Home Schooling? A guide for the New? NEED YOUR ADVICES!!!! :D

[Intensity11303]

Hey All!!
I wanted to take this chance and pick you homeschooling parents minds! I have been dabbling in EL and this website for almost a year now. My son is now almost one and I am excited to see his learning progress. Coming from a educationally poor and pitiful city, where even though I graduated top in my class, I feel like I was robbed... I want soo much more for my son, and feel homeschool maybe my best option to accelerate my little guys education and passion to learn!

IM LOST!! What is Saxon? Who is Mason? Ive seen many names, and materials  out over the boards but where do I begin in starting to educate myself, and organizing a route to take with my son? To a homeschool noob its overwhelming and overflowing and quite amazing. You all started on this path...what advice, materials, research, investments, plans, ect ect worked best for your family? What advice would you give to someone just starting out? If you could start a fresh knowing what you do know now where would you begin?

Im your sincere sponge and look forward to links, download and a massive amount of advice I can dive into!!! Im sure to this will help other parents who are really deciding where and how to take this leap??

[nee1]

I once asked a question about homeschool curriculum and got wonderful answers from veteran homeschoolers on the forum. Here is the thread - http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/homeschoolers-is-'the-well-trained-mind'-the-best-homeschool-curriculum/15/
On the above thread, sonya_post mentioned Charlotte Mason and described her philosophy. There is also a link on the thread to check out Charlotte Mason original writings FREE on Ambleside.

Here is another great thread on homeschooling curriculum - http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/which-homeschooling-method-are-you-thinking-of-or-are-currently-using/.

And here are some threads on Math -  http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/math-curriculum-for-toddlers/
(On this thread, there are links to Saxon Math curriculum, with a table of contents for the Saxon 54 book. There was also a link to free Saxon 54 and 65 books, but I'm not sure those links are active anymore. But check out the thread though, lots of wonderful members on the forum gave useful advice. By the way, Saxon is a math curriculum, and you can learn more about Saxon from this veteran named Art Reeds. Here is his website devoted to how parents could use the Saxon Math program  - http://www.homeschoolwithsaxon.com/. On Art Reeds website, click ``newsletter'' and that will take you to this page - http://www.homeschoolwithsaxon.com/newsletter.php.  Read the newsletters to learn more about Saxon Math)

Here are two other great math threads - http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/what-are-you-doing-with-your-2-year-olds-for-math/ and
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-math/math-supplement-for-advanced-3-year-old-(almost-4)/
 
Hope that helps a bit.

[nee1]

And Brillkids has an entire section devoted to homeschooling. If you click this link: http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/, you'll be taken to ALL the threads other members have ever started/discussed on homeschooling. Lots and lots and lots and lots of information. Check it out.

EDIT:
Also check this thread - http://forum.brillkids.com/homeschooling/if-you-did-how-did-you-decide-to-homeschool/. On that thread, tatianna gives an excellent summary of the homeschooling methods out there (Chalotte Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Classical Education, Unit Studies, Unschooling, All in One Curricula, etc).

And I found this website very useful for learning about homeschooling approaches - http://www.design-your-homeschool.com/HomeschoolingApproach.html. It lists different homeschooling methods, gives detailed explanations on each method, list books and resources that one can use to understand each method, etc. If you click the subsections under ``Step Four'', i.e., where you have Unit Study, Delight Directed, Charlotte Mason, etc., that will take you to to a detailed description of each of these approaches.

Hope that helps some more.

[PokerDad]

First of all, welcome. Looks like your DS is only 6 days older than Cub! Wow

Looks like nee1 did a great job of outlining the various names you were throwing out. Charlotte Mason was into education about a century ago and was big into READING first hand authors as the means for learning, but obviously that's a very over-simplified way of looking at it. Saxon is a type of math book that most successful homeschool families have used.

