Any Homeschoolers in Edmonton, Alberta?

[bass chick]

I am hoping to connect with some homeschool AP families in the Edmonton area. I live in South Edmonton. I have 2 boys: 5 and 7 years old. I have tried the yahoo groups, but I seriously cannot navigate around the website and group. I am yahoo-challenged.

Hope to hear from some of you!!!

[Devaskyla]

I'm in the SE. I have 3 boys, 10, 6 & 2. We've been homeschooling my oldest since he was 5 and this is my middle's first official year of HS'ing. We're registered with Argyll at the moment, but the facilitator we had for the last couple years isn't there anymore & I don't really like the replacement, so we might be switching.

I just get emails from the yahoo group and almost never bother going on the site.

[bass chick]

Hi! Nice to "meet" you! lol.

I have thought about going with Argyll but I wanted to be totally parent directed. I know you CAN do that at Argyll, but I went with Education Unlimited because Leo Gaumant (I think that's how you spell his name), the founder of Education Unlimited has made great strides in traditional homeschoolers getting into post-secondary education and has been involved in homeschooling for decades. They are a Christian based homeschool, but it is totally parent directed, so while my facilitator has talked a bit about God and faith, it is not pushed. I guess most people would call me a Christian, but I would say I am struggling horrendously with my faith. Anyhow...

This will be our 2nd year of homeschooling. For my oldest we didn't do anything for his kindergarten year, we basically just started last September (well...November actually) for his 1st grade. My youngest I am doing a wee bit of math and reading when he can tolerate it.

I am in the SW - in Rutherford. :)

[Devaskyla]

Mill Woods here.

It's funny, my main problem with the woman who will be our facilitator this year if we stay with Argyll is that in a general email at Christmas, she mentioned religion with the apparent assumption everyone is Christian. I don't have a problem with Christian homeschoolers, I do have a problem with people who work for the school shoving their religious beliefs in a general email. If it were to a specific family who the facilitator knew was Christian...whatever. There are lots of atheists & people of religions other than Christian who are homeschoolers, though. It just seemed really unprofessional.  I've avoided the more Christian boards because of that kind of thing.  Unfortunately, if we want to stay in the group for unschooling, that's our only option right now. Sucks because we really liked our facilitator the last few years.

[bass chick]

I have heard that lots of things have changed within Argyll in the past 2 years.

Oddly enough I met a woman who came to our garage sale this year and they were homeschooling with Argyll 100% parent-directed. She said she was looking for support and help with teaching from a Christian perspective and she said Argyll was useless in providing Christian support so she was switching school boards.

[jules7718]

hi

Im not in edmonton but we are in Leduc, and I am homeschooling my 8yr old daughter. I also have a 4yr old and 2yr old sons.

We are through wisdom and this is our first year of homeschooling.

[bass chick]

I have a friend who is with Wisdom and really loves the support. She lives in Vermilion.

I'm wondering if anyone would want to get together IRL at a park or something like that...maybe before the snow starts falling?

[mandib50]

http://shine-hs.invisionzone.com/?q=supportgroups

try that link :)

[stanstorey]

Hello, my name is Stanley Storey.  I am a semi-retired teacher in Math/Science/ and all Classics subjects.  I can provide my Documentation as a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta in Math/Physics/Chemisty, and a Masters Degree in Classics, majoring in Ancient History.  I tutor and home-school for a living these days, since I had a stroke 5 yrs. ago and cannot work full time.  I am a Christian, with over 20 yrs. of Bible Study, so there should be no problem with any Religious conflict.  Because of my condition, I will only drive to a student's house in the West End of Edmonton, but if a student is willing to come to my residence (also in West Edmonton) that is fine.  My fee/charge is based on the student, and what they need to learn.  I try to be competitive, but given my teaching experience, many of my fellow teachers charge much more.  Please let me know if you would like more info. and feel free to send my name to any of your friends/congregation.  Stan Storey, 6614 - 172 st. Edmonton, AB, 

780 - 487 - 0259.

[Myooshka]

Double post please delete

[Myooshka]

Hi there I am in Edmonton (Summerside) and am going to be homeschooling our son in the fall. I noticed you said you didn't do anything for the Kindergarten year. My son will be starting Kindergarten and I am wondering if need to contact the local school board or have him enrolled with a homeschooling organization for Kindergarten. Any input would be appreciated. Thank-you, Mya

[bass chick]

Mya,

Kindergarten isn't mandatory for anyone, and as such, the homeschool school boards in AB do not offer any facilitation for kindergarten. There is no need for reporting, and there is no funding, so there is no point. So, no....you do not have to contact a local school board. I would suggest that you research all the different theories behind the different homeschooling methods and if your son is showing interest you could start on phonics and / or math - or whatever else he is interested in. My biggest mistake was waiting until my oldest was enrolled with a homeschool school board and not figuring out what I was doing ahead of time. I was expecting my facilitator to educate me and give me all the resources I needed. I was dead wrong and I realized it as soon as she said, "So what are your plans?" when she came for her first visit in November. When I told her I had no clue, she basically said that was fine because "you can't stop a child from learning no matter how hard you try." I just wish I would have had someone tell me this a year or so in advance so I could have done some planning.

[RAED]

Hi! Just jumping into this thread in case it is still active! We just moved (late September '11 and didn't get phone/internet until late October '11 so by the time we tried to register as homeschoolers no one was interested in us except Argyll and NO GRANT) from the UK to Edmonton NW. We also just switched to homeschooling so lots of changes all at once. We are totally parent directed this year and have had 2 phone calls from our facilitator who lives in Calgary. We have enjoyed the Natural Learning Community at Argyll but have had pressure to go Teacher Directed since both our kids will likely need IPPs next year. We are planning to stay w/Argyll next year but will have some new facilitators and will have to see how it all goes. We tried some other school boards but none was either a fit or excited about having kids that might need IPPs... We have so far had supportive interaction with Argyll staff.

I am interested in hearing how Education Unlimited has worked for you, having never heard of them, and am going to their website now to learn more about them. I have a 9yr. old ds who is very active (our online class experiments so far have not worked at all as he would have to stay too close to the computer to participate) and a 7yr dd who thinks that print media should go every which way but left to right :-) . So we are pretty fluid in our approach to education and do a lot of reading aloud and talking about what we are learning or draw pictures of what we are hearing.

[bass chick]

Welcome to Edmonton!

It's good to hear that you've had a positive experience with Argyll. I have heard a lot of the opposite from friends and friends of friends.

Education Unlimited is a good fit for us. I would say that we are more aggressive in our education than they require. The facilitators are all Christian and very much have the philosophy that "you can't stop a child from learning, even if you tried". And they think that no matter what you do, God is in control. I, on the other hand, do not have that predestination type of theology, but if you are looking for laid back, hands off, then Education Unlimited is a good fit. I just can't stand someone telling me what to do, or what not to do for that matter. Education Unlimited is also fairly small, the founder has done so much for paving the way for post-secondary education for homeschoolers as far as putting together portfolios and not needing to write standardized tests. They also don't buy into the fear mongering that some of the other Christian homeschool groups have started with this whole Education Act changing with the Redford government.

I don't know what IPP is, so I can't say anything about that, but I would be careful about going teacher directed. Do your research before you do, to make sure it's what you want and will work for your kids.