After days of researching, talking to DH and friends and family (one who is a teacher) I have made the decision to homeschool. I need to get things together before withdrawing DD. I have read a few posts on writing the letter to the school board but would love advice on what all it should include.
I am likely going to be doing blended learning and will take things from there. I haven't found any good schedules I like and would love for you all to post what your days look like homeschooling. I have a DD7, DD3 and DS1.

Congratulations!

We are really enjoying the change to homeschool here. My son says we should have done it sooner. I have one DS6. He struggles mightily with transitions and I didn't want to be the one getting him to shift into a new activity. He also needs me to mostly stay out of his way for learning so much of this is independent work for him. After a few weeks, I developed this schedule for us.

It has three parts to our day. I always begin with a more favored activity and end the block with FREE TIME. I made sure HE would end the free time by placing it just before a meal or snack. When he is hungry then play time ends. Short chunks work for us. School has been damaging so we have some work to find normal again.

MORNING

* Brain Pop Video and Quiz (we have been doing Science/Health/Social Studies)

* BREAKFAST

* HWT: Handwriting Without Tears Practice

* IXL: We've been working through the 3rd grade math and LA standards. When he gets stuck, I jump in.

FREE PLAY until LUNCH
......................

MID-DAY

* Art/Music/Library/Therapy (We do a different one each day)

* Language Arts: We just got the Michael Clay Thompson materials yesterday and they are truly fabulous

EXERCISE: We often swim, bike, go to the park

SNACK-TIME
.......................

AFTERNOON

* Reading or Audio Book

* Bible

FREE-TIME until Dinner


Some days we play too late, run errands, or get wrapped up in a project and part three gets pushed to bedtime. Sometimes he works ahead and gets multiple assignments done for the week and leaves extra free time. That's always his choice. As long as he does the work, I don't mind.

There was an interesting thread on this recently: include thanking people, leaving the door open for possible future return to school... not burning bridges. I believe the crowd-sourced draft which resulted is here (link- http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....icially_w_d_to_Homeschoo.html#Post167875)

Your local school district may have information on its website regarding student withdrawal, and your state laws may contain something about this as well. Your state laws may also have a form or notification letter required of parents who are homeschooling.

echoing the congratulations over here!

it's so interesting - our day is actually fairly similar to HappilyMom's setup... i work full-time from home, so DD5 and i do blocks of school together three times a day and then she has independent study projects directly after the first two, where she's responsible for turning in the work to me when finished. here's how it goes:

8-8.30 am - phys ed. biking/running/scootering/ball playing etc - we go pretty hard and often need to come home and change afterward - this is super-good for me, too, since i've been a total sloth since she was born!

8.45-9.30 am - 1st block of school. we nearly always start with math, since DD loves it so much. we'll do a quick oral review on things like money-counting or timetable problems - really fast stuff that she can plow through before starting a longer section on whatever new work we have. when the new work is finished, we'll spend a minute or two talking about her goals for the 1st block of independent study and i head off to work in the office and she takes to her desk in her room.

9.30-10.30 am - 1st block of independent study. sometimes she'll be finishing up the math we started together, or it could be continuing work on history/geography/science projects or sometimes art technique. today she's doing cursive work because it's a special area of interest for her.

10.30 am - snack. then free time until lunch at 12.30. she often reads to her stuffed animals or draws/colours or heads out to the back yard to kick a ball around.

1.00 - 2.00 pm - 2nd block of school. we'll review the independent work from the morning - if there's something for me to correct, i'll do it with her and she'll talk about any challenges or further research questions she has which we'll note and block in for another day. then we might have a spelling quiz and get going on other new work - and get her set up for independent study #2.

2.00 - 3.30 pm - 2nd block of independent study. this usually includes a journal entry/short essay or other ongoing work that requires reflection and effort.

3.30 pm - snack & free play until my work-day is finished - technically at 5, but more like 5.30 (though often i have to go back to it after DD's bedtime!)

5.30 pm - after we review her independent work, she'll spend 1/2 hour reading to me from "her" current book. then i'll read to her from "our" book until it's time to make dinner.

phew - that was a bit of a novel - sorry! but i have to add that it's literally the most fun i've ever had. it has eliminated all the stress DD and i were feeling last year, and her work speaks for itself. her reading level has jumped dramatically, her handwriting is now pulled up to grade-level (so it now matches the acceleration we did) and the math is out of control - but best of all, DD's spark is BACK.

i am so very excited for you, jholland1203!

So after lots more research I have finally figured out what is holding me up and making me nervous. I am stuck on what my/our style is. This is making it hard for me to figure out how/what I want to teach.

I want the classical approach (maybe I'm overwhelmed but the CM and WTM are confusing) but I like other methods as well. I'm unsure how to incorporate these and DD get the "standard" education if she were to return to school in later years.

Your experience might be different but my kid is too "out of the box" to focus on methodology. I'm taking pieces out of any methodology if the curriculum meets our goals and accommodates his disabilities and strengths. What we are doing now has shifted from a month ago when we were just getting started.

I expect to keep changing as he does and that nothing is a long term solution. We just do what's working and change when it seems we need too. I like keeping an eye to the learning standards used at school but bearing in mind that some are not necessary for his progress and success. I have bigger goals for him than learning standards. (If your child returns to traditional school and you missed something then your child will have something new to learn. Nothing is earth shattering here and you have a child who picks up new things quickly.)

