Thankyou so much for stopping by to check out my homeschooling pages. If you are new to homeschooling, thinking about homeschooling or are anoldhand at homeschooling, hopefully you will find something on these pagestohelp you. I spent many hours doing research on the pros and consofhomeschooling myself. It took me three years to finally get upthenerve to do it but as they say, "It's better late than never". Ibeganhomeschooling in September of 2000 so you can figure out for yourselfhowmany years we've been doing it. Even though there are still timeswhenI ask myself why am I doing this, all I have to do is look at my sonandrealize that HE is the reason why I am homeschooling.
I began homeschooling mykids when my daughter was going into the 11th gradeand my son was going into 4th. Both of my kids started out inpublicschool. I became very discouraged with the way they were beingtaughtand what the schools were teaching them, especially in Texas (Plano tobemore specific). Not only did I have to worry about the subjectmatterbeing taught but, I also had to worry about the violence, drugs, gangsandgeneral lack of morals being taught. While volunteering at boththehigh school and elementary levels, I heard children as young as 1stgradeuse curse words, and saw many fights.
At the beginning of my daughters 10th grade, another studentbrought a guninto the school, went into the boys bathroom, and shot himself. Theparents were not notified of this horrible event until the kids gothomefrom school. I was lucky because I just happened to be on the PTOandfound out fairly soon after it happened. I was very upset thattheparents weren't notified and given the option of taking their kids outofschool that day. The principal didn't want to cause a panic bynotifyingthe parents. What if this boy had used this gun on the otherstudentsinstead of himself? No security measures were in place to preventthisfrom happening, and nothing really changed afterwards either.
I was also very unhappy with a couple of my daughtersteachers. Shehad one teacher that was constantly putting her down and even went sofaras to throw an eraser at my daughter and ruin her leather coat. Wedid not know of this event until the next semester otherwise we wouldhaveinsisted that my daughter be transferred to another class and theteacherbe disciplined for this incident. It wasn't until anotherincidenthappened that I contacted the school and complained about thisteacher. After writing out everything that this teacher had done and said to mydaughter,she was finally moved to another classroom. I do not know if anydisciplinaryaction was taken against this teacher or not. I do know that shewasstill at this school by the end of 10th grade. My daughter alsohadanother teacher in 8th grade who called her stupid in front of anotherstudent. This was after my daughter had asked this teacher to sign a form givingmydaughter permission to take Algebra I in 9th grade. Maybe mydaughterdid not have the skills she needed to take Algebra I but, this teacherhadno right to say what she did to my daughter especially in front ofanotherstudent. There were other problems with the administration andteachersat my daughters school and that was basically the reason forhomeschoolingher.
Now before you pooh-pooh this as being the feelings of anoverly neuroticmother, my daughter was in mostly honors classes in Austin beforetransferringto Plano. She was a very good student who brought home mostly A'sandsome B's. While going to school in Colorado Springs, she was arecipientof the Presidents Academic Achievement Award when she was in 5thgrade. She went from a child who loved school, loved learning and strived togetgood grades, to one who hated most of her teachers, hated school andstartedbringing home mostly C's and F's. She never had any problems withanyof her teachers previous to moving to Plano, in fact all we ever heardfromher teachers were words of praise for our daughter. They justlovedher.
My son had two teachers throughout each of his 3 years inpublic school -one for math and one for the other subjects. My sons 1st gradeteacherhad to be one of the worst teachers I have ever had to deal with. Itseems that nothing my son did was right. She picked on himconstantly. I had other parents who had spent time in the classroom tell me thattheysaw nothing that my son did that warranted the discipline that thisteacherdoled out on my son. In fact I was told that he was one of thebetterbehaved kids in the classroom. Now my son is no angel but, he isavery sweet and helpful child. Because of problems in 1st grade,myson was not given a clean slate when he went into 2nd grade. Thatteacherwas a little bit better but judged my son on what his 1st gradeteachershad written about him. His 3rd grade teacher was so muchbetter. She never read any of the past teachers comments and formed her ownopinionsof the kids after she had been with them a while. She was verygoodand my son really liked her. I was almost persuaded to keep himinpublic school but, I had this feeling that he would get a 4th gradeteacherwho would be terrible. He'd made so much progress in 3rd gradewithhis reading and was actually enjoying school, that I did not want tohavehim revert to how he felt about school in the 1st and 2nd grade.
