Not Another Homeschool Blog

 I wrote this article on the proposed changes to the HOPE scholarship here in GA. Governor's Proposals Would Dim HOPE Scholarships Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal's proposed changes to the HOPE scholarship would significantly alter the pledge that Georgia made to students back in 1992 .  Read more  Basically, the HOPE scholarship is taking a 10% cut plus fees will no longer be paid.  This may cost the average student $1500 a year. If students are superior with a 3.5 GPA and 1200 SAT, they get the full ride, minus fees. But what about homeschoolers? As of right now, homeschoolers need a 85th percentile score to get HOPE as a Freshman.  They can get it retroactively if they maintain a B average.  So, why do homeschoolers need a higher SAT/ACT score than the Top public school students who will get a full ride.  And, if they do get that higher score, do they get the full HOPE or HOPE lite.  And if there are two tiers now, do they set a higher tier ...

From the time  I began homeschooling, I always worked from the premise that my kids were gifted... that they had genius potential. Hearing a mom say that surely has many rolling their eyes, but I have always felt that every child was gifted at .. something.  It is up to the parent and educators to help them find what that area of giftedness is and to bring it out. Over the years I have become frustrated with people who told me that my child wasn't ready for this or that based on their age or based on what other kids were doing.  It seemed strange to me that I was homeschooling and that people still expected me to follow the crowd.  It has been hard fighting a tide of when a child is supposed to do what and when, but as the parent and educator is has been my goal to and my responsibility to advocate for my children and to get them the resources they needed. I wish I had met these people (The Staffords) a few years ago and known that they had a program to help pa...

 In speaking to a homeschooling mom whose 18 year old homeschooler could really use one more year to be ready for college, but because of his age and the fact that he has done 4+ years at highschool level, he is determined to graduate and head to college, it dawned on my that we need a one-room school house mentality. If you ever read Little House on the Prairie, you might remember that grade levels were not so cut and dry.  The child finished school when they had completed the required work.  It was not unusual to graduate young.  It was not unusual to graduate at an older age. You'd think that as homeschoolers, we'd have a little more flexibility where grade levels were concerned, but ...not so much if the goal is college.  It is not possible to put a six year span on a transcript and call it high school.  The goal college would call that a less-than-rigorous program and put them out of the running for competitive colleges. To counter this problem,...

My daughter wants to learn to sew correctly.  She technically knows how to sew and use the sewing machine but she skips steps and makes mistakes.  As usual, I surfed the internet for instructional videos for her to watch, but it dawned on me that she can't be the only homeschooler looking to learn these things... so I put it all in a Squidoo page (a site where you earn commission from people viewing and buying things from your page. I can't tell you how many tutorials I have done for her, then turned around and did my website work separately.  Why did it take me so long to figure out that I could homeschool at work at the same time.  Well, I guess I have a whole lot of material to get uploaded to websites... and from now on, as I create a program for her, I will be sharing it. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

With serious budget cuts on the horizon, there are a lot of grumblings about how the HOPE Scholarship should be cut. It seems that most Georgians want to return the scholarship to it's original intent and draw a top income line cutting off upper income families ... (they seem to forget there was also a lower income cut off too as you could not get PELL and HOPE at one time.)  As a homeschooler,  whose children have different and more stringent set of rules of earning the HOPE scholarship, my family would just miss that upper cut off amount and my kids would not get the scholarship if this happens.  But I am not fretting over it because I am not counting on it anyway, because homeschoolers have to be beyond exceptional to get the scholarship first year anyway.  Beyond that first year, my kids could get HOPE if they don't place the income restrictions, unless they use the sliding scale (also suggested), in which case my kids would probably get 80%.  But regardl...

 If you are like me, ever since your kids finished Algebra, you have been at a loss of how to help them.  You have hired tutors, purchased video based curriculum, and prayed.  Well, that's what I have done anyway.  My youngest is currently doing Algebra 2 and every now and then she presents me with a problem I don't understand... I don't want to understand it either.  It put us both in very boo-math moods. But in my quest to find new ways to explain old problems to her, I turned to YouTube and therefore discovered Yay Math .  Ahhh...  It's awesome. Math videos are recorded in an actual classroom by a full time math teacher.  There is interaction between the teacher and student and important questions are asked and answered. They videos do get kind of silly, but I like that...  If you need dryer material, there's Khan Academy which I also like... but Yay Math is my new favorite for free math help online. Here's a sample of a Yay math v...