This thread is to brainstorm about the pros and cons of, and the choice between, home school and virtual school (having already decided B&M school won't work.)
For homeschool, parents will want to check their State's laws and regulations and keep careful records for composing transcripts. Records may include dates and hours of study, reading lists, field trips taken, portfolio of projects and significant essays, etc.
For virtual school (and B&M's which issue electronic devices such as ipads or laptops), parents may need to be aware that schools have the ability to turn on device microphone and camera within your home or other study location. Be aware of your local laws, school policies/practices, and permission forms which you sign.
I particularly need concrete suggestions of home schooling materials to replace what the virtual school feeds us.
A large advantage to homeschooling is that it can be tailored and highly responsive to each child's interests, learning style, and educational needs. There is a vast pool of resources (old an new) to draw from. Supplemental materials may be added when a child's interest may indicate a readiness to slow down and dig deeper into a topic.
We initially chose virtual schooling because we were unsure how to go about home schooling, it is free (public virtual charter school), they chose and supplied the materials and online courses... there was structure, a school staff/teachers, report cards, and so on... However compared to home schooling, the virtual school has less freedom/choice, more time wasting, more annoying school nonsense, mediocre (not great, not terrible) course materials. Acceleration is easy, but they don't have real gifted materials, you just get to go faster through the standard coursework.
There are different ways of being "free": without financial cost at point of service -vs- autonomy in decision making. These are often inversely proportional.
I'm sure we can do better with home schooling, but we need good materials... proper academic materials that don't waste time or money. Apart from AoPS with its class time slots, we do not want any scheduled activities. Complete time freedom is essential.
Here again there may be an inverse relationship: more parental time may be need to be invested to source the most efficient curriculum for each child.
How do I convince DW that we can jump ship from a known virtual schooling to an unknown home schooling?
By knowing you can do better with homeschooling.
Look ahead to success stories of homeschoolers at college/university and beyond.
Any ideas for putting a home schooling plan together? (Any other suitable forums for really getting into the details?)
You've received some great website suggestions already, I'll just add Gifted homeschooler's forum (GHF) and HSLDA.
