"What can I use for homeschooling that is free and all online and requires no parent interaction and reads outloud becaus the child can't read"

[SeaConquest]

Haven't read all the responses yet, but this is an epidemic here in California because of the charter school money. People are getting 3k per year per child, and that entices a lot of people who have no interest in actually homeschooling.

The other issue we have out here is all the religious and/or anti-government homeschoolers, who previously filed private school affidavits, are now moving to charters because of the funds arms race. They want to use their public, charter school funds for Christian materials, have their kids attend Christ-centered classes, go to field trips to the Creation Museum, don't want to vax, don't want to have their kids take sex ed, and/or don't want to participate in state testing. It's like: what part of a charter school is a public school is unclear to you?

[Noreen Claire]

I'm only going into our 3rd year of homeschooling but, all of a sudden the local FB group is mostly people looking for a place where they can drop their kid off all day long for someone else to teach, tuition-free, while they go to work.

Dude... That's a school.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

7 minutes ago, Noreen Claire said:

I'm only going into our 3rd year of homeschooling but, all of a sudden the local FB group is mostly people looking for a place where they can drop their kid off all day long for someone else to teach, tuition-free, while they go to work.

Dude... That's a school.

LOL

But this also explains the lack of regard for teachers, by too many in this country - if free, public education is taken for granted, and people don't even know what a teacher does all day (as evidenced by having zero clue that they'd have to do any work at all, to replace her)...sort of paints the picture, doesn't it?

I am the last to suggest that we don't need free (or mostly free) public schools. We do, and they need to be equal and fully funded, and every child deserves access to education. I can think that, and still think it's making everything harder for the public to not know what school is for. I'm not even placing blame entirely on parents - I know a lot of people who are homeschooling because they feel they've been shut out entirely, whether regarding their child's academics or behavior.

Anyway. It's all starting to be a bigger issue than parents who don't know what homeschooling is. 

[Garga]

Well, I must be doing it all wrong, because my oldest studies for 6-7 hours a day and my youngest studies for 5 hours a day, and I have only about 5 minutes of breaks at a time, jumping between them, teaching.

And I'm past the 40 hour mark for the past 9 days that I've been planning the upcoming year.  And that's just for the oldest. And that doesn't count researching what curric to use.  That was a different set of 40 hours.  The past 9 days has just been looking over what curric I already chose and figuring out how to break it up over the 36 weeks of school.

I still have yet to touch on the planning for the youngest.  I hope his planning will take less than 40 hours, because some of his stuff is what we did last year, so I already know the drill.

It's crazy to me to even think this could be done for free with no time commitment.  I've already spent well over $1000 on three outsourced classes for my oldest, not counting any books or supplies and not counting the three classes I'm teaching him on my own.  I don't outsource before 9th grade, so my youngest's costs are less, but obviously there is double the teacher involvement than for my oldest since I'm doing all the teaching.

And now that I'm all fired up from reading this thread and thinking over the heavy workload I take on and thousands I spend...just wait for someone to ask me how they can homeschool for free and with no time commitment!  I'll probably bite off their tiny little head!  Well...inside I will.  Outside, I'll just give it to them straight--homeschooling is a full time job that you have to pay to do. And you cannot ever assume you'll have the sorts of kids who can be left alone.  Some people do, yes.  But quite a majority of kids, all the way until 12th grade, need a teacher/tutor/facilitator at their side. 

And when the kids are done for the day, or are relaxing on the weekend, you'll be spending time planning and grading and researching for the next year.  Oh, and I still have to get to all the college stuff--course descriptions, transcript, etc.  The workload just never ends.  I love pretty much every minute of it...but it's work.

 

Oh, and as other PPs said...the financial hit to our retirement didn't seem like a big deal when I was 33 and decided to homeschool.  But now that I'm 45 and my ds is 50, it's suddenly feeling very, very serious.  I still think my kids would have had a very hard road in school, so it's been worth it for the sake of my children, but it's a serious sacrifice overall.  

