Single mom homeschooling for Kinder

[thefragile7393]

I will be working 3.5 days a week, and I will have 3.5 days to home school.....or more time maybe after I get home from work.  This means I want to home school my son.  I'm a single mom...dad lives in another state. 

Basically I'm wondering what would be best for our situation....a box curriculum like Calvert, virtual school like K-12, or something along the lines of Rainbow Resource's Kinder curriculum which is just books and thats it.

Because of my situation I'm afraid I may have to put him into public school if this does not work out or if it's obvious that I'm not doing well teaching him.  This is why I wanted to use Calvert or K-12, so just in case this happens he will (hopefully) be able to transfer credits smoothly.  HOwever I'm hearing that these take a lot of time, which is fine except for the 3.5 days I will be working and unable to do anything until 7 pm at night, when he might be not so receptive to schooling.  So then I thought of Rainbow Resource's kinder curriciulum that meant we could go at our own pace but....there's nothing to back up what I'm doing.  We live in AZ so we have pretty liberal HS laws.  I'm not sure what sort of schooling the public system will accept as "valid" (and unsure where to look online, HSLDA isn't helpful). 

I know Kinder isn't official and a big deal to most schools or most people.....but again I'm only thinking about this because he might have to transfer mid year...or next year.  We don't do a lot right now.....we use JumpStart, PBS Kids, Math and Reading Blaster, a kinder level math workbook I found at a school supply store, some cut and paste 1st grade science, Before Five in a Row, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and a Summer Bridge general workbook (not all at the same time lol).  So I guess I'm wondering what any advice or suggestions y'all might have.

[maeby]

I know its not homeschooling really but have you looked into connections academy?

[thefragile7393]

Connections and K12 are extremely similar.  That one I haven't looked into because a friend of mine had trouble transferring her credits when she went back to brick and mortar school.  I know I guess it's not technically homeschooling but because I have little money at the moment, it has to be an option.  I may look into Connections anyway, but I still have the same questions I had about using K12, because I wasn't sure if there were time constraints that would make homeschooling harder because of my work schedule

[etsdtm99]

i really wouldn't worry so much about 'transfering credits' with a K student, esp. mid year - they are giong to work him into a public school if thats what you need .. if you are worried about that - check with the schools before hand, ask them what would be required , maybe don't tell them who you are and just feel them out .. they might be very relaxed about it ..  I would also suggest looking at what the public schools expect of kindergarteners.. it sounds like you're doing a lot already and maybe he is already 'ahead' ..  I'm planning for K right now (pasting bits of thigns together based around a letter of the week theme) and i expect it to take about an hour a day..  we're giong to keep an alphabet journal and a daily journal where we talk abotu letters, sounds, practice writing etc -   for reading we're starting with the Bob books.  we're going to do one science experiment a week (all found online by searching for K science activities, some are more like cooking some are regular science) and 2 math hands on activities. (also found by google) ..i took the site word list for K and preschool and i got flashcards at the dollar store and we'll do 2-3 a week and put them up on the wall ..   Target and the dollar store have workbooks and flash cards and stuff for 1$ .. if we wanted to we could easily fit all that we're doing into 3 days a week, or maybe 3 days plus 10 mins before bed for reading . .. we have acutally thought about doing that..  of course - i don't know if this will all WORK lol.. but i didn't want to be tied to something like k-12 or calvert ..

[thefragile7393]

Yeah looking at K12...it does not look like it will work, as you have to log in at least 2 hours every day....which would be ok if I didn't get off at 7 at night and I really don't know if a 5 year old would want to do 2 hours of work that late.

Calvert may be the same way, don't know.

Time4Learning.com was recommended to me but I'm not sure how thorough it is....it could be an idea.  But honestly just getting the Kinder starter package from RainbowResource.com might be the easiest way to do it, that way we cover stuff at a pace that works for us.  I'm still open to ideas however lol.

[bandgeek]

I work part-time and homeschooled my DS for K.  I looked into the on-line schools but honestly couldn't fathom how that would work with our schedule.  I just did what I could, when I could.  I focused mainly on the basics (reading, writing, math) and then just threw in whatever science and history stuff interested him.  He's mostly working above grade level now.  One thing that helps to make up for lost time is not taking off when public schools take off.  There's no need to stop teaching during 2 weeks in december and 3 months in the summer, know what I mean?  We slowed down during those times but never stopped entirely.  I've never used a curriculum so I don't know if it's something that would work for us.  I didn't feel it was necessary for K.  I just checked out some books from the library and went from there.

[thefragile7393]

Staci and Shauna you've both made some good points.  AZ requires reading, writing, math, science, and social studies....I think I could easily find all that in the Rainbow Resource package, which basically would be going at our own pace and just kind of doing what you both are doing.  It might be the best route for him.  Because it's easy here (we file and affidavit and that's it....no portfolios, standardized tests, etc) it should hopefully work.  If not, well, I can say I tried.  Shauna do you still homeschool?