Why Do You Homeschool? - Montgomery,IL

I homeschooled my daughter when she was in K and 1st because I was not ready to send her to puclic school.
When my son turned 5 and was ready for k, that is when I sent my daughter to school. She was in 2nd and he was in K.
My daughter' 2nd grade teacher treated her like trash and we had a BAD year and my husband and I we were pissed because that is why we wanted to protect her when she was 5 and 6 years old and she got hurt anyway. My son' K teacher was the best teacher I could have ever meet . She was so wonderful.

Then the next year, i changed schools for my children and my daughter was in 3rd and my son was in 1st.
My daughter' teacher was wonderful and my son' teacher was Nasty.
We had a rough year with my son' teacher that year.
This was last year.
Then the swine flu came. = ( The media scared everyone, including ME and my husband.
My daughter had asthma really bad and we was very scared to send her back to puclic school.

We also did not approve of some of the things that they were teaching the 3rd graders last year.

Last year, when my children were in public school ( they both ) learned about SEX from other students. We are talking about grades 3rd and 1st.

That made me MAD!!!

They also learned from the school resource officer all about sexual predators and what would happen if someone breaks into your house and more.

I WAS BEYOND ANGRY!!!

My husband and I feel like we will teach them those things when the time is right not when the school feels like it is right.

So this school year we have decieded to homeschool our two oldest children with a wonderful school. It is called www.connectionsacademy.com
The school is in Orlando FL and it is a real public school and they allow you to work with them to teach your children at home.
They call it ( Vitrual Schooling ). They children get a teacher. Most of the school stuff is online.

My family and I love it.

My daughter will be going into 5th grade next year we know that things are only going to get worse , that drugs will come into the picture and we want our kids to be safe and happy and not pressured to do something that they do not want to do because of the other children.

We want to keep our children safe.
That is why we homeschool.

I hope that this has helped you.

5 moms found this helpful

I never intended to homeschool. It was a last minute decision we haven't regretted since...

We only have two Catholic schools in our area, and one public school. I didn't like the curriculum nor the approach in regard to teaching the faith (very watered down to accommodate non-Catholic students). Another downside is they are extremely expensive (about $3 - $5 grand per child) and because they are fairly far from our house, transportation would be an issue.

To make sure I checked all of our options, I did check out the PS in our district, but didn't care for the large class sizes, nor the "secular" curriculum, and the distance the school was from home was still problematic (we'd have to bus), we would still have to pay fairly large fees (a couple hundred dollars) to a general fund in addition to what we pay in taxes each year so teachers wouldn't have to pay out of pocket for classroom glue, scissors, papers, etc. Lastly, we'd have to find a weekend religious ed. program through the archdiocese to our liking (more money), to provide for our children's religous education -not as easy as you'd think.

So, as I begrudgingly enrolled our oldest who at the time was entering Kindergarten at the more preferable Catholic school, someone mentioned homeschooling as an option. I had no idea HS was so big in our area. We hadn't lived in our city very long (moved from another city) so I didn't realize there was a big Catholic homeschooling community in our area.

Out of curiosity I attended a fairly large homeschool curriculum fair and conference and when the weekend wrapped up, I was enrolled with Seton and on my way.

Seton ( www.setonhome.org ) is a prepackaged curriculum, and I love the ease of that. It is an accredited program, so I don't have to worry about administering state required tests, or managing transcripts, as Seton handles this for us.

For us, homeschooling has been very easy. We have now been doing it for several years and my children have thrived academically. They test at or above where they should be in their grade level. They enjoy the freedom homeschooling allows. If they want to study biology they can do so...and have. If they want to learn about airplanes and how they work, they can do that. It's very fun and rewarding if you and your family like to read and learn. It's wonderful if you're the type of people who thrive from trying and doing new things.

There is teacher support on the phone and online. The books are up to state standards, and take the guess-work out of knowing what should be taught and when. Best of all, the curriculum comes with a guide (teacher planner) that has a "recommended" assignment planner prepared for the year. You can follow their calendar and recommended assignments or tailor it to your needs, so it's very flexible. If you don't like one of their books, you can substitiute it for somehting else. They'll still maintain records for you and help keep you on track so you don't lose focus or fall behind. However, if you have a special need to go slower in a particular subject or your child has a disability for instance, you have that flexibility and support from qualified teachers to do what you need. It's great.

It is fairly affordable to homeschool, especially compared to a private school education. You can do a good job for $500 or less a year, and have a fantastic and stellar program for $1,000 and up. That's the beauty of homeschooling. You don't have to be a millionaire to have a top notch education. You just have to do your homework so you can find the best curriculum and materials in a price-range that works for you.

Resources and programs through public libraries, museums and universities/community colleges, geared specifically to homeschoolers, makes it all the more doable, and at a low cost.

