Archive for May, 2007

by Lill Hawkins
Other homeschooler’s blogs make me feel like such a slacker. Like Ava, who is a translator. Her husband, Carl, is a biologist who specializes in diseases of plants. This year, they’re educating their three kids via field trips to the Louvre and strolls along the Champs-Elysees, because she’s translating books from Arabic to French and he’s fighting grape blight or blot or rot or something. Anyway, whatever it is, it makes the wine bitter and undrinkable, so he’s my man. Sometimes, life is a Cabernet, non?

They’re both so intelligent that they have to drink three glasses of wine and take a Benadryl to talk to ordinary people like me. On Thanksgiving this year, I assume they hit the Beaujolais and then composed a “what our kids are doing in homeschool” post as they digested their dinde roti and sauce de myrtille. Sandwiched in between photos of French street scenes with tiny figures that might have been them or might have been almost anyone, including pigeons, were lists of what their kids were up to. I swear they only do it to make unschoolers like me feel inadequate.

My kids are very artistic, but they’ve never shown any interest in art history or anyone else’s art. Their kids are making a copy of the Empress Theodora and her retinue, a mosaic which appears on the south wall of the apse at San Vitale. Life-sized. In their hotel room. With pieces they manufacture themselves by breaking bottles, ashtrays, ceramic soap dishes and cough lozenges. (The picture of it is kind of dark, but I believe I can just make out the Smith Brothers logo on one of the red robes.)

My kids go to the library and get books about Pokemon, the latest fantasy novel, Barbie and fairies. Their kids write books like “Deforestation and its Impact on Biodiversity, Habitat loss, Trade and Endangered Species.” With footnotes. In Latin. I’m only up to page 568, but I can tell you, we won’t be getting any mahogany furniture anytime soon.

We visit museums and spend more time arguing about whether the blinds are made out of aluminum or plastic than we do looking at the exhibits. Their kids are docents at three museums and a private collection of Faberge Eggs. Imperial Eggs.The eight missing ones.

We have a Black Lab and three cats. They have a Giant Gambian Pouched Rat, a Komodo Dragon, several hedgehogs and a platypus. Laying eggs. It’s their science fair project at the homeschooler’s science fair. We don’t attend ours, ever since the unfortunate incident with the manure vs chemical fertilizer experiment. Who knew it had to be aged?

We play Mario Tennis. They play polo with real ponies and several members of royalty. We spend hours wading in tide pools, but never remember to bring our marine biology book, so all we can identify are crabs and those brown wiggly things with all the legs. Sandworms? Clamworms? Well, they’re ugly as sin and can give you a painful pinch, we know that. They often do research for the Cousteau Society. In a shark cage. With the door open.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little here, but honestly, this is what it feels like sometimes, when I read all the blog posts about museums toured, concerts attended, instruments mastered, classics read, projects completed, esoteric knowledge acquired and businesses in operation. Doesn’t anyone else just hang out with each other most of the time? Visit with friends? Read for pleasure? Make things just for the heck of it, not because they’re projects or educational? Consider Jeopardy or Good Eats or If Walls Could Talk highly educational? Doesn’t anyone take a walk without a field guide?

Sure, we get a lot of non-fiction out of the library every week and my kids are both very creative, but we’re pikers compared to what seems to be the norm in the homeschooling blogosphere. I have this recurring nightmare that my kids are going to turn 18 and sue me for not making them learn more. Oh wait, didn’t I just read that a 10 year old homeschooler did that? And represented himself. In a Class Action Suit. Tough luck, Ava and Carl.

Lill Hawkins lives in Maine and writes about family life, home education and being a WAHM at http://hawkhillacres.blogspot.com . Get the News From Hawkhill Acres: A mostly humorous look at home schooling, writing and being a WAHM, whose mantra is “I’m a willow; I can bend.”

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by Lill Hawkins
Lest you think that we’re low-browed Philistines, I want you to know that we did both Art and Music today. Part of the Music Appreciation was a Victor Borge video which had us laughing so much we had to stop and rerun it a few times because we missed the punchlines. In between the jokes and pratfalls, he played some Mozart (you know, the Swedish composer, Hans Christian Mozart), some Guiseppe Verdi (Joe Green) and a waltz by Franz Liszt, or as Borge called him, Fliszt.

I’ve been enjoying Victor Borge since I was knee high to a coloratura, and my kids find him hysterical. They tend to lapse into his phonetic punctuation language at odd moments (where he uses voice to make sound effects as punctuation marks) , thus spluttering colons and dashes all over the place and getting weird looks from people who don’t speak the language.

One of the things I love about Borge is his subtlety. I didn’t realize when I was a kid how slightly risque some of his jokes were. For instance, when he finds out there are children in the audience, he says “Then I won’t be able to do the second half of the show nude.” Then he pauses. “Wearing a tie.” Another pause and an arched eyebrow. “A long tie.” A slightly evil grin. “A very long tie.”

