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what years are the MOST important to homeschool?


MeganW
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K-2 and Middle school

 

K-2 because I don't believe in early academics.

Middle School because kids that age need at least as much adult assistance with social situations as pre-k's do.

:iagree: wish I would have never sent my son to ps in the first few years. Its really killed his love of learning.

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K-2 and Middle school

 

K-2 because I don't believe in early academics.

Middle School because kids that age need at least as much adult assistance with social situations as pre-k's do.

 

Agreeing and will add to K-2--because you just might change your mind about only homeschooling 5-7 years and decide to hs all of them!

 

Merry :-)

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For us: Middle school and Jr High.

My kids went to public elementary school and it was great. We loved the school and the teachers. yes, they could have been a bit more challenged, but overall it was OK.

Starting with 5th grade, things went downhill. The learning stopped, they were bored out of their mind. In addition, the social climate was horrible, DD was bullied for striving for academic excellence. I pulled her out of 6th grade (in hindsight, I should have done it a year earlier, but homeschooling was not on my radar until things got so bad that it was the only way out), and DS out of 5th grade.

We will probably homeschool for highschool because they are so accelerated. Making this decision is easier for us than for some because we are both college instructors and feel comfortable teaching upper level material. I do nto think sending them back to public highschool would be too bad.

But I would never want to subject a child to public school in grades 5 through 8.

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So many variables...

 

For us, K-8, definitely.

 

Our elementary school stinks. Our middle school makes our elementary school look like heaven -- things only improve in our district for high school.

 

I know of several PS moms of girls who are happy with the elementary school, but are planning to HS 5-8, and several PS moms of boys who have decided to hs K-5.

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I know of several PS moms of girls who are happy with the elementary school, but are planning to HS 5-8, and several PS moms of boys who have decided to hs K-5.

 

I've found this to be true as well with my own dc. My dd did fine in elementary and ds did horrible. I wonder why there is such a huge learning difference/ability/style/etc between boys and girls and how that affects performance in a classroom setting. Thoughts on this anyone?

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I've found this to be true as well with my own dc. My dd did fine in elementary and ds did horrible. I wonder why there is such a huge learning difference/ability/style/etc between boys and girls and how that affects performance in a classroom setting. Thoughts on this anyone?

 

I went to a ps seminar on this some time ago. One illustration that was given was this (well, kind of close - it was a year ago!):

 

Imagine the stereotypical girliest girl you can on one end of the spectrum, and the most boyish boy on the other end.

 

The girly girl loves to sit and draw, takes pride in making her handwriting as pretty as possible, and is very socially savvy.

 

The boyish boy is what you'd call an 'alpha male'. Tunes people out after a few words, and puts his whole self into everything, moving all the time. Pencils and paper aren't the tools of choice for expression (and he's probably learned to hate them because he was made to do way too much writing before his motor skills were ready for it). When it comes to science experiments, he just wants the supplies and he'll have it figured out what to do with them (after some trial and error involving some big bangs) while the girly girl is methodically working her way through the instructions. Auditory processing while sitting still isn't something he likes to do - and in fact, he needs to be moving in order to take in what he's hearing.

 

Now, a boy might fall on the spectrum way closer to the girly girl, and likewise, you may have a girl who's more of a 'tomboy'. So we can't generalize a one size fits all approach, and say all girls will be fine in a school environment and all boys will flounder. But what's obvious is that our school systems are set up way better for those who are farthur away from the super-boy extreme.

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Planning to home school k-8 here. I think that middle school is probably the most important, simply because that is when they can get most messed up in school! Around here we have great elementary schools and our high schools are strong with honors and AP classes. Middle schools do not offer much to high performing kids. But they do offer lots of potential problems!

 

I think it's better to start off at home so that kids will love home schooling and not see it as something that takes them away from their friends. So ideally, try to home school k-8. But if that entire range isn't possible, I would go for home schooling the upper end of that range. I'm thinking I want my kids learning how to get along in the world before they go off to college, so since our high schools are fine, I expect to put them in school at that point.