We also belong to a large co-op. It is through the co-op we have social time/play-dates, go on field-trips, share specialized classes (like science for instance where a lab might be needed or a local gym for phy ed.) and in some cases athletic events such as hockey and track and field. Best of all, it is a Catholic homeschool co-op, and for us that was important, because we wanted to be close to other families that shared our faith and values.

5 moms found this helpful

My cousin homeschools because they are very religious. She wants to make sure the children are not exposed to what they feel are not their family values. They also now have a large family iof children that were their natural children and adopted children so they felt they wanted to use the money on their homestead rather than private schools.

They purchased a large piece of land and have built a barn with some living quarters, a school house and now have just completed the first stage of their home. The entire family has helped plan and build. They grind wheat and make homemade bread every day!

The children are wonderful, bright and very kind. They do belong to a coop of other homeschool families, I will find out which curriculum they are using and update the info..

3 moms found this helpful

Hi J C. -awesome question! I'm excited to read all of the answers.Our son is almost 5 & our daughter is 2. We have made the decision to HS for our family for a variety of reasons. Our son is already learning to read (he really wants to) and we want to be able to let him learn as fast or slow in subjects as necessary. We don't agree with most public school curriculum and as for many others the cost of private is too much for us. Once the kids start getting older there are the issues of them learning about things from other students that we just aren't ready for them to be pressured with. We will also be moving a lot in the next few years (3 moves in the next year alone) and being able to HS will make the transitions easier and more consistent for their learning. We are currently using a curriculum that I have pieced together but after K we will probably look for something else. Hpoe this helps!

3 moms found this helpful

I personally disagree with the curriculum of the public schools and the left leaning agenda the middle thru high school levels teach the kids. The private schools are at least $380 per month in my area. I rather use the money and save it for college or extra-curricular activites.

2 moms found this helpful

All I can say is.....I want Riley J to homeschool my kids! Seriously, after reading her post, I wanted to get off my duff and LEARN something! :)

I homeschool my 6 year old son. I pick and choose curriculum based on what I believe will both challenge and fit my son's learning style. Some people do one curriculum, but that didn't work for us.

We are going year by year in our decision to homeschool. This year I was convinced that we were going to send our son to a wonderful charter school about 10 miles from our home. I didn't feel right about it, and low and behold, our son was diagnosed with diabetes in Nov. Instead of missing alot of the school year he has been working on his studies, even if he is not feeling well. Doing math from the sofa is a better alternative than missing school! :)

People always talk about "lack of socialization" and "missed opportunities". I always get a good chuckle out of that. My nephew and neices were homeschooled until 5th, 7th, and 9th grade, respective to their ages, and the day they stepped into school, they were the most loved kids in school. My nephew was homecoming prince, and you don't get that honor by being "backward and socially inept".

2 moms found this helpful

Hi JC,

We are in our 5th year of homeschooling our now 12 year old daughter and it has been and continues to be a wonderful journey for the whole family!

Why we homeschool: When our daughter was 3 years old we enrolled her in a well-known, expensive private school in Chicago. By the time she was 7 we were truly dismayed with the level of education she was getting for the amount of money we were spending. Our daughter has always been an excellent student and she was being totally ignored in the classroom or being asked to help the children who were struggling (which she enjoyed doing but she herself wasn't being at all challenged). When she was 7 we tried a second well-known, expensive private school in Chicago only to find that, in spite of all the promises we were given when they "accepted" her into their school, she was bored stiff and even less challenged than before. So, after 5 weeks at that school, we took her out and have been homeschooling her ever since.

My husband and I have our own business so are able to be somewhat flexible to accomodate the homeschooling - we both work with her so it doesn't fall completely on one of us. Having said that, however, because we do have to tend to the business, we decided to use a homeschooling program called "K12" which is a fully accredited homeschooling program. If you are interested you can take a look at the website http://www.k12.com/.
This program has the curriculum for each level - kindergarten through 12th grade already planned for you. You purchase the books and other learning materials and access to the website - for our daughter it costs about $1,200 a year. It depends on how many classes you sign up for - she is taking a full load - math, literature, grammar and spelling, art, history and science. Also, what is nice is that you can do classes at different levels. My daughter is advanced for her age in math and literature so is taking a higher class level, whereas, with history and science we decided to have her take her class level because she had gotten so little of those subjects in private school. They also furnish teacher guides and the answers to all the tests. Some of the lessons -especially in science are done online - which I find my daughter really enjoys. You also have the option of meeting with teachers and communicating with them online. They also now have a virtual international high school. Anyway, K12 has been very valuable to us because we don't have to spend a lot of time working out a curriculum and schedule ourselves - plus we find that it is very thorough and our daughter is learning so much more than if she were in a public or private school. And so are her parents! It is really a lot of fun! We don't always follow the curriculum verbatim as sometimes we feel they spend too much time on one subject and we wonder how in the world you would ever get through a year of science if you did every lab and science experiment - but at least we have that choice. The other thing that has been really freeing is that by the end of the day she is done with school - no homework, no projects - we can enjoy the evening as a family.

