New to homeschool....

[anba]

My dh and I are considering hs our children. I am leaning toward allowing them to finish the year. However, I have considered pulling them out of ps now.

 

If I do pull them out of ps now, I am concerned how I would work that with my 9th grader. Should I find curriculum to continue what she is doing in ps to finish off the complete credit for the year (she has 1/2 credits now) or should I start her where I would have if I would have hs from the beginning of 9th and let her work at her own pace to get to where she is now?

 

Would it be better to run my school year from Jan to December or would it be better to work over the summer to finish up and run it from Sept to June???

 

There is so much to look at that my head is spinning. especially since i have 6 kids ranging from 2-14. I appreciate all your suggestions.

 

Thanks!

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

First, I suggest, is to read several books on homeschooling. I think internet forums are great but too many opinions will further confuse the situation.

 

Get several books from the library or from your local bookstore.

 

If you could get copies of all the books your 9th grader is currently using that would be great. She could finish this year with familiar materials.

 

Welcome!

[Mom22ns]

I agree to taking a bit of time to research homeschooling. Try The Well Trained Mind and Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks in Homeschool Curriculum to start.

 

I wouldn't start 9th grade over. I would look at what she is doing and try to finish. You can do that by continuing the materials she is using. However, some of the things she is using may not be things you feel comfortable teaching and they may not be self teaching. For those subjects, you have two choices. If they are core or important, you can find homeschool friendly materials that will work to finish the year. If they are electives or not important to her, you might consider dropping them and replacing them with a topic that would fit better into your homeschool schedule.

[Julie in MN]

In my area, credits are per semester. So her public school transcript would show 1 credit for each course she passed during first semester, and her homeschool transcript will show 1 credit for each course she passes during second semester. I assume that if you're in an area where a whole year is 1 credit, you will just assign 0.5 credit for each?

 

I wouldn't make her repeat anything from this past semester unless you feel it needs repeating.

 

When I brought my dd home to school in 10th grade, here is how it looked at my house.

 

(1) I first spent time figuring out what she had already done (which wasn't always easy, since our schools gave odd names to even math courses). I needed to know what she had already received credit for.

 

(2) Then I tried to understand what typical credits were, both in her previous school and just in general. I looked at "typical scope and sequence" outlines like the one from Worldbook http://www.worldbook.com/typical-course-of-study?wbredirect=1&Itemid=216 and I looked at my state's laws for "teaching requirements" (homeschoolers in my state must "teach" certain courses each year, not necessarily for giving credits or anything, but just a general heads-up) http://www.hslda.org/laws/

 

(3) Putting those two together, I just tried to place my dd somewhere on the map for her basic credits already earned/need to earn:

English

Math

Science

Social Studies

Electives (including Foreign Language & Bible)

 

(4) Then I tried to figure out where she was really at in her various skills, e.g. she didn't need to spend any more time on grammar or spelling, but she did need work on writing her own thoughts and reading faster. I used a little book called Evaluating for Excellence by Teresa Moon (the name may have changed since then), which helped me break down my observations into different skills.

 

(5) And lastly, I started researching materials I could use for the credits & specific skills we were going to work on. Research will be much more productive if you have a specific child with specific needs in mind. And even then, you might try purchasing used at first, or learning how to sell what you purchase, so you have a lot of room to make mistakes. For instance, I tried something for algebra, realized partway through that she wasn't getting it, called the credit "pre-algebra" instead, got some extra materials on solidifying some basic skills in fractions and decimals and such, called those part of the pre-algebra as well, and then went on to get another algebra program. So the algebra dollars added up, but by purchasing some things used and reselling others that I didn't think we'd use again, it wasn't outrageous.

 

Julie