Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments We decided to take the plunge into homeschooling

Please tell me that I'm not crazy and that I will be able to do a good job!

It really feels right, but I am freaking out

Aaagh!!! I told DS teacher yesterday that we're going to take him out and homeschool!!!! Me too!!!! I fluctuate between absolutely sure we did the right thing to 'what have I done?!'. I'm excited and hopeful and then realize I'm dizzy because I'm mildly hyperventilating as I go about my day! LOL!!! I feel really hopeful because the chances are much greater that more of his needs can be met at home. I'm also thrilled that there are peeps here that have BTDT and it's worked out! Good luck and don't forget to breathe!!

Welcome to the world of homeschool! You're definitely not crazy and you will do an amazing job. I felt the same when we started down this road, but has been great (including the 3 week road trip we've found ourselves on right now - never a possibility for us w/out HS). Keep breathing!

Thanks, kimck! I will try to remember to breathe, but not hyperventilate

Learningmom, I know exactly how you feel... I try to remind myself that this is something I have considered doing for a long time, and somehow the planets aligned and I finally got the courage to do it.

Welcome to homeschooling! Best advice, ease into it.

I saw the planets aligning about 5 months ago and just cleared my schedule and started researching. I saw it out on the horizon and it unfolded in a typical fashion and now it's here. Time to start the next path. Yipee!! Today, I'm breathing with ease and glad of it. You'll be fine and you're not alone. Good luck!

You are not crazy at all, Cathy! You know your children better than anybody else. You will do an amazing job!

Actually, we've decided to homeschool our DS9 next year also. I'm simply fed up with everything. Dealing with his school issues will definitely drive me insane. I'm very scared, but I feel a tremendous sense of relief! It really feels right. I'm hoping I will get my happy DS back soon!

Good luck!

Thanks, guys. I just got to the point where I couldn't stand to see what was happening to my kids. They are so excited! I hope I can live up to their expectations...

I'm planning an eclectic approach. DS is already doing EPGY online math, and DD may sign up for some more CTY courses. DS is taking the SCAT this afternoon so that he can qualify for CTY, too. That should take care of readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic. The rest is gravy because the school is down to the bare minimum as it is. If we only do that, we will be doing better than what they're currently getting and be a whole lot happier doing it!

Yeah, Botchan! We saw old DS return at the end of winter break and then disappear again when school returned. I know he's there!

We're planning on doing the same come fall. Actually we'll be easing into it using k12 through CAVA to start with because I'm not confident enough to try it on my own yet, lol.

It looks like I have a lot of company!

Cathy,
Welcome! We are homeschooling on the West Coast too!

We have hsed off and on and partially hsed. Right now, dd#1 is fully in middle school and doing well. Dd#2 is being supplemented with EPGY math at home and I would love to take her out entirely. I work pt, though, and I just can't figure out a way to do this financially without sinking my family. Do all of you have dh's who are making enough $ to make this work with a single bread winner?

Well, we are sacrificing our ability to buy a house... but otherwise, we are ok on DH's income.

That's a sacrifice and wonderful that you are doing so. I think that the biggest issue in terms of making sacrifices on our end is that dh isn't on board with sacrificing. He is 14 yrs older than me and not in the best of health and I realize that, at some point, I am going to have to support us. He really isn't in a career type of job & I am more educated so my prospects may be better long-term.

Unless I can figure out a way to work from home & come close to replacing my pt income, I would be forcing the income loss sacrifices on him & I don't think that would be a wise idea.

I'll stop derailing your thread now, though ! Good luck to all of you who have made the plunge! I am jealous.

We have family that is helping us out or we wouldn't be able to do it since DH owns his own business and the economy sucks. However since both Bear and Wolf need me at home we would have made it work no matter what it took. Money is not necessary to happiness. I know, I work with a budget for a family of four that would probably make most people's hearts stop...

We started "officially" homeschooling this past fall and I was terrified. We go through an Independent Study Program because there was NO way I was about to go it alone. Now I think I could, but I love having access to the program's resources and teacher, as well as the social aspects of it.