Another thing that my sons school did was to suggest that weget him testedfor ADD/ADHD. We knew that he wasn't either of those things. Wehadresearched the symptoms of ADD/ADHD and also had friends whose childwasdiagnosed with it. Our son exhibited none of thesesymptoms. The school was only concerned with getting those "low performers"classifiedas handicapped or special ed kids so that those kids would be exemptfromtaking the TAAS test (see below). Plano especially my sons schoolwasdetermined to have the best test scores no matter what they had to dotoget them.
My son excelled at Math and Science but, had a problem withhis reading. He became bored with school and didn't want to go anymore and he wasonlyin FIRST GRADE! When I told his first grade math teacher (who wasalsohis "homeroom teacher") that my son said he was bored, she pretty muchtoldme that my son didn't know what he was talking about because he didn'tknowwhat that meant! Give me a break. He knew exactly what thatwordmeant and that's what he was - BORED! Since he was having aproblemwith his reading, they put him in a program called "ReadingRecovery". It was suppose to help those kids with reading problems. Yeah,right. What helped our son was mom and dad. We purchased books thattaughthim phonics and his reading improved but of course the school thoughttheyhad done it. He was not a "whole language learner" which is whattheschool taught. When we voiced our concern to the principal, doyouthink she had any suggestions on how to resolve the situation? No! She only took the teachers side and brushed us off. According tothelaw, parents have the right to receive a copy of their child's records.Wetook that to mean anything and everything that the school had on ourchild,including teachers comments. Were we in for a big surprise whenwerequested a copy. There was NOTHING in that file except hisgrades,shot records and personal information (address, phone numbers,etc.). He continued with Reading Recovery into the 2nd and 3rd grade butanotherteacher had taken over by then. He was improving some so when theschooldecided that he didn't need it anymore, I went to the Reading Recoveryteacherand asked her to continue working with him. My son liked her (hecouldn'tstand the first one he had who just happened to be the first grade teamleader)and was actually learning.
Another thing that turned me off of public school, was theTAAS test. The teachers are not teaching the kids what they need to know, they areteachingto the TAAS test. Even the principal at my sons school told oneofthe teachers that she didn't care what they taught as long as thosekidstested really high on the TAAS tests. Texas "revamped" the TAAStest,and changed it to the TAKS test. Same thing though. Theteachersare teaching to the test and the schools are still being assessed onhowwell the students do on this test. If the school does well, theyarerewarded for their high scores...more money. Seems to me though that iftheschool does not score well, then they should be getting more money tohelpthem attain those high scores.
After discussing all the pros and cons of homeschooling andthe enormousresponsibility we as parents were going to be undertaking, we decidedatthe end of the school year that we would pull our kids out of publicschooland teach them at home. We had decided on School of Tomorrow (LivingHeritageAcademy) and requested that our kids records be sent to them. Weneverhad any problem from the public school system. Of course I didn'ttellthem that we were homeschooling either. My son must have told histhirdgrade teacher that we were going to homeschool him because she asked meaboutit. I was so afraid that I would catch some flack from that butshesurprised me. She said that when her child got older (she waspregnantat the time), she had thought about homeschooling. Her onlyconcernwas socialization. I didn't have the nerve to tell her that herchildwould get more socialization from homeschooling than from publicschool. What was funny was all the next year we kept getting calls and notesfromthe local high school concerning our daughter. They ranged fromorderingher high school ring to her annual to "A child in your household hasnotbeen to school" but no threatening letters or phone calls and no oneshowedup at my door.
At the beginning of my daughters 10th grade, another studentbrought a guninto the school, went into the boys bathroom, and shot himself. Theparents were not notified of this horrible event until the kids gothomefrom school. I was lucky because I just happened to be on the PTOandfound out fairly soon after it happened. I was very upset thattheparents weren't notified and given the option of taking their kids outofschool that day. The principal didn't want to cause a panic bynotifyingthe parents. What if this boy had used this gun on the otherstudentsinstead of himself? No security measures were in place to preventthisfrom happening, and nothing really changed afterwards either.