You will find that many people will bring up socialization - as if it were a problem. Our daughter is very social and well-adjusted and friendly. She easily carries on a conversation with anyone - no matter what age - and has a great sense of humor. Please don't let anyone use that issue to dissuade you from homeschooling. I have also had people say that we should be careful not to raise her in a "cultural bubble" meaning that she is not experiencing the "real world" because she is not in a "real" school. Well, if it means she has to deal with a friend of 6 years who does attend a "real" school telling her that she is no longer "cool" because she doesn't have certain things or do certain things, then I am happy to raise her in a "cultural bubble" - she probably knows more about the real world than a lot of kids because she is involved in our business on a daily basis plus we discuss things with her - we get her opinion and listen to what she has to say. This is all part of her education.

We haven't yet decided if we will homeschool through high school. My husband would really like to but I'm just not quite sure yet. We have not joined a co-op because we haven't felt the need for it previously - however, I am going to be looking into it - mainly so that my daughter can be involved in activities with more homeschooled children. She is involved in activities with other children but not many who are homeschooled and I think that makes her feel a lttle left out at times - especially since she is an only child.
Having said that, however, we would not change our decision to homeschool.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

1 mom found this helpful

I have been homeschooling for 6 years and I love it . Im very close to my kids and I know they are in a safe place all day long. I love the one on one "tutoring" because they can learn as fast or as slow as they want. I love to homeschool my children. If you want to talk more you can e-mail be at ____@____.com.

1 mom found this helpful

I am a home-school mom. My first is 16 and I started her when she was 4. She wanted to read and decided that homeschooling was something I wanted to try and I wouldn't be out anything if I messed up at the age of 4. I was not a fan of the pub lic school system and private schools can be very expensive. I wanted to be able to teach her at her pace and include our beliefs as well (Bible-based teaching). She took off, never wanted to go to school and did great! I had her tested once a year or so and she was well ahead of her age. She gets great grades. She is now in a public high school - she started for four courses her freshman year and I did everything else at home. She took biology (didn't want to disect at home and a lot of colleges won't take virtual disecting), gym, music and spanish. She is a straight A student. She didn't like school her first year, but did well and wanted to prepare her for college with some school outside of me. Her sophomore year, this year, she was honored for her grades and is in a full day, I do a couple classes at home so she can take some college prep courses and not have to take them her first year of college. My second child is 7 and we are home-schooling her as well. She is doing great. They both use the Abeka curriculum out of Pensacola Florida. It is a aggressive program, but what my girls need or they are bored. There are some good curriculums out there. They had and still have outside activities such as music lessons, dance classes and myy youngest meets with other home-school friends for gym time once a week. I do not belong to a co-op at this point. My girls are very social and we didn't feel the need. I, for the most part follow the curriculum as written. If they get it before the lessons are done, we quiz, review and test out of a section early. My girls don't work well if they are bored with a unit and if frankly, if they know it, why prolong it? It has been a great experience and some school districts will allow you to use their music and arts prgrams and gym programs as well. There are some districts where you could send you child for certain classes and do the rest at home, hence my daughter when she was a freshman. I love it! They learn life lessons as well as school. We only did school four days a week for around 3 hours a day and Fridays was our life lesson day. We served at church, we took meals to people, we shoped and learned best prices and we dd field trips, like zoos, museums and such. My youngest has been on two field trips with our sophomore to art museums and it was great! We all learned a lot and I am surprised how much she retained. I hope that this helps! The one important lesson - learned is to just relax, some days will be better than others, some days you will get 3 hours in and some days you won't. One last thing - there are places that offer placement tests too to make sure you are on the right track. Not expemnsive at all. God Bless!

1 mom found this helpful

JC,
How timely of you to ask this question- there was just a homeschooling conference in St. Charles this weekend. I was there as a vendor and have been there two years now. Definitely check them out at http://www.homeeducatorsconference.org/. I'm sorry I wasn't able to tell you about this in time for you to attend.

T.

1 mom found this helpful

We homeschool because we don't like the public school system and the values of the other kids around us. My SD was in first grade and she told me a story about how her and another girl pick on a third girl to "improve her." She was also getting in trouble and not learning and was behind.

We've been homeschooling now for 2 years and love it! My SD was behind going into 2nd grade (she could barely read) and now she's reading at a fourth grade level (she's in third grade).

Believe it or not, she had a lot of social problems. Since homeschooling she's had FEWER social problems, in fact, she now has a bunch of great friends who are sweet and kind! Not mean. It makes me mad to think she was on the road to being a bully and a troublemaker. Now she's sweet, helpful and outgoing.

We use the Applied Scholastics Online school, and like many of the other ones suggested already, it's all set up and ready for you to go! No worrying about what to teach, we have a live teacher ready to help us at any time.

We belong to a wonderful homeschooling group that does outings and lots of fun get togethers.

I never thought being a stepmom would be so much fun!

1 mom found this helpful