I think the best advice I could give is if you are worried about missing something or whether your are providing enough of a challenge, stop worrying about it. Your kid(s) will let you know if you are and 99% of the time you are probably on the right track anyway.

For example I was worried that Wolf was actually getting enough "school" each day (honestly we do almost nothing it seems). His teacher sat down with me and we wrote out everything educational that Wolf does each day (leapster, computer stuff, martial arts, cubscouts, certain TV shows, reading, etc... as well as official school type stuff). It was really eye opening. Needless to say I stopped worrying about that aspect. I'm still looking for another to get paranoid about! LOL

Welcome, homeschooling newbies!

Cathy A., you'll be great! I've read enough of your posts to feel 100% sure of it. No worries at all.

Just go easy on yourselves. It's a learning experience for you, too. Accept that mistakes happen and don't kick yourself for them. You just wind up bruised.

What a nice little support group you have here. I'm so happy that none of you is going it alone.

So exciting!

We're fortunate that DH has a job that he enjoys enough to pull overtime so that I can be home managing everything, especially the BUDGET. DH wasn't on board for the homeschooling thing until the psychologist said 'you have to get this kid moving!'. It was either difficult SD advocacy, private school (scary prices here) or homeschool. It's actually cool now because his eyes are open and he's excited as well.

We are very fortunate that DH is PG himself and has a very strong work ethic. He works from a home office and allows me to be the Learning Coach/Teacher for our DD. The budget is tight, and we were not prepared to have to pay tuition for an elementary education for a 4 year old and a 20 year old in college at the same time.

Even though DH is totally aware of DD's needs, I find myself sharing some of the posts from this board to him. I want him to feel good about our decision to homeschool our DD, and I constantly tell him how thankful I am that I am not having to stress over advocating for DD.

It is an exciting time to be homeschooling. I think with the amount of gifted kids joining the homeschool ranks, we are changing many people's perceptions of what homeschooling is.

Welcome to the world of homeschoolers.

Deep breaths, you will be fine! Take it easy and don't get discourage if you have a bad day or two or three You don't have to do everything right right at the beginning. There is plenty of time to change things. As a matter of fact I spend most of our school year tweaking things around. LOL.

Learningmom, my DS recently told me that the school is like riding on a roller coaster. At the beginning of school year, he is going up, with full of expectations for new things to learn. Then shortly after, he finds himself going quickly down, down, down, down....(his words)

I'm so ashamed of myself for not helping him sooner. Fortunately, my DH has a pretty stable job, so we are O.K financially. Also, he was the one that really believed in me and encouraged me to take the scary plunge. I just hope I won't disappoint my DS.

Good advice. I remind myself regularly that schools have convocation days, parties, etc. Not every single day has to be 100% productive.



STOP! This is kicking yourself, and it's not helpful. Were you doing the best you could at the time? Then let yourself up. What would you advise a friend who said this to you? Would you think she should feel guilty? Or would you tell her that she should be kinder to herself?

Be your own best friend.

As for not disappointing your DS: if you're doing your best (which won't be perfect) and trying to meet his needs, you'll do fine. Don't try to be the perfect homeschooler. There's no such thing. All you can do is love your kid and try to help him love to learn. Do those two things, and he'll come out great.

Welcome to Homeschooling!!! It was the best choice for us at this time...we are on our second year of homeschooling DS7 and it is filled with ups and downs but we feel very good about the decision to pull from school.....take things slowly and you will do a great job!

You are right, Kriston. I'll stop kicking myself. Actually, after reading many encouraging posts here, I'm so motivated now.
I can't wait to start planning the curriculum that fits his needs now! Thanks for the advice!

Go get 'em, Tiger! And be gentle with yourself. Many parents of GT kids are perfectionists in their own right. It's not useful. You're fighting the good fight. You're good! {{{Hugs}}}

I think you'll have some fun with it. There are good days and bad days--like anything. But you are doing something to help your child. No kicking required.

Well, day one is behind us!

I formally withdrew them from school this morning and we went down and picked up their stuff.

The kids wanted to get right down to business, so I let them decide on a list of things to do for the day with the understanding that we will have to adjust it and we will not be doing the same things every day.