Edited July 31, 2018 by Garga

[PeachyDoodle]

14 hours ago, Quill said:

Even though I am not recent to homeschooling (started in 2002), I still say that I was falsly lured into thinking “homeschooling takes two hours a day” and “most homeschoolers are finished for the day by lunch.” This may be accurate for first graders, but few people online or IRL ever said otherwise or ever made a distinction between little kids and older kids. The “logical”explanation given was that “teachers spend a lot of time taking attendence, preparing to move to other classes, stopping to address behavior problems...” and supposedly, by homeschooling, I would just buzz along without interruption for two hours and then go frolic in the meadow for the balance of the day. ???

In some ways, I wish a few people had just leveled with me, especially once I had my very energetic youngest child. I spent a couple years feeling like a half-cocked nutjob because my demon child took all my endurance and we couldn’t get through the most basic homeschooling task without 78 interruptions. I was really wondering how other people were succeding with finishing homeschooling by lunch when I was struggling to comb my hair by lunch. 

No joke. And I second-guess myself every time I look at our upcoming 8th-grade schedule and see that dd is going to put in 6-7 hours every day. What happened to the promised two hours a day, four days a week, with a full day to play and make crafts and visit museums?? I can barely figure out how to fit that stuff in for my 2nd-grader.

Edited July 31, 2018 by PeachyDoodle
b/c ds is in 2nd grade. Duh.

[Guest]

Quote

nd now that I'm all fired up from reading this thread and thinking over the heavy workload I take on and thousands I spend...just wait for someone to ask me how they can homeschool for free and with no time commitment!  I'll probably bite off their tiny little head!  Well...inside I will.  Outside, I'll just give it to them straight--homeschooling is a full time job that you have to pay to do. And you cannot ever assume you'll have the sorts of kids who can be left alone.  Some people do, yes.  But quite a majority of kids, all the way until 12th grade, need a teacher/tutor/facilitator at their side. 

???

[Lecka]

I’m not sure about this, but I think there is some backlash to helicopter parenting, where “everything” is helicopter parenting.  

I talk to people sometimes who are worried about doing too much and almost need permission to do things that I think are unremarkable.  

I think a lack of respect for teachers also plays a big role.  

Something I also see is people who aren’t connected to their local communities enough to know what the local schools are like.  

My husband for example thinks that our kids are being taught some liberal content because he has seen YouTube videos about it, and in fact we have lived two different places and in both our kids say “under God” when they say the Pledge of Allegiance.  This is just one tiny example but I will sometimes be told about this or that with the schools, and I know it is not what is happening in my kids’ schools because I have that involvement.  

Edit:  I afterschool.  But I meet people here and there who think certain things are happening in all schools that simply aren’t happening in local schools, because they watch YouTube videos that talk about something that is going on in a school somewhere in the country, and don’t realize that the local community is not represented by what they are seeing.  

Edited July 31, 2018 by Lecka

[happypamama]

12 hours ago, Plum Crazy said:

My local co-op has a homeschooling 101 class once a month. Now I'm curious to go and see what kind of questions get asked.

I actually love this idea!  This is something our support group could work toward doing at some point. 

[HomeAgain]

18 minutes ago, seekinghim45 said:

 

Bu they are out there..  My son was appalled on a youth trip at a high schooler who was done with school by 10am every day.  I agree it isn't just homeschooling.  Parents don't want to engage whether it is homeschooling or public school.  Whatever keeps their kids busy and out of their hair is fine.  

Similar here. I had a parent huff at me because I gently suggested that 45 minutes a day of printed off worksheets was not an appropriate education for a 9th grader.  We stopped being friends that day, but the next year her son was back in school and thriving.

[PeachyDoodle]

34 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Similar here. I had a parent huff at me because I gently suggested that 45 minutes a day of printed off worksheets was not an appropriate education for a 9th grader.  We stopped being friends that day, but the next year her son was back in school and thriving.

