Not Another Homeschool Blog

You'd think I'd know better. My son has every intention of finishing high school early. I do my best to support him by finding programs that might work. Last year was very hard, but he got through it and we hired a tutor to help him through the rough spots he had last year and we thought we were going to jump back into the program plus take advantage of some courses he really really wanted. We have come to realize, however that this program adheres strongly to ages and will not allow some classes that he wants because he is not old enough... so just like when we were in public school, trying to get him tested for advanced which never happened that we were asking for permission for him to learn. How crazy am I. I am glad I realized what I was doing before the year started so we can get his program for next year ironed out and to find a program that will allow him to do what he desires.

I thought we were all set for next year, but alot of wrenches are being thrown into my plans. I am starting to wonder if God is not steering out kids in a different direction this year. I really like the fact that we have been using local programs to help homeschool our kids, especially the "Masters Program". But the middle school academic program we used for my son seems to be falling apart. They are combining schools so we would be waaayyy across town and have to drive it during rush hour. They are holding back younger kids from taking the extra classes they allowed them to take last year. I am just plain frustrated. I am looking into other options and well as considering my son doing the time4learning program that my daughther is using. The next year he will be ready for highschool, so I really need to be on the ball by then. I will have to track every hour he spends learning.

I have a relative that owns a learning center . It occurs to me just how useful her services are to people like us who homeschool. We homeschoolers think of learning centers as places that kids who are behind go to catch up. However, how many of us have considered the value of a learning center for a child who is not behind. It can only help them accellerate. Just something to think about.

Here's a bit of a flashback from the beginning of our homeschool journey: Perhaps I should not have informed the teachers I planned to pull my children out of school months in advance. I believe it did more harm than good considering the steps one teacher took to keep my child in the system. This caused a lot of frustration on both my part and the teacher's. I was at a conference with my daughter's teacher when she really got under my skin. She and several teachers before her had hinted strongly that my daughter needed to be tested for ADHD and medicated. She talked about how she ignored her own son's problems until it was too late, and how she did not want the same thing to happen to my daughter. She was a sweet woman really, and prefaced every single word with "bless her heeaaaart" when referring to my daughter. Finally she sighed and said; "I don't know how she will be admitted into second grade without medication." "Fine", I said, ...

My kids aren't getting much of a break this summer, but I don't think they've realized it yet. My daughter is still working on www.time4learning.com this summer, but at a slower pace. She is also doing summer bridge workbook in her spare time. My son is using the Summer Bridge book as well, and has a tutor he is meeting with a few times this summer to break some bad habits before 8th grade math. He also decided to do the critical thinking "reading detective" workbook as well. Who am I to stop them.. here is where It gets sneaky on my part. My daughter is doing a pageant at the end of the month and I am having her write her introduction. I suggested an acrostic poem. So she learns a bit about poetry this summer and gets some writing done. Also, she has a bad habit of asking me alot of really good questions, and If I don't give her an answer, she just forgets it. I gave her a question notebook and told her I would reward her weekly based on how many of her que...

Does An Ivy League Education Mean A Better Salary? Is the question asked in the WCCO - Minneapolis,MN,USA website. The story is about a young man named Robert Binion who with SAT scores of 1580, and a GPA of 4.27 could go to any college he pleased. He chose a local state college because it would cost him nothing. He could have gone to Harvard at the cost of $200,000.00, but questioned the value in the end. Was this a smart choice? Well, Lorraine Hastings a Princeton economists pointed out that “ the wages of adults who, 20 years earlier, were in college… didn't depend on where you went to school, but how hard you work.” In the same way you could say that WHERE the student spends his elementary, MIDDLE & high school career will not be affected in his potential income but instead have hard he works. Meanwhile Studies show that… Home Schooling Keeps Students, Parents Closer: “ home schooling is not just academics “.

FIGURE IT OUR YOURSELF! Well not exactly. I had the opportunity to advise a woman who was strongly considering homeschooling her son. She lives in one of my old hometowns, and my Sis n law gave her my number as she is one of her clients at the Oxford learning center sis owns. Her complaints about school mirrored the problems my son had. The child is obviously gifted or at least already knows everything they are teaching. However, the school thinks it's ok for him to settle with getting the highest grades in the class and not challenging him any further. Therefore she wants to take his education into her own hands. My exact advice was to wait a little while. Since They are one semester in, I suggested she wait until holiday break while enriching him at home using Reader rabbit at an advanced level and critical thinking books and software. Meanwhile she needs to go into learning mode. Read everything about homeschooling that she can get her hands on. Find out about all of the philoso...