He describes, sings, and plays the music for an opera. It’s a dramatic piece about a young man, who hides behind one of two big trees on stage, waiting for his beloved, who shows up and hides behind the other big tree on the other side of the stage. (Well, sort of. Borge says she’s a large woman. Four and a half feet tall. Lying down. So she hides behind the tree and completely surrounds it.)

The young woman’s father, who doesn’t want the couple to marry, shows up and the woman sings a death aria and then kills herself. So Borge sings the woman’s part - no words, mostly incomprehensible nonsense syllables, but soprano. Then he mimics stabbing himself in the chest and says, “And she stabbed herself right between those two giant … Trees.”

Earlier in the day, on the way to the post office, we listened to Hawaian Slack Key Guitar by Led Kaapana and some Gypsy Jazz from the CD my niece gave me for my birthday. On the way back, we listened to Slaid Cleaves and John McCutcheon. A little klezmer music and some Weird Al while we had an afternoon snack and we were good to go. Oh, I almost forgot, Daughter continued the Music lessons by brushing her teeth with a Tooth Tunes toothbrush.

Art is just something that my kids do almost constantly. Son is working on a picture of his cousin that her mother commissioned. He’s also drawing dragons, working on hands and skin tones, and getting better and better at what will probably be the center of his life forever. Like every artist I know, he’s never satisfied with his work and is always his toughest critic. I guess that’s how artists get better at their craft, but it’s rough on the ol’ self esteem sometimes.

Daughter is working on frogs, elephants, ducks, birds and who knows what all else, mostly as fairies. She says she’s going to work with elephants when she grows up and that may be, but she’s really good at art too, so maybe she could draw elephants or teach them to paint better like the one whose painting is in my dentist’s office.

I cannot for the life of me imagine how anyone would think of having an elephant paint. I mean, was someone painting near an elephant and it grabbed the brush, dipped it into some vermilion and started whipping it across the canvas? Were they painting its portrait? Painting a fence? How in the world did the elephant know to paint on the canvas? Why didn’t it just paint on the nearest tree or on its keeper? These are the kinds of questions that keep me awake at night while Geekdaddy snores so loudly he rattles the pocket protector in his pajama pocket.

Then there’s this art site, www.drawfluffy.com, which I discovered today and where we’ll probably be spending a lot of time for awhile. No elephant paintings, but lots of other neat stuff. How to draw Fluffy, the three-headed dog in Harry Potter and other Harry Potter critters. Free wildlife posters and ebooks and Natural History ebooks. Jonni, the site’s owner, has put together a really nice collection of art links and info too. She says that anyone can learn to draw if they can “draw” the alphabet. I never thought of it like that.

I’m afraid though that even Jonni would give up on teaching me to draw. Back when I went to school, I was the despair of Mrs. Schmidt, the art teacher, who told us to get out our Crayola’s and our “vanilla” paper and practice making ovals for faces. I think she was just jealous because I was the only kid whose faces looked like they’d been done by a famous painter. Too bad she didn’t like Edvard Munch.

Lill Hawkins lives in Maine and writes about family life, home education and being a WAHM at http://hawkhillacres.blogspot.com . Get the News From Hawkhill Acres: A mostly humorous look at home schooling, writing and being a WAHM, whose mantra is “I’m a willow; I can bend.”

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by Lill Hawkins
We were paying for gas at a convenience store and the kid behind the counter - who looked all of twelve to me - must be the new bifocals, asked the question, “No school today?” Sometimes, it’s, “Why aren’t you in school?” Sometimes, it’s “Doctor’s appointment?” My daughter usually answers, “I am in school. I’m an unschooler.” Sometimes this stumps the chump who asked the question and they just smile and nod and we go on our way, each thinking that the other one just wasted a few minutes of prime talking time that could have been used to comment on the weather or Maine roads or whether it’s too early to plant peas.

Sometimes though, we run into someone who isn’t just asking to make conversation. These are people who firmly believe that kids should be in school and they don’t hesitate to let us know that. “Don’t you miss your friends?” is one of their questions. “Don’t you worry about socialization?” “What about college?” “How will your kids ever learn to fit into the real world?” “Kids need to learn how to deal with bullies” (Or homework or doing things they don’t want to do or fill in the blank.)

We got tired of answering these questions a long time ago, so I’m thinking of carrying a FAQ sheet around with me, so that I can hand it out. It’d save a lot of time. Here it is if you’d like to use it. If you think of anything I’ve forgotten to list, let me know.

Q.Why aren’t you in school?
A. Why aren’t you in therapy? A.Why would you ask? A.I’m still contagious. A.If I can’t take my gun, I’m not gonna go. A.Head lice. A.My religion lets me marry at 9 and I’m on my honeymoon. A.Leprosy A.Psychiatrist appointment. A.I had to see my parole officer. A.Court date. A.My parents refuse to make me go to a place where I’m cooped up for six hours with 22 other kids my own age and completely separated from both the real world and the people who love me the most.