They each wrote a one page story, spent about 20 mins doing math, spent some time reading. I had them pick out words from their reading to be vocab/spelling words and we looked those up and practiced them a bit.

DD wanted to learn to play her recorder (which we had bought for the school music program which she never got to do because the music program was cut for lack of funds.) So I found a fingering chart online and away she went!

DS got all excited about a cross-stitch project and said he would work on it for art.

I signed them up for swimming lessons and for EPGY reading, writing and math classes. That should take care of the basics, and we can do our history and science in the form of fun projects and outings.

I'm excited that we will be able to add special stuff like Spanish, art and music which they didn't get at school!

Does anybody have recommendations for spelling?

Hi Cathy and welcome to homeschooling. We just completed our first year and are still switching things up trying to find the right fit. The good thing is we have that flexibility. I've noticed for DS7 that learning comes in spurts with lots of downtime in between to pursue his interests. I don't think we can screw them up worse than putting them in a system that doesn't work for them. Right? *nail biting*

That's what I keep telling myself, hkc!

We don't do a formal spelling lesson because DS8 reads so widely and because we talk about spelling and etymology as we come across things, so he just soaks it all up. If you have a child who is a better-than-average speller but isn't going to enjoy a spelling bee (like my kid), then this might be fine.

If spelling is an issue, there are free things online that are available. You might start there and see if that's enough.

I don't recalling hearing anyone rave about any spelling program in particular. Sorry I'm not more help.

P.S. Sounds like a great first day! How are you feeling?

All About Spelling is a nice spelling curriculum.

Still vacillating between excitement and fear... I feel off-balance, completely outside my comfort zone.

Thanks, I'll check it out. DD needs to work on spelling.

Really? I'm kind of surprised about the comfort zone part. After all, you have been teaching these kids their whole lives...

The fear and excitement part is totally normal though.

That sounds like a great first day! They're excited on their own and coming up with great ideas. Tomorrow is going to be DS last day. Yep, out of comfort zone and then back in!! Can't wait to hear your updates!

For the spelling...

If this is a tough area for your child, you may want to start with the Dolce words (I hope I spelled that right!). You can find them on various Internet sites. They are the most used words in the English language and they are typically found divided by grade level.

In the public school system, they often use these lists to develop their "word wall words." The kids are pre-tested and then given assigned spelling words based on which word wall words they know and/or don't know.

Another recommendation would be to try the Wordly Wise or Explode the Code books.

We don't really work on spelling but we do a word of the day each day. I give DS a word and he has to look it up in the dictionary for definition. Then the thesaraus for synonyms. If the word is used as a single form (noun) he writes a sentence using it correctly. If it has more than one role in language (noun, adjective) he writes a sentence for each. Sounds like a bunch but the whole thing takes 5 minutes or less. Every once in a while, I'll ask him to spell a few of them just to see if they're sticking....so far, so good. The wierd part is that if I ask him for a definition of a word that he did 3 weeks ago, he gives it to me word for word what he read out of the dictionary when he originally had the word assigned.

We did something similar to what you're describing when DS8 was 6 and 7, Shari. We haven't done it this year because looking up words he doesn't know (or figuring them out from context) seems to be second-nature to him and we've been focusing on learning cursive. I didn't want the newness of the writing to get in his way. But I thought that strategy was a pretty efficient way to get handwriting, spelling and vocabulary development done in one fell swoop.

WOW three new HSing families!!!! Good luck everyone! This is my 2nd year HSing my oldest, and my 1st year HSing my middle son.

I think I mean outside my emotional comfort zone. I hate change of any kind and have a hard time with intense emotions. But things seem better today... I think over time I will find my balance again.

Yes you will CathyA!

Oh, yes, I completely identify with you there. One of my biggest worry about homeschooling DS5 is his hyper-emotional nature. It's very intense, and it exhausts me very quickly in large doses. If public school can work for him, I'd like very much to make it work. If not, he'll probably spend 3-4 days at the school-for-homeschoolers. I don't think I can manage him otherwise.

On all that change/emotional stuff, I completely understand!

Are you getting enough time away from your kids? For me, that's been the difference between sanity and utterly losing my marbles.