I sat down and talked to DS9 yesterday and he is SO excited. He asked me 'is it finally over?', meaning public school. I don't think he is interested in relaxed learning at all. He wants a schedule and asked for math and science first. He wants to go- I was planning on easing and now I feel like if I don't have stuff together he's going to be really disappointed. Oh dear!! Off and running-

We did the same thing when we started! No deschooling at all!

No worries. Maybe let him decide what he wants to do while you find your footing. Use the Internet and the public library heavily--immediate gratification!

It's actually a good sign if they're so excited about learning that they don't want to wait to start, I think.

Need any Internet references about specific topics?

Thanks Kriston! I just spent a couple of hours in a homeschooling store, at times overwhelmed by the curriculum. Found some I thought would interest him and be at his level. But I'm scratching my head, and definately not purchasing, about reading and writing. The different developmental levels are frustrating me. I just don't know how high to go. It's just like you said, if I go lower, he's going to be angry. I just can't quite wrap my head around where I actually could be starting him. Any sources for curriculum advice would be awesome.

Really, start in the library. No joke. Let him pick something to read and then write about. Just ask him broad questions about what the book was about and what he thought of it and why. Consider it a pre-test so you can see what he can do if he's interested in the topic.

The nice thing about reading and writing is that if you have a book and a piece of paper, you're in business. No, it may not be a highly organized teaching time. But with a book to read and write about, you can work on brainstorming, revision, basic grammar and sentence structure, etc. in a laidback fashion.

Besides, if you were going to deschool for a while, you're not out any time, right? Why not let him lead you? See what he can do.

But I should warn you, I'm not a big fan of pre-packaged curricula. I find that they tend to be ill-fitting for my son. Some are better than others, of course. But unless they're pretty cheap, they rarely seem worth the cost. We tend to be curriculum rebels a bit. We just use books like "What Your Xth Grader Needs to Know" and the World Book site: http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum . These help me to make sure he's not missing anything major. That's rarely a problem so far, though.

I do buy a lot of workbooks and manipulatives at end-of-season sales. I can't pass up stuff that's 75%-90% off, you know? If I never use them, I can certainly resell them for what I paid for them, so I won't be out anything, and that way I have a wide variety of materials on hand depending upon what appeals to him. Those will be coming up in May, and I'll be sure to post what I find. Others share that stuff, too, happily.

So, yeah, ours is a laidback, eclectic approach that would make some people nuts, but it works for us. Certainly starting there might buy you some time while you look for something more formal...

You may also want to check out your county's student performance standards to make sure that you are keeping up with whatever grade level he should be achieving. I looked up our county's 3rd-5th grade levels Language Arts (for you) and they all list writing skills in "Narrative Writing," "Informational Writing" and "Persuasive Writing," with examples of books they used. Here is our county's website. Maybe you can find something like it for yours.

http://www.cherokee.k12.ga.us/ps/default.aspx

This was also helpful for me just now. I didn't realize that they broke it down like this so specifically with titles as well.:)

Don't forget that learning for these kids can be very satisfying. Start with the fun stuff...science, history, read alouds. It's school but the good stuff. Even I thought there was no way grammar could be fun and still be effective - boy was I wrong.

I'm so excited for you!

I think that was what was up with our DS. He was so bored in school, he was completely excited to get to do something that was challenging. Good point, Dazey.

Tomorrow is his last day of school. He has his list and wants to start making databases-math, biology, chemistry, wars, engines and inventors. I'm glad I grabbed a few books, but then we'll be off to the library. I'm so glad he's excited learn! He and I are both big time readers, so we're going to do some co-reading and discussion. Thanks for the encouragement, I still feel flashes of 'what have I done!'.

Heck, we're on year 3, and I still have flashes of "What have I done?!"

It's fun though. We had a good day today, and those good days make it all worth while.

I know today was good. Long windy walk, excellent branches found for bow and arrows. Ax for trimming, fishing wire for string and a nice quiver put together. Professor Noggin game. Trip to library for new Redwall books. Explored Zome tool website. He ate a great lunch. I was very surprised by my difficulty with the deschooling. I love being with him but my work ethic is yelling 'lets get to work!' and trying to remember that he is learning and that was the point of this. So much to learn for myself and him.

Realizing that is half the battle though. You're doing great!