Hello all! Well, just came from a school meeting and its been decided that I will partial homeschool my ds10 in the mornings and then bring him back to school before lunch, for him to finish up the day there. It sounds like the best of both worlds...At least I'm hoping! My plan is to cover the core "basics" that the school does, but after he whizzes through that, he will still have time to dive deeper in subjects and take some classes through Duke, John Hopkins, etc...Son is very excited about it and the school is supportive ( I think because they don't have to "deal" with him at least half the day... Ha )by providing textbooks, worksheets, teacher answer keys, etc...I I will still bring him in in the mornings that he has orchestra and g/t classes. We are starting Monday My question is, what do you think the teacher should say about my son not being there in the mornings??? What should my son say to his friends??? This has never been done before in our district. I want to e-mail his teacher a few good responses before Monday. Thanks so much for your input!

Cecilia,

We have been 1/2 time this year and for us,it IS the best of both worlds! Because DS8 is at a middle/high school we explained that a full day work load was too much for a then 7 year old. As far as what to tell his current classmates,I think I would keep it simple. Something like "we are trying a different type of education in an effort to meet his needs". I don't think I would elaborate much. Good Luck!

My son is homeschooled full time. When he doesn't feel like getting into the whole homeschooling discussion with new people, he just says "I'm in the independent study program." That might be a good way of phrasing it for this situation, too.

I like that one, aculady! I might borrow that.

I think Shari's right, Cecilia--keeping it simple likely will work the best. Could the teacher just say he is homeschooling certain subjects? Or is working on those subjects independently?

When the lads feel like winding people (with good senses of humour) up, they tell them that they go to a very exclusive private school for boys, with a pupil-teacher ratio of 3:1 (then everybody rolls around on the floor laughing). For the random sorts of people in the grocery store lineup, where we really don't want to get into it, we just say they go to "The X [our homeschool name] School." You could name your homeschool, too?

Sounds like a good adventure, Cecilia--have a great time!

mm

Not trying to hijack your thread, but Cecilia and Shari, can you tell me more about how you got your school to agree to this? Where are you located and what sorts of advocacy did you do and what was the history that lead to this.

My DS loves school and seeing friends, but it is such a waste of time and since he will have to go up to the middle school for math next year, I am half thinking I might push for this. Would love to hear more about your stories.

Cat

When my siblings and I were younger, teachers/school used to call us "visitors from (last name) Academy." It sufficed for most of the kids, and I think a few of them wanted to join our academy