Yikes! I'm glad he got what he needed in the end though. 

[El...]

48 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Similar here. I had a parent huff at me because I gently suggested that 45 minutes a day of printed off worksheets was not an appropriate education for a 9th grader.  We stopped being friends that day, but the next year her son was back in school and thriving.

I'm glad you spoke up.  

[LuvToRead]

44 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Similar here. I had a parent huff at me because I gently suggested that 45 minutes a day of printed off worksheets was not an appropriate education for a 9th grader.  We stopped being friends that day, but the next year her son was back in school and thriving.

I had a similar experience.  I was told that in PS High School students only get 3 hours of actual school because of lunch, time between classes, blah, blah, blah.  She got mad when I reminded her that these same PS students were coming home with 3 hours of homework, so 2 hours per day of homeschooling just wasn't enough.  I am the evil ogre because my 10th grader was doing school from 8am to at least 3, and usually later (with a lunch break).  I make her stop at 3 for an afternoon break, but she oftentimes finishes up later.

[HomeAgain]

1 minute ago, elroisees said:

I'm glad you spoke up.  

To be fair, that was one of the least offensive cases I saw in Texas.  There was a high rotation of children in and out of schools because they were placed behind and their parents didn't like it so would pull them out again, or the parents would decide not to teach subjects because their kids weren't interested ("we're not doing math anymore.  Little Suzy (age 8 ) is going to be a midwife and won't need it."). I became in favor of regs of some sort after our first year there. When Classical Conversations moved in it was actually a really good thing to help add some structure - and I say that while not liking CC in the least.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

To be fair, that was one of the least offensive cases I saw in Texas.  There was a high rotation of children in and out of schools because they were placed behind and their parents didn't like it so would pull them out again, or the parents would decide not to teach subjects because their kids weren't interested ("we're not doing math anymore.  Little Suzy (age 8 ) is going to be a midwife and won't need it."). I became in favor of regs of some sort after our first year there. When Classical Conversations moved in it was actually a really good thing to help add some structure - and I say that while not liking CC in the least.

It was this type of thing that led me to become more in favor of regs as well. 

[Guest]

Not to hijack, but, moments ago, I saw a post on my FB feed that goes along with this conversation. The question was, “should I teach cursive?” and thankfully, there are a lot of people responding, “yes.” But there is a poster who said her 10th grader had 7 papers returned all marked up with red and she is thankful her dd cannot read the horrible comments. I replied that I hope she is being ironically witty. But I don’t think she was. 

[MysteryJen]

I don't talk to homeschoolers anymore (and now I have an excuse, I graduated my last kid this spring and the younger two are going to ps high school). I have lost too many friendships talking frankly about how hard it is to homeschool middle/high school. Middle school was the hardest for me, because it was so skills based: logical thinking, learning to write, solid math/algebraic skills, etc. It was like talking to some sports parents:

"I only want my kid to practice 3 days a week. How can they get to Olympic Trials?"

Answer 1: Well, they have to be extremely talented, find the right coach, have a lot of luck...

Answer 2: They can't.

Can you be college ready without working hard-homeschool or public school? Same answers. Some people just think that answer 2 never applies to them and their "special" circumstances.

 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, seekinghim45 said:

 

I taught cursive and one of my children cannot read it.  Part of it is once they get passed about 6th grade, they type everything.  No one uses it anymore.  I would still teach it just like I did before, but it just doesn't stick anymore because they don't use it. 

Yes, and I have experienced that, too. But I do think it is important to teach it. 

The poster on FB I mentioned clearly has bigger issues. 

[HS Mom in NC]

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

To be fair, that was one of the least offensive cases I saw in Texas.  There was a high rotation of children in and out of schools because they were placed behind and their parents didn't like it so would pull them out again, or the parents would decide not to teach subjects because their kids weren't interested ("we're not doing math anymore.  Little Suzy (age 8 ) is going to be a midwife and won't need it."). I became in favor of regs of some sort after our first year there. When Classical Conversations moved in it was actually a really good thing to help add some structure - and I say that while not liking CC in the least.