I was also very unhappy with a couple of my daughtersteachers. Shehad one teacher that was constantly putting her down and even went sofaras to throw an eraser at my daughter and ruin her leather coat. Wedid not know of this event until the next semester otherwise we wouldhaveinsisted that my daughter be transferred to another class and theteacherbe disciplined for this incident. It wasn't until anotherincidenthappened that I contacted the school and complained about thisteacher. After writing out everything that this teacher had done and said to mydaughter,she was finally moved to another classroom. I do not know if anydisciplinaryaction was taken against this teacher or not. I do know that shewasstill at this school by the end of 10th grade. My daughter alsohadanother teacher in 8th grade who called her stupid in front of anotherstudent. This was after my daughter had asked this teacher to sign a form givingmydaughter permission to take Algebra I in 9th grade. Maybe mydaughterdid not have the skills she needed to take Algebra I but, this teacherhadno right to say what she did to my daughter especially in front ofanotherstudent. There were other problems with the administration andteachersat my daughters school and that was basically the reason forhomeschoolingher.
Now before you pooh-pooh this as being the feelings of anoverly neuroticmother, my daughter was in mostly honors classes in Austin beforetransferringto Plano. She was a very good student who brought home mostly A'sandsome B's. While going to school in Colorado Springs, she was arecipientof the Presidents Academic Achievement Award when she was in 5thgrade. She went from a child who loved school, loved learning and strived togetgood grades, to one who hated most of her teachers, hated school andstartedbringing home mostly C's and F's. She never had any problems withanyof her teachers previous to moving to Plano, in fact all we ever heardfromher teachers were words of praise for our daughter. They justlovedher.
My son had two teachers throughout each of his 3 years inpublic school -one for math and one for the other subjects. My sons 1st gradeteacherhad to be one of the worst teachers I have ever had to deal with. Itseems that nothing my son did was right. She picked on himconstantly. I had other parents who had spent time in the classroom tell me thattheysaw nothing that my son did that warranted the discipline that thisteacherdoled out on my son. In fact I was told that he was one of thebetterbehaved kids in the classroom. Now my son is no angel but, he isavery sweet and helpful child. Because of problems in 1st grade,myson was not given a clean slate when he went into 2nd grade. Thatteacherwas a little bit better but judged my son on what his 1st gradeteachershad written about him. His 3rd grade teacher was so muchbetter. She never read any of the past teachers comments and formed her ownopinionsof the kids after she had been with them a while. She was verygoodand my son really liked her. I was almost persuaded to keep himinpublic school but, I had this feeling that he would get a 4th gradeteacherwho would be terrible. He'd made so much progress in 3rd gradewithhis reading and was actually enjoying school, that I did not want tohavehim revert to how he felt about school in the 1st and 2nd grade.
Another thing that my sons school did was to suggest that weget him testedfor ADD/ADHD. We knew that he wasn't either of those things. Wehadresearched the symptoms of ADD/ADHD and also had friends whose childwasdiagnosed with it. Our son exhibited none of thesesymptoms. The school was only concerned with getting those "low performers"classifiedas handicapped or special ed kids so that those kids would be exemptfromtaking the TAAS test (see below). Plano especially my sons schoolwasdetermined to have the best test scores no matter what they had to dotoget them.
My son excelled at Math and Science but, had a problem withhis reading. He became bored with school and didn't want to go anymore and he wasonlyin FIRST GRADE! When I told his first grade math teacher (who wasalsohis "homeroom teacher") that my son said he was bored, she pretty muchtoldme that my son didn't know what he was talking about because he didn'tknowwhat that meant! Give me a break. He knew exactly what thatwordmeant and that's what he was - BORED! Since he was having aproblemwith his reading, they put him in a program called "ReadingRecovery". It was suppose to help those kids with reading problems. Yeah,right. What helped our son was mom and dad. We purchased books thattaughthim phonics and his reading improved but of course the school thoughttheyhad done it. He was not a "whole language learner" which is whattheschool taught. When we voiced our concern to the principal, doyouthink she had any suggestions on how to resolve the situation? No! She only took the teachers side and brushed us off. According tothelaw, parents have the right to receive a copy of their child's records.Wetook that to mean anything and everything that the school had on ourchild,including teachers comments. Were we in for a big surprise whenwerequested a copy. There was NOTHING in that file except hisgrades,shot records and personal information (address, phone numbers,etc.). He continued with Reading Recovery into the 2nd and 3rd grade butanotherteacher had taken over by then. He was improving some so when theschooldecided that he didn't need it anymore, I went to the Reading Recoveryteacherand asked her to continue working with him. My son liked her (hecouldn'tstand the first one he had who just happened to be the first grade teamleader)and was actually learning.