I do think it is easy to get swamped in the methodologies at the start. I got thrown in to home schooling without a chance to plan this year and perhaps that has also influenced my approach. The best thing about home school is you can do what works in your own style and change as much as you want/need. For us, flexibility has been foundational.

this stuff is on my mind, too - though i feel like we have a bundle of time since DD's only 5 and i don't think we can send her back to traditional school at this point for several years (radical acceleration.)

whatever approach you do choose, you'll no doubt be able to keep yourself on the straight and narrow once you have established the curriculum expectations in your area. but you might also find that some of the panicky feeling dissipates once you actually get going - i think that's pretty common for homeschoolers!

i think one of the reasons is that when it's a one-to-one ratio (or one-to-three in your case,) there's just so much time available to try things/make mistakes/see success.

even cooler, i've found that almost everything we do actually supports a few parts of the curriculum simultaneously - albeit sometimes across a few grade levels at once. for example, DD5 wrote a letter to my mother as part of school last week. it started off as a regular thank-you note, but it really turned into handwriting + spelling + letter formatting + date formatting + letter writing + sentence structure + thought organization, etc... nearly everything we do works out that way - and even better, often sparks interesting tangents.

your method and style may change as you go - and you may find that different approaches work for different areas of the curriculum. why not start with some weekend sessions or some after-schooling to get your feet wet - just a little here and there to see how it flows? you could try an outing somewhere like a museum and then build up a lesson structure around that?

but take heart - you've been teaching your little ones from the very start, and this is just one more phase. and... like my mother always said, "beginnings are difficult!"

love this.

Isn't that the truth! I was telling DH that I feel like I'm trying to start a research paper and having a hard time getting started but know that once I do the possibilities will be endless (I'm very creative, love research and love to be on the go). DD has already requested 1 field trip a month lol We have an awesome selection of museums, aquarium, zoo and children's theatre.

this is going to be a great fit for you, i can tell!

Yes absolutely! You are going to take to this like fish to water once you get going. I think you know that in your gut from what you have posted here and elsewhere. You'll have fun with it. It's a huge relief to have the weight of school and all its issues and requirements off our shoulders.

I was chatting with a friend who is newly home schooling today and we were talking about how it's like when our children were toddlers and we could just take our days as they came and use the natural learning moments of every day. The freedom to take a Museum day or explore something new in depth is so beautiful!


This is great.... and so very true about most things in life!

Thanks! I think it will be a great fit for us as well. DH wants me to incorporate a little bit of religion which I think I can turn that into some history/geography too.
From what I've seen I really like a mix of waldorf, charlotte mason and traditional b&m stuff.

Has anyone heard or used Oak Meadow or earth schooling? DD is really into nature and animals, as well as coloring/drawing so it looks like it would be a nice fit but I am not very outdoorsy or earthy so I question the fit for me. She also likes kids yoga lol so that is an idea I have for PE.

jholland, it took us quite a bit of time (5 weeks) to figure out what would work, making curriculum changes in a couple of subjects, deciding yes, we do want to do quizzes and texts in some subjects that we thought we would not, finding the appropriate grade level and speed to work. My DH and I tag team with my DD8. I have an excel spreadsheet with subject rows and day of the week column. I made a different sheet for each week for 18 weeks. I put everything combined on these and I went out a few weeks at a time so that if I have to make adjustments it is not an ardous task. Everything is written out. If it is something my husband needs to check and review, it is highlighted for him. We use the same basic schedule Mon-Thurs and Friday is the flex day that we use for a longer science experiment, creative writing, her history timeline notebook, or a make up day to catch up from a field trip.

In the morning, I do Math and Science (always an experiment) with her. Two days a week we do a Spanish workbook, the other days she does a Spanish learning game on the ipad. Then she works through her List on her own. She does her bible reading and scripture memorization. She has a world history reading, a chapter from a fiction book to read, she does a book with songs to learn geography. Then, she gets on the computer and does Spelling and plays Cato's Hike. By then, its is about 10:00/10:30 and she practices gymnastics until about noon, when her dad takes over. He does a book with her called Windows on the World, where you learn about a country and pray for the country and goes over Bible, he does US History- read and Q&A. They watch youtube videos. She reads a couple of pages out loud and Q&A on the fiction book chapter she read and then he does Language with her. They are usually done by 1:30/2:00. She plays on the ipad until time to pick up her siblings. On Wednesdays at 2, she goes to a homeschool art class at a neighbor's house. Anything that is unfinished gets done on Fridays.

She quickly got used to her list which makes it easy for us to send her to other family to do her work, if needed because she knows what to do. Then, we just check everything at the end of the day. Our evenings are now free for her gymnastics (7hrs per week) and other seasonal sport. The joy of homeschooling is the flexibility of time and schooling. She is in 3rd grade doing 5th grade Math, and the rest is a mix of 3rd and 4th grade work. Some is 4th grade but we are doing it a little slower. For science, she likes the Physical Sciences, so we bought a curriculum that is entirely physical sciences with simple experiments every day.

This is so important, but often overlooked.