Suzy's mom has doesn't know Suzy needs math to be a midwife?!

[StartingOver]

I see these daily and they drive me absolutely insane. I have had to leave many groups because of it. I can not hold my tongue. hehe

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

Suzy's mom has doesn't know Suzy needs math to be a midwife?!

Ar minimum, she needs to know what “10 cm dialated” means. ?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

Not to hijack, but, moments ago, I saw a post on my FB feed that goes along with this conversation. The question was, “should I teach cursive?” and thankfully, there are a lot of people responding, “yes.” But there is a poster who said her 10th grader had 7 papers returned all marked up with red and she is thankful her dd cannot read the horrible comments. I replied that I hope she is being ironically witty. But I don’t think she was. 

She wasn’t, btw. She described her dd as “bullied” by the teacher because one of the comments was, “you didn’t follow directions.” She claims her childs IEP includes, “no negative comments.” This is what I feel has infected homeschooling. I used to be proud to homeschool but now I am less so. 

[HomeAgain]

20 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

Suzy's mom has doesn't know Suzy needs math to be a midwife?!

It was.....unbelievable.  Or it would have been without everything else going on in that social group.  My kid met high schoolers who were significantly behind* and encouraged to follow "alternative paths" into adulthood because college and higher education was quite effectively closed to them.  The change from a group of extremely involved parents and kids working toward goals and dreams actively and with a purpose to what we saw when we moved to Texas was just heartbreaking.  It was a huge part of why he went to high school the next year, and an even bigger part of why the principal visibly cringed when I told him we'd like ds placed in 10th, where he belonged. He relaxed when he saw we had all our paperwork in order because we had prepared for the possibility that ds would like to go to a public school one day.  Ds found peers again, which is something he was not getting while homeschooling there.

*Learning disabilities were not something the parents had considered and it was a pretty big group with the same ideals.  It was a culture of neglectful schooling mixed with a bit of selfishness and uncertainty of what kids need to learn or even why they should.

[Targhee]

On 7/30/2018 at 7:20 AM, MeaganS said:

 

I'm not sure. When I tell people we homeschool, the most common reaction is that they think it's great and wish they could too but they are afraid of the work. So while I see the attitude we're taking about online, in person I see a lot of the opposite too. 

Just curious if this is mainly people with older kids or young milenials? 

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Plum Crazy said:

O/T but maybe we should just teach them how to read cursive? Handwriting and cursive is dying. But reading cursive could remain a valuable tool.

I know a lot of people suggest this, but I think it is hard enough to make cursive stick when they have actualy written in it; I can’t imagine how fruitless it might be to just teach them to read it. Plus, I believe our younger kids need the neural connections from actually writing with their hands. (I think this about reading, too.) They aren’t getting it “naturally” because they have so little need to write anything with their hands. 

[Amy in NH]

On 7/29/2018 at 4:21 PM, Catwoman said:

 

Is anyone seriously hearing different people say things like that “every single day” or “all the time?”

Where are you going and what kind of people are you meeting? 

I’m not trying to be rude, but it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone hears random people ask on a daily basis (or even frequently) about what they can use for homeschooling “that is free and all online and requires no parent interaction and reads out loud because the child can’t read.” 

I have occasionally met a parent who doesn’t want to put in much effort to homeschool their child, but I would think it would be rare to meet people every day who have the kind of extreme attitude described in the OP. For that matter, how many of us even meet that many brand new homeschoolers on a daily basis, even counting online forums?

 

 

 

I am a homeschool support group leader, and I DO hear those questions at least once every week.

[Targhee]

These types of questions make me equal parts sad and angry, and anxious about the reputation of Homeschoolers as a whole. 

