Not Another Homeschool Blog

When homeschoolers are older like mine, the role of the homeschooling mom drastically changes. Some of my roles are: Debate partner: Because EVERYTHING I say turns into a long drawn out conversation. Guidance Counselor: As we prepare for college entry. Academic coach: As I help them navigate the requirements of different teachers to make it to the finish line of a good grade. Taxi Driver: As they have to be everywhere, and at the same time Nervous passenger: As they begin to drive me places. Maid: As they are far too busy to clean up after themselves. Life coach: As I try to impart to them years of knowledge and experience. There is so much more, but these are the things on my mind this evening. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

I spent the summer watching my niece and almost-son prepare to go to college.  The last of the two, my niece leaves in the morning.  As I have a child starting college in the fall, and another the next year, I am very interested in the process of gearing up to go to college.  It just looks plain expensive.   Being the consummate planner, I have purchased two trunks and have began to put things aside for my son.  This way, I can purchase items he will need on clearance, and pay less than what I am watching others pay.  I am excited about the prospect of having an excuse to budget shop for the next two year.   The subject of textbooks is  a bit scary to me though.  First, the amount of time you have to shop for college books is severely limited. You don't get your textbook list until a week or two before school at most.  Second, there are no clearance sales to help you stockpile textbooks. My friend did have so...

It's show and tell time.  Here are my favorite books for homeschooling.  You could actually have these books and need little else (through grade 6). FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

We may have a problem with the online classes.  Already.  As homeschoolers my kids have spent 1 hour a day 4 or 5 days per week on most classes.  They have spent 90 minutes a day without fail on math and foreign language.  So that is no more than 4 to 7.5 hours per class weekly.  This is true whether they are studying someone at home, or in a local class. The online classes they are taking through the county is recommending 12-20 hours a week per online class.  (I am pretty sure that's what they said during the orientation chat) That's just crazy.  Weekly, this would be almost 2 1/2 hours a day to 4 hours a day per class.  Multiply that by 5 classes (which my kids are not taking) and that could take 12 1/2 to 20 hours a day.  So much for having a life or sleeping. I think they are seriously over stating the time it takes to study the material and pass the tests. I am hoping that this is a loose recommendation, and not a requirement. ...

My son can finally access his online classes.  It looks like his teachers are a TON more organized than my daughters teacher.  My sons Physics and Financial Math teachers dropped his assignments into a calendar, so it is clear what has to be done what day.  If he needs to get ahead, due to another obligation, he can still do that, but it is clear how they should pace themselves. My daughter's Spanish teacher just inserted weekly dates into her syllabus.  Pacing will need to be done ourselves.  Also it is not very easy to determine what she should do.  We had to compare her syllabus to what was online and interpret what needed to be done.  I think we will get the hang of it though. I feel like being organized and meeting deadlines will be the key to doing well in these classes.  I gave the kids a one subject composition notebook for each class.  We glued the syllabuses in the first few pages, so they can refer back to them and check off wh...

I am finding that in my area, several families are being hit up for money because their students needed to take extra classes to be able to graduate. I thought it was an isolated incident until I started asking the question "is your senior ready to graduate?". I keep hearing no. The good news, is that there are ways to make sure your child graduates on time. There are local online and private schools from which the public school MUST accept credit. If you find yourself in this position, check out http://highschool.unl.edu/ and http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/highschool.cfm If you can't get anywhere with the school's guidance counselors, then go to the board of education. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor

As I have mentioned a gazillion times recently, my son is taking classes for his Senior year with Georgia Virtual School. He has done orientation several times and there was some kind of glitch with the software. According to the online support team, his orientation shows he finished it this morning. (Though it was his fourth or fifth time doing it.) He can access his classes tomorrow, a day late. My problem is that it seemed that they didn't want to acknowledge that there was a software problem. It had to be due to him making a mistake. Meanwhile this kid really knows his way around a computer. Here's hoping he can get into his classes tomorrow as assignments are due every Friday night at midnight. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE WalletPop Contributor Brighthub Contributor