ps to hs - tell me your successes!

[Rose-Roget]

Ds is 6, in 1st grade at a public school.  I'm strongly looking to hs him starting this semester or next year.  I'm interested to hear people's stories about what made them move from a "traditional" to hs education and their successes.  TIA!

[Abraisme]

[octobermom]

 Well not entirly PS to HS but I moved my current 2nd grader from a trational brick and motar charter school to our states Virtual Academy at home. SO far its be amazing. I love being able to see jsut how shes learns pacing things for her speed, actually being able to commucate with her teacher our dasy are much less stress no picking up an over tired over hungry child after 3pm only to have to then fight her for and hour or more of homework. I'm more relaxed shes doing great its jsut been well great.

Deanna

[Googy]

I pulled DD out of public school first grade this October.  She and I are both very happy homeschooling.  In fact, she announced to me several weeks ago that she wants me to homeschool her "forever."  She is learning *so* much more and is so much less stressed, so much happier than she was when she went to public school.  It has been a very positive experience for us. 

[inky leeuhhh]

well, we haven't tried ps at all, but dd (1st grade) has been doing great with hsing so far. i love having input into what/where/ when/ how she's learning, and i know she works much better here than she would at school. i can't imagine her in a desk all day long in a class full of other kids. she seems to be learning well (although again i can't compare to ps because we haven't been there), and she enjoys learning. she looks forward to school time most of the time! she asked me all day today when we were going to do school (we hs on weekends and weeknights because i work weekdays). anyway, yeah. hoping it works out for me to stay home ft pretty soon here so we can continue with this next year as well!

[Rose-Roget]

Octobermom and Googy - how did your dd's deal with the initial idea and transition of moving their learning to home?  It sounds like they love it now, but how did they feel initially?  Do you mind sharing some of the reasons you decided to move them at the times you did?

Inky - Where does your dd go during the weekdays when you work?  I've been trying to figure out whether I could work part-time and hs, too, but I don't know what to do with ds.  Most home/center daycares seem set up to receive the older kids after school.

[mom2ponygirl]

My dd was 5.5 when we pulled her out of Montessori.  She would have turned 6 after the summer and a month or so into K in public school.  One of our reasons initially for homeschooling was the public schools insistence that she enter in K.  She had completed K and more at Montessori and her b-date was only 10 days past the cut-off.  We felt that repeating K would have driven our dd a little crazy during the academic portions as she was reading chapter books and doing double digit multiplication. 

For the first few weeks, she felt a little strange not being around a pack of kids all day.  She knew most of the kids had scattered to various elementary schools, so she didn't really lament the loss of any particular friend.  She missed one assistant teacher, Mr. Dylan.  However, we were lucky enough to run into him several times around town and the university campus (where I work).  They would visit and he would say, homeschooling is cool!   She kept a little contact with a few Montessori friends, made several new homeschool friends, and a new neighborhood friend, all pretty quickly.  She felt odd saying she homeschooled for a little while.  I think because I tended to say we homeschooled sort of apologetically.  Once I felt confident in our choice and would announce it loud and proud, she gained confidence as well.  :-)

We started with a virtual academy.  It was not a great fit for us, but it helped me figure out what we needed to do.  I tend to be a bit of a box checker, so a complete curriculum with tons of boxes to check wasn't a great idea. LOL  She would already know the concepts, or pick them up quickly, but I felt the need to do the activities in the lessons.  We quickly became more eclectic in our approach and relaxed in our style.  So we withdrew from the VA that first year and went on our own.  Since those first few months our dd has always had a voice in what we study and how.  I do tend to include curriculum choices for some things as my work restricts my time available for resource searching.  She now does a mixture of online classes, independent exploration of topics of interest, some textbook type stuff we go through together, history book discussions with my dad, etc.  We are whatever works homeschoolers. 

We are 7 years into homeschooling now and we love it.  I have always worked part-time while homeschooling.  We had some grandparent help in the beginning and she has always been able to come to work with me at least a little.  One year she did an all day once a week homeschool co-op (options to pay or teach for part of payment) so I could work.  Last year she actually attended a charter high school half-time while I worked.  (Yep, she was 10 turning 11 doing high school classes)  After never attending conventional school, you know how long it took to learn how to deal with school routines, taking notes, organizing assignments, etc.?  No time at all!  She got along great with the kids (they had an 8th grade so a small collection of 12/13 year olds as well as older high school students).  She made high 'A's.  She discovered she really wanted to homeschool until college though.  At 12, she hangs out at my work and has interesting conversations with the grad students and postdocs.  She sometimes stays home a couple hours alone - with a retired neighbor and close friend 2 minutes from the door.  She has facebook friends from a couple of her online classes from all over the country.  She has several girl friends locally that are her age - half homeschool and half of them attend school.  