I think coupled with these types of questions is a prevailing attitude about life many of the askers have - all I have to do is say I need help and others should step up and take care of things.  I see so many posts on FB where people just state their situation and expect to see answers flooding in without having to do any leg work themselves - eg on a local housing page “Hi Everbody I need help looking for place - 3 bd $500 or less. Thx” or on a page for events in our town of 30k “Who’s hiring? Comment below.” There’s a concerning attitude through this that doesn’t involve work.

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, seekinghim45 said:

I taught cursive and one of my children cannot read it.  Part of it is once they get passed about 6th grade, they type everything.  No one uses it anymore.  I would still teach it just like I did before, but it just doesn't stick anymore because they don't use it. 

It is not correct that handwriting is obsolete and everything is typed. 99% of my college students take their notes by hand. The remaining 1% is handwriting with a stylus on a table.

ETA: Even in a homeschool: do you children take notes from their textbook reading on the computer?

Edited July 31, 2018 by regentrude

[Library Momma]

13 hours ago, Lecka said:

I’m not sure about this, but I think there is some backlash to helicopter parenting, where “everything” is helicopter parenting.  

I talk to people sometimes who are worried about doing too much and almost need permission to do things that I think are unremarkable.  

I think a lack of respect for teachers also plays a big role.  

Something I also see is people who aren’t connected to their local communities enough to know what the local schools are like.  

My husband for example thinks that our kids are being taught some liberal content because he has seen YouTube videos about it, and in fact we have lived two different places and in both our kids say “under God” when they say the Pledge of Allegiance.  This is just one tiny example but I will sometimes be told about this or that with the schools, and I know it is not what is happening in my kids’ schools because I have that involvement.  

Edit:  I afterschool.  But I meet people here and there who think certain things are happening in all schools that simply aren’t happening in local schools, because they watch YouTube videos that talk about something that is going on in a school somewhere in the country, and don’t realize that the local community is not represented by what they are seeing.  

 

This.  I encounter people all of the time who have no clue what goes on in their own children's school and even classroom.  I've met people who think that their kids aren't learning cursive, or don't have recess or gym because someone told them that's what schools are like these days.  Even after meet the teacher, and open houses, and class newsletters, and webpage updates, and letters home, and even seeing their children's homework, they still have no idea what is going on.  If people have no idea what their own children and school are doing it doesn't surprise me that they have no concept of alternate methods of education.

[regentrude]

10 minutes ago, seekinghim45 said:

However, they all print when they take notes if I require it to be written instead of typed. They are already so incredibly slow doing that.  I cannot imagine if I required them to take notes in cursive.  

Cursive is a lot faster than printing. 

[MeaganS]

1 hour ago, Targhee said:

Just curious if this is mainly people with older kids or young milenials? 

 

Um, probably both, although I've never paid super close attention. I'm a millennial myself and my oldest is about to turn 10, so I do know we're not all slackers. ?

I have seen both attitudes ("it's too much work, I could never do that" and "I want it without any work."), and have almost never seen the type that wants it all done for them actually end up homeschooling. But I live in a fairly isolated bubble and keep mostly to myself. 

In fact, I still feel weird about having dd10 doing Teaching Textbooks because it has that reputation, despite the fact that I tried literally 6 other math programs with her first. I'm a Beast Academy/Miquon mom at heart and it makes me feel an odd sort of guilt to have a child doing TT, even if that's the best fit for now. 

[regentrude]

11 minutes ago, seekinghim45 said:

 In whose world?  Not mine!!!  They don't remember how to form letters.  I even print all the time now as well unless I am writing a formal letter.  Cursive is harder for me to write and hurts my hand when I do it for a long time. 

Are you writing with a good writing utensil? Fountain pens are the best because the pen glides on the ink, and there is no strain on the wrist.

When I write several pages in one sitting, which I do regularly, cursive and fountain pen is the fastest, neatest, and easiest on the hand.

Edited July 31, 2018 by regentrude

[Lawana]

18 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Cursive is a lot faster than printing. 

Only when you are practiced. I am teaching cursive to 2 middle school kids and I had forgotten how slowly new learners write. 