Another thing that turned me off of public school, was theTAAS test. The teachers are not teaching the kids what they need to know, they areteachingto the TAAS test. Even the principal at my sons school told oneofthe teachers that she didn't care what they taught as long as thosekidstested really high on the TAAS tests. Texas "revamped" the TAAStest,and changed it to the TAKS test. Same thing though. Theteachersare teaching to the test and the schools are still being assessed onhowwell the students do on this test. If the school does well, theyarerewarded for their high scores...more money. Seems to me though that iftheschool does not score well, then they should be getting more money tohelpthem attain those high scores.
After discussing all the pros and cons of homeschooling andthe enormousresponsibility we as parents were going to be undertaking, we decidedatthe end of the school year that we would pull our kids out of publicschooland teach them at home. We had decided on School of Tomorrow (LivingHeritageAcademy) and requested that our kids records be sent to them. Weneverhad any problem from the public school system. Of course I didn'ttellthem that we were homeschooling either. My son must have told histhirdgrade teacher that we were going to homeschool him because she asked meaboutit. I was so afraid that I would catch some flack from that butshesurprised me. She said that when her child got older (she waspregnantat the time), she had thought about homeschooling. Her onlyconcernwas socialization. I didn't have the nerve to tell her that herchildwould get more socialization from homeschooling than from publicschool. What was funny was all the next year we kept getting calls and notesfromthe local high school concerning our daughter. They ranged fromorderingher high school ring to her annual to "A child in your household hasnotbeen to school" but no threatening letters or phone calls and no oneshowedup at my door.
So there we werehomeschooling our kids, something I never thought I wouldhave done in a million years. It took some getting use to, havingthekid’s home all day long. The first year my daughter was missingthesocial life she'd had at public school. The next year however,shebecame more involved in activities that before she never had timefor. Both kids were involved in 4H and soccer. Their school dayusuallybegan about 9 a.m. and they were usually done with their studies by atleast2 p.m. Some days they got started later and some days they finishearlier. Then there were days when they learned things that didn't involvebooks. The schedule could change from day to day depending on what was goingonaround our house. We went on field trips with our localhomeschoolassociations and took family vacations that we normally wouldn't havebeenable to. The rewards of homeschooling far outweighed thedisadvantages. The only disadvantages that I could see from homeschooling were thecostof supplies to homeschool (I like to buy the "extra" things) and mylackof patience (which is something I work on daily). Homeschoolingmeantthat I was responsible for what my child learns and how they learnedit. They are able to take their time with a subject they do not understandandcan finish a subject ahead of schedule. Homeschooling also meansthatmore quality time is spent with my children.
The first year wehomeschooled I used the School of Tomorrow (Living HeritageAcademy) curriculum for both kids. My son had to take anassessmenttest to see what level he was at. Then if there were any gaps inlearning,he did those books before starting with the actual grade levelwork. All of my daughter's credits from public school were transferred overandthey told me what subjects she needed to take in order to graduate fromtheirschool. It was more of a correspondence course than ahomeschool. She continued with that curriculum the next year too.
We decided to go with a few other types of curriculum for myson the nextyear. He used Alpha Omega for Math, Science andHistory/Geography. He used Learning Language Arts Through Literature (LLATL) and WordsmithApprenticefor Language Arts. I think the Alpha Omega is a little moreadvancedthan the S.O.T. curriculum was, as he seemed to be struggling a littlewithit. Unlike the first year when he was able to do the work on hisown,the second year I had to help him a lot more. He had a hard timewithhis reading (something I blame on his public school experience) so wehadto work more on that. We worked more with a phonics workbook tohelphim with his reading. He did really well in Math and Science andlikedto do a lot of hands on activities.
My daughter graduated in May 2002. She had agraduation ceremony throughone of the homeschool associations we belonged to. We invited allofour family and friends to it, and weren't limited to the number ofpeoplewe could invite (unlike the public schools). The seniors pickedouttheir colors, Bible Verse, theme and all the other stuff that isusuallyalready decided for them at a public school. She got to keep hercapand gown along with her tassel. The seniors each decorated atablewith memories of their school years, kind of a biography table. Theseniors (and parents) picked out and ordered graduation announcementsandthey had their senior class pictures taken. She was reallyexcitedabout her senior year and didn't miss the "action" that went on at thepublicschool. The graduation ceremony was just wonderful. Theparentsgave a "90 second" speech about their graduate then presented them withtheirdiploma. We had a great MC and guest speaker. A videopresentationwas given during the ceremony with pictures of all the graduatesincludingfamily photos of them growing up. There were also videos of thesenioractivities that they participated in. After experiencing thatkindof graduation ceremony and remembering how impersonal mine was, I muchpreferthe homeschool graduation.