In the last year, we're really hammered out several key threads usually centering around an exceptional family or child that has seen tremendous results. We then discuss the pros and cons of their methodology and likes dislikes and such. Sometimes it feels a bit funny starting or participating in those threads just because BK is more for the 5 & under crowd - and homeschool success usually is a longer term/older discussion. I find them useful, however, just so that I have a good grasp of where the various roads lead.

I think Tamsyn gave some of the best advice today here where she said "find someone who has accomplished what you want to accomplish, in a way you think you could duplicate, and then, duplicate it." I can go a step further and say attempt to figure out why something is working and then you can deviate from the model and perhaps improve it or at least customize it (but now I'm talking more abstractly)

I've learned a lot just by seeking out books, articles, and threads around here - I've probably learned more about education than most students majoring in it. Like anything though, start somewhere and just work, and eventually it will show.

[Niniedney]

Welcome, and congratulations on deciding to homeschool your child!! When my eldest daughter was only only an infant we started EL. However, at that time I didn't realize there was a name for it or that other parents DIDN'T do this with their child. It just seemed to me that she LOVED learning and everything we did was fun. She absorbed the information so quickly and we simply continued to introduce her to many different subjects and activities. It was only beneficial and an amazing experience! Now, I have 2 girls, 3 and 5, and they are very advanced for their ages and LOVE to learn. I think that is the most important part, that they keep the love of learning, never force it! You can purchase different curriculum, learning DVDs, flash cards, and other and use what you feel is working for your child. No need to stress about the perfect homeschool curriculum for now. As long as she is learning and loving it, you're golden! I made a lot of different materials for my children to explore and learn with. I think their is no wrong way of doing this. We have explored different subjects and areas of learning that were many, MANY years earlier than they would have learned them in school, such as the systems of the human body, and they absorbed the information like sponges! The one thing I would have done differently if I had known what I know now, was only to learn a foreign language for myself. Immersion is the best way for children to learn a second language! I feel like if I had been fluent in a language we would not be struggling with this so much. We do ASL, and Spanish in our home. As well as explore many other cultures and languages. It is just hard for me to be able to teach a language when I don't speak it, and their progress is slow because I am learning at a different pace in a different way. Anyway, good luck with your learning adventures!!

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I've learned a lot just by seeking out books, articles, and threads around here - I've probably learned more about education than most students majoring in it. Like anything though, start somewhere and just work, and eventually it will show.

So true, right?! All the really groundbreaking advances in infant education aren't even *taught* in college! go figure.  And I agree wholeheartedly, just keep digging, digging, digging. I think a lot of members here also look at the Hive message forum (from www.welltrainedmind.com) because that is a really top notch homeschooling community, versus here it is more focused on 0-5ish. Although the vibe is different there (I prefer BK!) there is good information to be learned from those who have been there, done that.  Also, one of the first things you can do is print out some typical preschool, kindergarten, and first grade checklists then just begin them sooner. It's a really easy, obvious thing to do but helpful to ensure you are meeting the basics in most areas. Later if I have time, I'll try to post some, maybe someone else has some links off hand. I keep those sorts of things handy in a folder.Actually, I have quite a few of these sorts of things collected, I will try to make a new post on it tonight or tomorrow now that I think about it.

[Tanikit]

How to homeschool:

1. Start doing it.
    This is NOT usually the advice that people give - they usually tell you to determine your child's learning style and your teaching style and see what is available and then decide. But this makes no sense when you have a baby - you just have to start - start by reading to your child, counting with your child, talking to your child - see you have already been doing it!

2. Think about homeschooling in the short term
    This is also NOT usual advice - when you start decide on one goal initially and then try to accomplish this - you need a very short term goal that is easy to accomplish - for example - get my child to recognise one written word or two letters of the alphabet. Then accomplish that and make a new goal. Of course you need longer term goals - I'd like to teach my child to read (which takes YEARS no matter when or how you do it) but if you cannot attain a very short simple goal you should probably not be homeschooling. Do not put too much time on your goals as this is unfair on your child - how will you know how long it will take to teach/know that?