[EmseB]

19 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Cursive is a lot faster than printing. 

Yes. In 10th grade my AP English teacher spent the first couple of weeks teaching us all cursive because the final was lengthy, had to be handwritten, and it was so much faster to use cursive if you practiced and had good technique. Many kids insisted they were faster printers, but she required the cursive and then timed us at one point mid-year. Almost no one was faster at printing by that point.

[Katy]

35 minutes ago, Plum Crazy said:

There seems to be a dichotomy of parental attitudes coming from teachers. Either they complain about the overly involved parents who are pressuring for A's, doing their kids homework and projects, etc. and the completely absent parents that are not involved in their kids education whatsoever. 

 

IME this is a question of neighborhoods.  My last church had several volunteer at schools initiatives and the needs were dramatically different depending on which neighborhood the school was in. Middle and upper middle class areas parents tended to be overly involved and put lots of pressure on kids.  Lower class neighborhoods parents tend to be focused on survival and their own lives and are not as involved.

20 minutes ago, seekinghim45 said:

 In whose world?  Not mine!!!  They don't remember how to form letters.  I even print all the time now as well unless I am writing a formal letter.  Cursive is harder for me to write and hurts my hand when I do it for a long time. 

 

If your hand hurts you weren't taught cursive properly.  You're not supposed to flex your hand at all with cursive, you're supposed to move your wrist and arm instead. Once you learn the completely different movements, cursive or some hybrid of cursive and italics is DRAMATICALLY faster.

[regentrude]

1 minute ago, EmseB said:

Yes. In 10th grade my AP English teacher spent the first couple of weeks teaching us all cursive because the final was lengthy, had to be handwritten, and it was so much faster to use cursive if you practiced and had good technique. Many kids insisted they were faster printers, but she required the cursive and then timed us at one point mid-year. Almost no one was faster at printing by that point.

Back in my home country, cursive is taught first, in 1st grade, with fountain pen.  ?

[Mergath]

26 minutes ago, Katy said:

 

IME this is a question of neighborhoods.  My last church had several volunteer at schools initiatives and the needs were dramatically different depending on which neighborhood the school was in. Middle and upper middle class areas parents tended to be overly involved and put lots of pressure on kids.  Lower class neighborhoods parents tend to be focused on survival and their own lives and are not as involved.

 

If your hand hurts you weren't taught cursive properly.  You're not supposed to flex your hand at all with cursive, you're supposed to move your wrist and arm instead. Once you learn the completely different movements, cursive or some hybrid of cursive and italics is DRAMATICALLY faster.

 

I use a printing/cursive hybrid, and in my experience it's faster than both. The letters are connected but I avoid all the frilly decorative crap. Most people that I know write in a similar style.

[vonfirmath]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

Cursive is a lot faster than printing. 

 

Not for everyone. My dad knows cursive (He was taught in school back in the 1950s) but he can print faster so when he has to write, he prints.

 

My own writing is a hybrid of the two.

Edited July 31, 2018 by vonfirmath

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Lawana said:

Only when you are practiced. I am teaching cursive to 2 middle school kids and I had forgotten how slowly new learners write. 

IMO, this points to an important reason to teach cursive in and of itself. It builds the neural pathways for manual dexterity. 

I think i hampered my older son by not “forcing” him to practice handwriting. I taught him but did not require him to continue. I think it is better for their brain development to be made to practice it because kids of the current culture have extremely little handwriting practice because they don’t need it to do tasks. 

I think the same way about practice in reading text visually. They need to do it to train their brains. 

[Noreen Claire]

3 hours ago, Plum Crazy said:

O/T but maybe we should just teach them how to read cursive? Handwriting and cursive is dying, but reading cursive could remain a valuable tool.

