and and? no problem!), spend more time together as a family, oh, and not mess as much with our kids' natural rhythms. They go to bed from 8-9 and are up between 7:30-9am. I think the bus rolls by around 7:15-7:30. Only my 4yo so far is a true morning person, the rest of us are happy to just sit and do laid-back stuff in the morning. Add in I want the kids to learn morals and work ethics from us and that kind of thing, there you go.

Schedule... Haven't figured that one out yet. I'm not stressing much about really attempting to get into much until this fall. Hopefully by then I'll either have the hang of the single-mama-of-four thing down and the house in better shape so we can use the basement for schooly projects that right now just constantly clutter up my dining room, or we'll be moved and actually sharing a house in the same state as hubby.
But considering my 6yo has been harping on me about "when are we going to get my homeschool books mommy?" at least every other day, it may be sooner than later, regardless of what the calendar says. And that's the beauty of it - we can start/stop things whenever we want. I think if/when we do get somewhat structured, we'll aim for 4 days a week of things, but again, whatever floats our boat at the time. If the boys want to go ripping through the science book with experiment after experiment with hubby one weekend, hey, I'm all for that.

[mommy22boys]

Thanks for all the replies. You all have got me really looking forward to homeschooling.

Do any of you know what grade you plan to homeschool until? I was thinking just until highschool. Does anyone know of any children or have any experience with what it is like for homeschooled children to start regular school in highschool? Is it hard for them to concentrate in a classroom? Or to fit in with the other kids?

[Grace and Granola]

My ds is 4.5, so we are not officially homeschooling, but I wanted to chime in on the preschool thing. DS1 started preschool at age 3 and that was before I decided to homeschool. He really enjoyed it and he really made leaps socially, in that we worked through some big issues with other kids and came out of it on a positive and mature note. This is his second year of preschool and now, I sort of wish I never sent him. I feel like he has picked up a LOT of attitudes and language from other kids that he never would have had I kept him at home. (and he goes to a very good private christian preschool.) I know I can't shelter him for life, but these are important years for shaping young personalities and attitudes. We're going to get through it, but it's been a rough spot for me. In a nutshell, there have been both good and bad things about preschool, I'm sure just like there is good and bad about most things!

ETA: Also, now that my ds is 4.5 and he knows most of his school buddies are going to kindergarten next year, I'm afraid we are going to have some trouble when he finds out he's not going.

[Momma Aimee]

Originally Posted by mommy22boys

Thanks for all the replies. You all have got me really looking forward to homeschooling.

Do any of you know what grade you plan to homeschool until? I was thinking just until highschool. Does anyone know of any children or have any experience with what it is like for homeschooled children to start regular school in highschool? Is it hard for them to concentrate in a classroom? Or to fit in with the other kids?

Our plan currently is to have the home till 3 to 5th grade -- some place in there.

I have a dear friend who's oldest is a homeschool grad and her next DD is a JR now.

So it is realistic to us to see it all the way though, but that is not what DH wants right now.