3. Start researching
    Yes, only now. Google is your friend and also your enemy. Which is why I say start first - if you know something you did that worked for you then its easier to see what methods you read about fit into what you have tried. Having goals also helps you to look in the right direction. Remember whatever way you choose is not set in stone - so you try a programme and it doesn't work - try another one then, or adapt the one you have bought.

4. Remember your child is ONE.
    This is something that cannot be stressed enough. Children change very very rapidly - you cannot know where they will be next month or next year. You cannot decide what will work for the rest of their schooling based on what works now. My two year old has started reading early readers. She is my second two year old to do so, but I had not expected it to happen as fast with the second - because she is a different child to the first I am having to do things differently with her and at a different pace - she's doing phonics much earlier but in a different way to which I did it with my first. I started the year with my five year old doing Horizons 1 and Singapore 1b and then three months into the year she was getting very frustrated with Horizons so we had to speed up the Singapore and let her do far fewer examples per page of the Horizons so she was finished quicker - I keep adapting as my children age and as they accomplish things - slowing down occassionally, speeding up at other times.

5. Start with the basics and as you manage add to it.
    People do differ in what they consider the basics. This is what I think: read to your child (read anything and everything - especially what your child loves, read easier books and harder books, shorter books and longer books and when your child is fluent at reading do not forget to keep reading to him/her.
                                                                                                       : let your child experience the world - any child who is drilling math facts and never seeing them put into action will rebel or hate it - take them to the shops and show them math in action, give them pocket money, show them how things work, if necessary take out books that enable you to examine the things in them (I brought home a book on a dead tree ecosystem today because I knew we had one in our garden - the book was beyond what my DD would normally have listened to, but after scratching around in the dirt around the tree she was more than happy to hear the entire book before going back to the tree.), use holidays for learning, use trips anywhere, if you are at a fruit and veg store then buy a new fruit and try it out and let them touch, feel, smell everything before/after showing them a book on fruits and veggies.
                                                                                                       : remember your child's personality and age when teaching/reading certain things - beware of too violent content, swearing or issues that may scare children in a way that is inappropriate - it is not a good idea to teach a young child too much about divorce unless it is happening to them/someone close to them so rather don't read those books to them, death, injury and so on are ok as long as an adult is there to answer their questions and deal with anything it causes.
                                                                                                       :reading, writing and math are still the basics of an early education, but there are so many ways of accomplishing this that I will not address them - adding in content subjects to the basics also helps to keep it interesting.

6. Google and the Library are your friends - take out whatever books you can find on homeschooling and read them - go broad so that you don't just think there is one way to do it - read it and then think about it - what works for you, what do you hate? Do not throw out a method just because you hate one thing about it - you can adapt anything and everything. You do not have to follow any curriculum in its entirity unless you want to. Don't worry about gaps - all education has gaps and if it is such an important gap then you will find you cannot continue and you'll have to back up and fill it. Make friends with your library if you can as you will need to use them a lot no matter what curriculum you eventually use.

7. There are many free curricula you can try to see what style you like. Google "free homeschool curricula" and you'll find so many you will not know which to pick. Also google homeschooling blogs and read some especially for the age group you are teaching - homeschool blogs make things look better than they usually are - its usually a bit of chaos in any homeschool no matter what it looks like in the photos. Diapers still need to be changed, food still gets spilt, children still rebel, children still make a mess - else they wouldn't be kids.

8. You don't need to know it all in one day/one week/one year. You just need to get through today. Don't compare yourself to other homeschools - it doesn't help if you try to copy someone and then that doesn't work for your family - it must work for you. No two homeschools are ever the same.

9. Join some homeschooling message boards where you can read what other people are doing. This may make you want to buy more than you need to however so before you click purchase just make sure that it is the right choice. Go to homeschooling conventions too.     

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