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If academic excellence is your goal, some intense skill building at home in k-1 and 8th, might be all that is needed, along with some after schooling.

 

If character building is your goal, I think most teens benefit mightily from working days, side by side with adults all day, and spending early mornings devoted to studying spirituality, and evenings doing JUST enough formal academics to get into a junior college, and then pursuing delight driven courses without worrying about documenting them.

 

It matters what your goals are, which years are most important.

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5th-8th would be my top picks.

 

Here that is Upper Elementary and Jr. High. I'm not impressed with either one academically and it is such a difficult time socially. If I could spare my kids one piece of ps, that would be it.

 

On the other hand if I had a child (especially a boy) who was just a late bloomer, I would want to spare them the early elementary grades when schools are pushing so hard! Both of mine were fine during these years, but I know so many families with squirmy boys who are immature and being able to keep them away from that early push would be such a blessing!

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For me it would be grades 6-8. Neither of my older two are late bloomers and would have a ball in elementary school despite being way ahead academically. Oldest might complain about that but ds2 is too social to care. However, there are a lot of advantages to hsing elementary which is why we're doing it. I think it's even more beneficial to late bloomers. Middle school is tough both socially and academically for so many kids that we'll definitely be doing that at home. My goal is to find a good brick and mortar for high school that fits my dc...we'll see when we get there. I'm not opposed to hsing them all the way through if needed.

 

I've found this to be true as well with my own dc. My dd did fine in elementary and ds did horrible. I wonder why there is such a huge learning difference/ability/style/etc between boys and girls and how that affects performance in a classroom setting. Thoughts on this anyone?

 

The book Gender Matters discusses how classrooms are set up better for girls. The book is about the physiological differences in boys and girls and how it affects learning. Two reasons that stick out in my mind are that girls physically hear better and process information using different parts of the brain. It is a pretty fascinating read.

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The book Gender Matters discusses how classrooms are set up better for girls. The book is about the physiological differences in boys and girls and how it affects learning. Two reasons that stick out in my mind are that girls physically hear better and process information using different parts of the brain. It is a pretty fascinating read.

 

Thanks for the suggestion!! I looked it up on Amazon and it looks great...which is wonderful because I never seem to have enough to read ;)

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If you were only going to homeschool 5-7 years or so of your children's school years, which years would you do? Early elementary? Middle school? Why?

I can't choose which years of K-8 are best to homeschool. I can say that hs'ing K-6 is easier than hs'ing 7-8. Some people homeschool junior high specifically because of the puberty-related social issues. I am certain that it is completely unnatural to have 20+ ragingly hormonal teens together for 6hrs/day 5days/wk. I'm also certain that it is completely unnatural for ragingly hormonal teen boys to spend large quantities of time with their mothers.

 

We started in K for several reasons. My main reason for hs'ing is/was academics. But, a secondary reason, was that ds was an active guy. Where we lived at the time, the school district was very proud of their brand-new, full-day kindergarten program. It would have been torture for ds (whose nickname was "Our Lord of Perpetual Motion" - not so applicable anymore though). We are sure that we would have been talked to about medication - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with ds. A third reason for starting in K was that I had talked to so many hs'ing parents whose dc had a hard time being pulled out of school and away from their friends. Ds would have been one of those. OTOH, the ones who were bullied in school did not have a hard time leaving.

 

Instead of full-day K, ds had 30-60min academics a day for K.

 

Best wishes!

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K-2 for sight word avoidance.

 

I have remediated so many children that had problems from sight words, that I personally would not risk it until 3rd grade when they have stopped pushing sight words.

 

Most public schools and some private schools use the Dolch sight words. I have given out hundreds of reading grade level tests, and 30 to 40 percent of children at schools using the Dolch words have some degree of reading problems. When I first started tutoring, it was 100 percent whole word teaching and that was even worse, around 60 percent.

 

Most of the students who have been taught a good phonics program with few sight words are reading a grade or two above grade level.

 

Middle school is a rough time, I would pick that as the second most important time, depending on the child and the schools. I only know a few people who enjoyed their middle school years.

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