I write all of DS9's assignments in cursive, and I ask his grandmothers to mail him notes in cursive, just to keep reading it.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Noreen Claire

[Reefgazer]

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 5:07 PM, KungFuPanda said:

I do not blame you for thinking it’s an exaggeration, but I’m seeing this on local and state FB homeschooling groups a few times a week now. I’m left stammering each time. I have to stop reading them. I have ONE more year of homeschooling and then I’ll be out before this new crop of clowns cause tougher regulations for everyone. And I live in a fairly educated area with a good school system. I don’t see how people have the nerve to even ask! It’s even scarier to think this isn’t just a MD problem. 

I see this too, and I think it might come from hearing that "Oh, homeschooling is easy, you won't have any problems handling it."  Parents are now expecting it to be easy, and done well, it is not easy.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Reefgazer

[Targhee]

7 minutes ago, Reefgazer said:

I see this too, and I think it might come from hearing that "Oh, homeschooling is easy, you won't have any problems handling."  Parents are now expecting it to be easy, and done well, it is not easy.

Yes! Stop spreading the message that homeschooling is easy!!! Not only are you setting people up for disappointment, I feel a little personal resentment that all the work I am doing is dismissed as easy ☹️

This is what really gets me about some homeschooling acquaintances.  They seemed to almost proselytize homeschooling to everyone, assuring that it was easy and so much better than the alternative. Then, to assuage any fears or insecurities, they would insist that any formal schooling was not necessary, until maybe the teen years.  I'm a "better late than early" person generally and I do allow my kids some latitude for interests, but I am also a "better spend quality time doing the essentials (multa non nultum) than fall for the false dichotomy of strict-school-at-home or unschooling" person.  I just can't see how this even makes sense.

[ktgrok]

Homeschooling is a full time job you have to pay for. Best quote ever. 

[GoodGrief]

I've been following this thread and thinking about the topic. Having done homeschooling with three kids now (though the youngest was only through the fourth grade. She happily went to public school in fifth grade. ? )

I frequently hear questions about free and cheap curric. My impression through the years is that homeschoolers are frugal sorts by nature. I also think that often people really want to homeschool but are worried about the financial part of it, which is reasonable. I am not a fan of most free/cheap options, because those tend to be more labor intensive for me, but I understand why people seek them out.

Occasionally I will hear about people wanting the kids to homeschool themselves, essentially. This seems to be more the case with parents of older kids though, who need a homeschooling option for whatever reason (honestly, usually there's a mental health thing in play.) Some people seem intimidated by the idea of teaching the more complex subjects and want an "expert" to do it, even if it is an unseen online expert.

My experience with my own kids, and observation of many others, convinced me that the single greatest lesson we can teach them is how to find information and process it. Some motivated kids, even young ones, can be pretty successful teaching themselves given the resources. I'm smiling at the discussion of handwriting, recalling my second daughter at age 5 determined to plow her way though the Handwriting Without Tears cursive books, and she did, on her own (my kids all learned cursive, though like most people now they are typing for the vast majority of communication.) That same kid essentially taught herself the vast majority of her subjects through the years, once we got her through the reading bit. Certainly in middle school/high school I had nothing to do with her education, apart from researching and obtaining the resources.

That said, my other two kids could also teach themselves, but really did need an adult presence to keep them focused and moving through the material. One downside of public school classes is that it is easy for an individual who needs a little pushing to fall by the wayside in a relatively large group.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2018 by GoodGrief

[Scarlett]

1 hour ago, Quill said:

IMO, this points to an important reason to teach cursive in and of itself. It builds the neural pathways for manual dexterity. 

I think i hampered my older son by not “forcing” him to practice handwriting. I taught him but did not require him to continue. I think it is better for their brain development to be made to practice it because kids of the current culture have extremely little handwriting practice because they don’t need it to do tasks. 

I think the same way about practice in reading text visually. They need to do it to train their brains. 

Yes, this happened in our house too.  I taught it but didn't insist he practice it enough.  He hated it.  He hates it.  I do sometimes write him notes in cursive just to torture him....ha...I mean to help him remember how to read it.  I figure he gets his manual dexterity playing the piano.  I consider handwriting to be my homeschool fail.

