Hi all, I have not read through this whole thread. But I am wondering if you would be so kind and explain the transition process from Public (Grades 5 and 2) to home school. I am just at the beginning of my journey into research. My 5th grader is on an IEP for specific learning disability. He seems to be the kid that keeps being dropped in the cracks and forgotten about. We did Public school and Charter school, I am thinking that homeschool will be our next step. I am just not sure I am confident enough in myself to pull this off. My second grader is above average in school. But she loves being there. It may be hard for her to leave it all behind. But can she move ahead onto materials that would be challenging to her rather than staying within her current curriculum? As you can see, I have a lot to learn. Thanks in advance for being patient with me, if you have any websites that would be great for a novice, please send them along to me.
As you can tell from the above, you will have to find out the requirements for your state. We never notified anyone, just didn't re-enroll and signed up with an umbrella school. But each state will be different. That wouldn't work in a lot of places.
Have you considered keeping your daughter in school and only homeschooling your son? It doesn't have to be all or nothing. We have a lot of families in our area who do this for a number of different reasons. One child is falling through the cracks, has learning disabilities not being properly addressed, is a kinetic learner while the school is all visual teaching, is a gifted student who is ahead, while the other kids in the family don't. We even have a number of families who homeschool because their kids are heavily into acting or sports or play in instrument and need the extra time to practice and attend events, so formal school just doesn't work for that child, but the others in the family go to either public or private. I know moms who say one at a time is all they can handle or just want to really be able to give special one on one attention to a child who has a lot of difficulties or who the public school let slip too far behind. I know some families who are like school works great with child A, but is a disaster for child B. Every kid is different.
I helped to co-homeschool a neighbors daughter who had fallen between the cracks if you will. Very bright girl but lots of social and learning disabilities. School just kept passing her on even though she couldn't read at 4th grade. Her other siblings stayed in school, so the rest of us could all work on getting the one daughter caught up to grade level. It took a summer of intense one on one work and a year of homeschooling, but she was able to pass the entrance exams to a private middle school and start at her grade level for 6th grade. Every time I see her pick up a chapter book today and read it, I'm so proud of her. She made such progress.
I know another mom whose high school daughter has been having a lot of trouble at school socially. I don't know all the details, but it is a pretty bad situation, so they have started homeschooling her, but all her younger siblings (she has about 5) are doing great in school and are staying.
It's just something to think about. If your daughter is happy and doing well in school no issues, no gaps in her learning, good social structure. Maybe leave her in for at least one more year. This would give you time to find your feet in the whole homeschool community and really allow you to focus on catching your son back up and figuring out what works well for him. Then once you are more comfortable and have him more settled have her start homeschooling if you still want to do both of them.
As far as how to start, as I stated in an earlier post I'm a big proponent of having an outside source test the kid to see where they fall academically before starting. This is because I've seen it over and over again with parents thinking their kid is on grade level X just because they are doing well in school only to find out they are actually a few years behind. Or that they are ahead, or a mix of both between subjects. Testing just gives you a place to start, an idea of what you need to work on, what grade curriculum to buy. Which brings me to your last question. Yes, you can do grade work above your child's level. It is actually very common. That's the beauty of homeschooling to work at your own pace. If the child grasps a concept you move on, if they struggle you can spend more time on it.
I have a much much younger sister, and I always thought it was funny when my mom was first homeschooling her she kept trying to hold her back because they kept working through the material too quickly and getting farther and farther ahead. My mother didn't mind if she was a little ahead, but she had this idea that they needed to stay close to her grade level. Eventually my mom realized that was a silly idea as my sister could handle the material, and she was the one pushing my mom for harder work not the other way around. After a couple of years, my mom finally gave in and decided to just go with the flow and things worked out great from then on. By 7th grade, my sister was doing high school Algebra 2 and reading on a college level. Now she's a sophomore in college with a scholarship and doing great.
By best advice is to know your resources both on the internet, but more importantly locally as well. I think the biggest help for my family was that we really researched homeschooling in our community before starting. We have a huge community here with a number of different businesses and organizations offering homeschool classes and events. We also have a number of co-ops. There is a National Homeschool Society you can join. We also have a state and city one as well. These organizations offer social meet ups, back to school parties, field days, field trips, and even yearbook and professional school pictures you can have done. The library, YMCA, local gyms, dance studios, bounce houses, book stores, zoo, Girl Scouts, and even local colleges and churches in my area all offer homeschool programs. Start making lists now of all these options that are available in your area, most you can find listed on local businesses websites or notice boards like they have at churches or Panera. Some will be purely social meets like swim or skate parties, others will be educational like Spanish, gym, or art classes, others will fill the role of typical school activities like field trips, science fairs, and year book.
The first thing you need to look up is a local parent's support group. We have an official one that meets locally every Thursday night at a nearby restaurant. They have their own web page and face book page as well I think. We use to have one that was sponsored by a local bookstore, and there is a sort of unofficial one at the library every Friday while the kids do their story time. These will become your life lines. The local parents will know better than anyone what you have to do, how it works in your city. They can tell you how to switch from public to homeschooling for your area,p and which local programs are the best. Even better, they can tell you who has kids your kids ages. In my area, it's common for say all the 10 year old girls to get together and take the same Spanish class with their friends or the same art class offered. It's good to know which activities kids your kids ages will be doing when. Which field trips they are going on etc. You will feel much less overwhelmed with a strong local support group.
The second thing I recommend is to find a few good curriculum fairs to go to. Don't go to only one. Try to do at least one well attended used fair and one large new fair. Even if you buy nothing, there are a lot of advantages to going to both. The new curriculum fair will give you a chance to look through and talk to the publishers of a number of different types of curriculum. Even if you aren't interested in formal schooling, and don't want a lot of work books, you will still find a lot to look through. There is so much out there to choose from. Unit studies, hands on curriculum, videos, computer programs, science kits, etc. It's not all text or work books. You'll find many other options to supplement with as well. This is one of the best ways to look through it all and ask questions to help you decide what you want to use.
Once you have a better idea of what you are looking for, try a used fair. You can get some great deals on curriculum, but more importantly this is another chance to network. You get to talk with the local families whose community you are going to become a part of. You can discuss what worked and didn't work for them. You will find many families with kids with learning disabilities happy to share the curriculum that helped them overcome their child's issues, or just happy to share advice with you or answer your questions. It's a great way to learn what does and doesn't work from real families who tried it, and why it did or didn't work for them. It's a great way to make friends as well. Homeschool families are usually thrilled to learn a new child is coming into the group for their child to possibly become friends with.
So that's were I would start if I was you. Hope I haven't overwhelmed you too much. Good luck.
I definitely need to look into their guidelines before we move. We actually lived in NC before we moved out here to HI, but all of the kids were 3 and under then.