I think the social scene may get tough for the next few years.  More of her homeschool friends are heading to school and her in school friends are getting pretty busy schedules.  We will work hard to keep those connections going.  We have offered returning to school, but at this point she has no interest in anything other than a few online classes she likes and perhaps a dual enrollment class at the university next year.  I worry at times about taking such a different path, but I see a very happy tween who loves learning and loves her life.  We can't be screwing up too badly!  LOL

[octobermom]

 We had talked abotu it with my DD for a while. While we liked her school and she was excelling DH and I were concerned with some gaps and we wwere getting some annoying behavior issues (nothing horrid )  that we knew were could work through better at home. The biggest change though is we bought a  home (set to close soon we pray) its on the other side of town way closer to DH work BUT completely to opposite dirrection to her school. It would mean eaither me getting her to and from school everyday which is difficult with a baby (DH used to drop her off on his way to work) or the bus which would mean  over 2 hours a day on one. Her not being home till close to 6pm and having to be at a remote bus stop by 6:45am.. Umm no thanks.. So  the idea of HS and using the VA was born. Orginally we thought sh'd finish out the year and we'd deal with the drive for the semester but DD wanted to start now and we figured it be a good idea give us soem time to adjust and might make the move easier. Not one tiny regret in that decession.

 THE ONLY SLIGHT "BATTLE we have had was they started her at the begining of the second grade instead of mid year, not cause they were trying to put her back but because they were no sure where she really was..So for the first few weeks I jsut ran her through these "assessments tests" to give her the credit and move her along which meant we'd complete up to 5 subjects a day in like 20 mintues total, I'd manage to stretch out the day a bit with reading nature walks ect but she was getting thsi idea the school work would  always be super fast and super simple. One we got to where she needed to do a bit more and caught up with the "class" shes kinda rebelled.. But we  jsut stayed patient explained why and helped her work it through and that passed.  and she didn't go from a 30 mintue day to like 8 hours or something it ws more like shes now had to actually spend about 20 mintues PER lesson  and we tend to hit 4 core things a day.
My DD was 

Originally Posted by Rose-Roget 

Octobermom and Googy - how did your dd's deal with the initial idea and transition of moving their learning to home?  It sounds like they love it now, but how did they feel initially?  Do you mind sharing some of the reasons you decided to move them at the times you did?

Inky - Where does your dd go during the weekdays when you work?  I've been trying to figure out whether I could work part-time and hs, too, but I don't know what to do with ds.  Most home/center daycares seem set up to receive the older kids after school.

[Googy]

Originally Posted by Rose-Roget 

Octobermom and Googy - how did your dd's deal with the initial idea and transition of moving their learning to home?  It sounds like they love it now, but how did they feel initially?  Do you mind sharing some of the reasons you decided to move them at the times you did?

 At first she was opposed to the idea because she liked the social aspect of school.  To be fair, she did not spend all day sitting at a desk or anything like that, had plenty of play time and fun with her friends there.  But she was also bored out of her mind academically and there were some girls who were being really catty, a boy who kept exposing himself to her, and another boy who kept beating her up on the playground.  So after a while she had basically had it and was much more open to leaving school.  Though to be honest, my DD was also diagnosed with an immune disorder, so we also pulled her out in an attempt to keep her healthy--we explained this to her and she totally understood.  Obviously you won't have that factor in there.  Mind you, we were talking about pulling her out anyway, but the health issue was a convenient, albeit unfortunate, excuse. 

We also "softened the blow" by immediately enrolling her in a bunch of homeschool social activities.  We signed her up for a homeschool girl scout troop, homeschool gymnastics, an ASL class, etc.  Once she realized that she would have lots of fun time with friends while homeschooled, she totally bought in. 

Now she has had some time away and told me that she realizes how unhappy she was when she was at school, and that she really prefers homeschooling and doesn't want to go back to school.  I think it helps that our curriculum is really fun and engaging too.  She really loves what she's learning.  Though, again, to be completely honest, I think she also knows on some level that due to the immune disorder she does not have the energy to get through a school day either. 

[octobermom]

I was born with multiple heat defects  I under went surgury twice before entering Kindergarden and still have issues surrounding them even today. (though much better) my parents enrolled me in K just 3 months after open heart surgury not cause they were mean but I was the right age and they thought it best. They forever regret it. I did fine academically I got alone with my classmates but I jsut didn't have the energy even for 1/2 day programs.

Deanna