[Janeway]

I just saw something similar the other day. It ticks me off. The person posts she works full time but from home but needs to focus on work. What is the bare minimum she can get away with having to do with him, he is going in to 2nd grade. How much can he do by himself. I am thinking..the child needs to be able to get out and interact and do things. What the heck is she expecting him to do? Just lay around the house, watching TV or playing video games all day because the parents work full time and no one takes care of him? I have known of parents who worked full time and home schooled, but they usually had schedules such that they had most days with the child, or the children were much older, their schedules alternated, etc.

[Scarlett]

As far as this topic overall....I do see a lot of people using public charters and they are waaaaay to easy.  I know many kids who are finishing up (junior high level and above) in maybe an hour a day.  Or 3 hours for the week.  Or doing the whole week Sunday night.  My step son is using a public charter and his geometry (as a junior) ended up being a joke imo.  He got behind and he was actual dropped from the school (and no one told us this either---I just got an email that he was dropped) They let him back in...and they let him catch up by basically doing about half of the assignments that were required of him.  

My son was also in a public charter the entire way 1-12.  K12 is the curriculum which seems like a decent one to me.  I was HEAVILY involved in his daily work...teaching every subject until he was probably in 6th or 7th grade...and even then although hew as much more independent I had to double check that he was actually getting his work done.  And see if he was remembering all assignments etc..  

And I know many high schoolers that drop out of the public charters because they think they are too time consuming...and do something like Pen Foster which one girl told me felt like cheating it was so easy.  Another girl complete all of her high school courses in PF in one year.  

So I think a lot of kids are coming out of homeschool completely unprepared for the work force and/or college, but I also see a lot of that in public schools.  The answer always comes back to the parents.  You gotta be responsible for your kids education--whatever it is.

[HS Mom in NC]

My kids learned to type early on (mid elementary school) so by the time they were taking notes at high school/college they could type 100+  words a minute. It made far more sense for them to type notes.  They did Getty-Dubay print and script because I wanted it to be fast, efficient and legible, but I really wanted my kids to know how to type before they started writing longer papers.

[EmseB]

1 hour ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

My kids learned to type early on (mid elementary school) so by the time they were taking notes at high school/college they could type 100+  words a minute. It made far more sense for them to type notes.  They did Getty-Dubay print and script because I wanted it to be fast, efficient and legible, but I really wanted my kids to know how to type before they started writing longer papers.

It seems counter intuitive, but evidence indicates writing notes seems to lead to better retention than typing. There is something about putting pen to paper that helps our brains remember things better than typing them.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

Typing is, of course, a valuable skill, but not necessarily for note-taking. I also think learning to type is not that difficult at older ages (says the person who learned 100wpm via AIM in my mid-teens and watched my dad learn in his 40s), whereas developing good handwriting is more difficult past the elementary years.

[HS Mom in NC]

41 minutes ago, EmseB said:

It seems counter intuitive, but evidence indicates writing notes seems to lead to better retention than typing. There is something about putting pen to paper that helps our brains remember things better than typing them.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

Typing is, of course, a valuable skill, but not necessarily for note-taking. I also think learning to type is not that difficult at older ages (says the person who learned 100wpm via AIM in my mid-teens and watched my dad learn in his 40s), whereas developing good handwriting is more difficult past the elementary years.

 

41 minutes ago, EmseB said:

 

Unless they've been taught to type a summation, which my kids have. And it depends on how a student was taught to study with notes.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Homeschool Mom in AZ

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

My kids learned to type early on (mid elementary school) so by the time they were taking notes at high school/college they could type 100+  words a minute. It made far more sense for them to type notes.  

Not a single one of my college students in my live classes (350 students per semester) types. Classes with lots of equations and drawings don't lend themselves to typing. There may be a few students adept enough at TeX to type notes, but I haven't encountered any.

There are also instructors who do not permit computers in class.

Edited July 31, 2018 by regentrude