Re: Homeschool & School

[Guest guest]

It makes my skin crawl to think of her in aclass with 20-30 other kids!

Brittany,

Shane is in a class of thirteen. When he was in kindergarten he went to public school, and we went through so much grief with them because of his absences. In a public school system they are subsidized by the government, and get a certain amount per head for every kid that's there that day. Well when they're not there, they loose the amount of money for that child, so we switched him to private school when he started first grade which solved that problem for us since we knew his absences would never improve. They care that he misses school, and work with me as far as keeping him caught up, but since the money factor has been taken out of the equation, I don't have to deal with that part of it. They get the same tuition whether he's there or not, and with it being such a small class size, if it's a food thing, or if he's having trouble breathing, I think you're going to notice more if you only have thirteen kids, as opposed to thirty. They're so good with him. I pick work up, work on it with him, bring it back, bring more home, that's how he's been staying caught up. His grades are awesome, but like I said, I'm concerned about when he gets into the older grades.

DonnaShane - asthma - allergic to dairy, eggs, pickles, and olives. Minnesota

[Guest guest]

Donna

Here is a site about homeschool laws in each state. http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

It also has some information on other things. Then yahoo groups might be a great place. I know that there are several groups for our state/city on there!

There are a billion sites out there that sell differnt type of courses. It can be overwhelming.

Some schools (at least in CO) will allow home shcool kids to come and take classes and sports with the school. There are really a ton of options! I'll do some looking into some sites for you.

But at least you can start there! In CO they require very little for the homeschoolers. You really don't have to turn in much in the way of info for the state. Our kids only have to be at least in the 13% on test scores. But, I heard from the school distric recently that the homeschoolers tend to score much higher than other students the same age. Also, our colleges around here are trying to set up grants and other things to get more homeschooled kids in college- b/c they tend to do so well!

Trish

Re: Homeschool & School

It makes my skin crawl to think of her in aclass with 20-30 other kids!

Brittany,

Shane is in a class of thirteen. When he was in kindergarten he went to public school, and we went through so much grief with them because of his absences. In a public school system they are subsidized by the government, and get a certain amount per head for every kid that's there that day. Well when they're not there, they loose the amount of money for that child, so we switched him to private school when he started first grade which solved that problem for us since we knew his absences would never improve. They care that he misses school, and work with me as far as keeping him caught up, but since the money factor has been taken out of the equation, I don't have to deal with that part of it. They get the same tuition whether he's there or not, and with it being such a small class size, if it's a food thing, or if he's having trouble breathing, I think you're going to notice more if you only have thirteen kids, as opposed to thirty. They're so good with him. I pick work up, work on it with him, bring it back, bring more home, that's how he's been staying caught up. His grades are awesome, but like I said, I'm concerned about when he gets into the older grades.

DonnaShane - asthma - allergic to dairy, eggs, pickles, and olives. Minnesota

[Guest guest]

Donna

One more thing..........when you see how many hours are required it can seem a bit overwhelming (although that's waht they get in public schools), but as a homeschool, you can take almost any activity and make it "school". When my kids are outside playing, we throw something educational in it- like collecting leaves or snow or whatever and then learning a little bit about it. You would be amazed at how you can teach your kids through every day type situations.

The thing I've liked so well has been that I get to control what the girls learn. We make God a very important part of our classes and I get to choose when we'll talk about sex and hot topics like that. We also work on character development daily. I've been told by most people that my children are very very well behaved, and that they are very polite. I would like to think not having them around other school age kids ALL the time helps.

Trish

Re: Homeschool & School

It makes my skin crawl to think of her in aclass with 20-30 other kids!

Brittany,

Shane is in a class of thirteen. When he was in kindergarten he went to public school, and we went through so much grief with them because of his absences. In a public school system they are subsidized by the government, and get a certain amount per head for every kid that's there that day. Well when they're not there, they loose the amount of money for that child, so we switched him to private school when he started first grade which solved that problem for us since we knew his absences would never improve. They care that he misses school, and work with me as far as keeping him caught up, but since the money factor has been taken out of the equation, I don't have to deal with that part of it. They get the same tuition whether he's there or not, and with it being such a small class size, if it's a food thing, or if he's having trouble breathing, I think you're going to notice more if you only have thirteen kids, as opposed to thirty. They're so good with him. I pick work up, work on it with him, bring it back, bring more home, that's how he's been staying caught up. His grades are awesome, but like I said, I'm concerned about when he gets into the older grades.

DonnaShane - asthma - allergic to dairy, eggs, pickles, and olives. Minnesota

[Guest guest]

I would like to think not having them around other school age kids ALL the time helps.

Trish

I definitely agree! If it were up to me I would stay home, and home school him. This is something we have to address, and come to a decision about. It's getting to a point now where he misses so much school that I don't see the point of trying to keep sending him. That's the problem, he goes, gets sick, is at the emergency room, Doctor, prescriptions, to get him stable enough to send him back, to have it happen again. It's a vicious circle with no solution as long as I keep trying to keep him in school.

The biggest problem I'm having is Shane. He's very adamant about going to school, and I don't want him to blame me that he's not. Any thoughts on this? That's why I thought maybe work out an arrangement with the school, like the girl in his class, where he goes part of the year, and gets home schooled the other part, and see how it goes from there.

Thanks so much for all of your help, and the information.

DonnaShane - asthma - allergic to dairy, eggs, pickles, and olives. Minnesota

[Guest guest]

Donna

I've talked with LOTS of moms & kids that have choosen homeschooling- so from the very beginning, others not until they were already well into school. Here is what I've heard from them (two of the kids being my cousins)- they weren't sure at first, but after starting they wouldn't consider going back to school. My cousins (they were in 5th & 7th grades) were very lonely the first couple months. They missed thier friends ect.... My aunt tried to get them to homeschool fieldtrips & made things fun for them (by doing more fun projects). So it took them awhile, but after the first couple months, my cousins NEVER wanted to go back to "normal" school.

I would talk with Shane about it- saying you wanted to try it for just a few months- like the rest of this year- or maybe the beginning of the next school year. Tell him that if he hates it, school is still an option. Or, try doing some fun things durning the summer that could be done for school and see what he thinks. I just know that most kids seem to really like the change! This also goes for my friends daughter who is special ed and was worried about leaving her friends. She now is doing sooooo much better than they ever thought she would do. She is learning things they thought she couldn't! I just think it is an awesome way to go- if you can do it!

Trish

Re: Homeschool & School

I would like to think not having them around other school age kids ALL the time helps. Trish

I definitely agree! If it were up to me I would stay home, and home school him. This is something we have to address, and come to a decision about. It's getting to a point now where he misses so much school that I don't see the point of trying to keep sending him. That's the problem, he goes, gets sick, is at the emergency room, Doctor, prescriptions, to get him stable enough to send him back, to have it happen again. It's a vicious circle with no solution as long as I keep trying to keep him in school.

The biggest problem I'm having is Shane. He's very adamant about going to school, and I don't want him to blame me that he's not. Any thoughts on this? That's why I thought maybe work out an arrangement with the school, like the girl in his class, where he goes part of the year, and gets home schooled the other part, and see how it goes from there.

Thanks so much for all of your help, and the information.

DonnaShane - asthma - allergic to dairy, eggs, pickles, and olives. Minnesota