I see the progress my son makes every day and am amazed athow much he islearning even when he doesn't do book work. He enjoys watchingsomeof the educational shows on TV, and is quite computer literate (he'sevenmaking his own web page!). Of course he would rather be playingvideogames or watching his favorite shows on TV but he is very responsibleandis always willing to help out (despite what the public school teacherssay,I think that is a very good quality!). He really likes theinformalityof homeschooling, which allows him to take the time to reallyunderstanda subject, but he does like his work to be structured. He likeshavinga schedule of what he is to do for that day and when it is due. IfI didn't do that, nothing would get done, but we are flexible so theduedate can be adjusted. He has stated that he never wants to gobackto public school and I'm very happy. If he ever decides that hewantsto go back, then I will explain to him the pros and cons and as afamilywe will make the decision that is best for him. But I fullyexpectto homeschool him all the way through graduation.
We decided to go with a few other types of curriculum for myson the nextyear. He used Alpha Omega for Math, Science andHistory/Geography. He used Learning Language Arts Through Literature (LLATL) and WordsmithApprenticefor Language Arts. I think the Alpha Omega is a little moreadvancedthan the S.O.T. curriculum was, as he seemed to be struggling a littlewithit. Unlike the first year when he was able to do the work on hisown,the second year I had to help him a lot more. He had a hard timewithhis reading (something I blame on his public school experience) so wehadto work more on that. We worked more with a phonics workbook tohelphim with his reading. He did really well in Math and Science andlikedto do a lot of hands on activities.
My daughter graduated in May 2002. She had agraduation ceremony throughone of the homeschool associations we belonged to. We invited allofour family and friends to it, and weren't limited to the number ofpeoplewe could invite (unlike the public schools). The seniors pickedouttheir colors, Bible Verse, theme and all the other stuff that isusuallyalready decided for them at a public school. She got to keep hercapand gown along with her tassel. The seniors each decorated atablewith memories of their school years, kind of a biography table. Theseniors (and parents) picked out and ordered graduation announcementsandthey had their senior class pictures taken. She was reallyexcitedabout her senior year and didn't miss the "action" that went on at thepublicschool. The graduation ceremony was just wonderful. Theparentsgave a "90 second" speech about their graduate then presented them withtheirdiploma. We had a great MC and guest speaker. A videopresentationwas given during the ceremony with pictures of all the graduatesincludingfamily photos of them growing up. There were also videos of thesenioractivities that they participated in. After experiencing thatkindof graduation ceremony and remembering how impersonal mine was, I muchpreferthe homeschool graduation.
I see the progress my son makes every day and am amazed athow much he islearning even when he doesn't do book work. He enjoys watchingsomeof the educational shows on TV, and is quite computer literate (he'sevenmaking his own web page!). Of course he would rather be playingvideogames or watching his favorite shows on TV but he is very responsibleandis always willing to help out (despite what the public school teacherssay,I think that is a very good quality!). He really likes theinformalityof homeschooling, which allows him to take the time to reallyunderstanda subject, but he does like his work to be structured. He likeshavinga schedule of what he is to do for that day and when it is due. IfI didn't do that, nothing would get done, but we are flexible so theduedate can be adjusted. He has stated that he never wants to gobackto public school and I'm very happy. If he ever decides that hewantsto go back, then I will explain to him the pros and cons and as afamilywe will make the decision that is best for him. But I fullyexpectto homeschool him all the way through graduation.
Well enough ofthat. Now you know more than you probably wanted toknow about how I got started with homeschooling my kids. I havetriedto categorize these links according to what area they relate to. Someof these links fit into more than one category so I only put it intotheone I felt it was best suited for. I have tried to give adescriptionof the site as best as I could. Of course as I come across othersitesin my search, I will put them here. Please let me know if thereisa broken link or if you come across a site that you think I might wanttoput here by going to my guestbook on my main page and posting itthere. There are so many sites out there and they change every day.
Home