We are homeschooling!!

[Summertime Mommy]

I am excited! We are homeschooling!! DH still isn't completely onboard, but I basically told him I don't feel okay with her going back to school and he said that is okay. We still have to go to the school and make it official. Now, of course, I have a ton of questions. It has become prety obvious to me that my dd needs a lesson plan set out for her. She learns much better when we sit down and do worksheets and things like that, than if we take an unschooling approach. (ds does better w/ unschooling) So, I have been finding free printables online and having her do them, and creating math worksheets on the computer for her to do. This is working okay for now, but I am thinking we will eventually run out of free material. I have found a few sites that are made for teachers that charge about $20 a year for worksheets. Would that be a good investment? I can make my own lesson plans, so I don't really see the need to invest in a premade curriculum right now unless there is a good reason to do it that I am not seeing. Also, how long do you normally do sit down work? Right now we are doing approx 2-3 hours a day of math and language arts. Then I have her read a book to me, and we discuss it. We also need to find out ways to incorperate learning about science and social studies into our day, but I am at a loss as to how to do that. Any good ideas? I know that we can start doing science experiments, but beyond that, I am a little lost. At her old school they didnt do a lot of science of social studies either. Okay, sorry for writing a book, any advice or helpful tips would be great.

[mama_kass]

Congrats to your family for choosing this wonderful lifestyle! My first advice to you is to breathe. When getting started it can be so over whelming. Find out what is in your area for homeschool support. Do a search on Yahoo groups to see what message boards you have in your area. Post in Finding your tribe here at MDC. As soon as you can connect to the hs community the better. You will get a lot of direction from there.

[Ligmom]

yay! So happy for you and your dd

As for advise... I don't know your situation, but I would say be patient with her. Some kids have a hard time resettling into a homeschooling mindset (deschooling). Give her time. Also, have fun and relax

And read anything you can find by John Holt

[USAmma]

Congrats!! We are newbies at it too! I am trying Calvert and so far I really like it. They give you lesson plans and all the books/worksheets you need.

The only gripe (there was a thread about this earlier) is you really need to check out the story books from the library instead of just reading the text in their boring black and white story book. But they are easy to find in the library with full color illustrations.

Other than that small gripe, it's been wonderful! My dh teaches the math in the evenings and I do everything else. Once dh tried to do math on a day off and she refused because "We do math at night-time daddy, when it's dark out."

Darshani