Q.Don’t you miss your friends?
A.Yes, I wish they’d quit school so they could hang out with me and my unschooling friends.

Q. Don’t you worry about socialization?
A. Yes. That’s why my kids aren’t in school.

Q.How will your kids learn to deal with the real world? A.By watching reality shows, just like everyone else.

Q.No, really, you can’t raise them in a bubble. What about the real world?
A.Please refer to the last answer to the first question on this list. Then consider that we’re standing in this store/home/community/park/library/restaurant/rest room interacting with another human being with no artificial strictures on our conversation, thoughts or actions. Now, define real world.

Q. How will your kids learn to deal with bullies?
A. The same way they’re taught to deal with them in school. They’ll tell a grownup. The only difference is that they’ll have a grownup who’s paying attention and who’ll actually protect them, which is what kids have the right to expect from grownups. When they get old enough, we’ll help them learn to deal with bullies, but not until they have the maturity, experience and several self-defense lessons. (It’s funny how there don’t seem to be as many bullies outside of schools as inside.)

Q.What about college?
A.College shmollege. If you raise kids to know that they can do what they want, and college is what they want, they’ll find a way to go.

Q.How will they ever learn anything/get a job/turn out right if you just let them do what they want?
A.How will they ever learn anything meaningful unless they’re free to follow their interests and spend time on what’s important to them? How will they know what kind of job they want unless they’re encouraged to explore and not forced to learn what other people think they should learn? They know what’s right by using their brains, their hearts and their judgement, the same way you and I know what’s right. Gentle guidance works a lot better than scaring them into behaving.

Q. What do you do on your day off? A. The same thing we do everyday: live, learn, love and laugh. A.Fight with my brother/sister and drive my mom crazy. (Actually, she’s so close, it’s a walk, not a drive.) A. Play Club Penguin and watch Jeopardy. A.Draw A.Read A.Run around outside. A.Play with friends. A.All of the above.

Lill Hawkins lives in Maine and writes about family life, home education and being a WAHM at http://hawkhillacres.blogspot.com . Get the News From Hawkhill Acres: A mostly humorous look at home schooling, writing and being a WAHM, whose mantra is “I’m a willow; I can bend.”

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by Patricia Hawke
Public school is not the right fit for all students. Sometimes not even private school is the right fit. All over the country and Cincinnati Schools families are looking for a different choice. Increasing numbers of students are making the decision to be pulled out of Cincinnati Schools and be home schooled each year. The image called to mind is usually one of parents teaching their obedient children in the quaint comfort of their own living room. But the home schooling culture, like so much in our world has been modernized and updated to the point where Cincinnati home schoolers are at no real disadvantage to students enrolled in Cincinnati schools.

Can home-schooled children have to same resources as those in Cincinnati Schools? There is a network of home schooling families that provides a unified front and pacing guide for students. The internet has facilitated group workshops, meetings, field trips and more so that home schooled students are given the opportunity to experience social learning excursions in the company of friends. Some teachers from Cincinnati Schools provided these students with reinforcement via the Internet and e-mail. Activities are organized and attended by many home schooled students ensuring that no individual is isolated from his or her peers throughout the school year.

Although Cincinnati Schools actually lose funding with each child pulled out of the district, they are trying to be a part of home schooling success. Cincinnati Schools have set up a web page for parental educators. Parents are in contact with other parents and are fond of setting up monthly online discussions. Questions can be answered and ideas floated. Teachers in the Cincinnati Schools offer methods and share lesson plans with home-schooling parents.

Teachers and specialists in the Cincinnati Schools are listed as resources for any overwhelmed home schooling novice. They can provide answers and guidance to any parent new to the program. Cincinnati Schools have piano instructors, violin players and local art teachers listed, in addition to the on call academic specialists.

There are legal requirements for pulling your child out of Cincinnati Schools. Notification must be sent to the superintendent of Cincinnati Schools and all required data must be filled out explicitly. The superintendent has the right to deny any request he receives, but the district appears to be pretty supportive of this alternative educational effort.

Cincinnati Schools understand and respect parental confusion when choosing an education for their children. It is a sensitive subject and more people every year decide that the grueling 8-hour public school day of Cincinnati Schools is not something they want their child to endure. The safety and comfort of home provides an encouraging environment that elicits and facilitates many aspects of learning. Although there are challenges, and things that home schools won’t get outside of Cincinnati schools, it’s easy to see the allure of this situation.

Patricia Hawke is a staff writer for Schools K-12, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. For more information please visit Cincinnati Schools

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by Mary Joyce -
There are certainly instances where children can’t attend regular public schools. Or, perhaps their parents will choose to have their children educated in a different manner.for many parents this different manner is homeschooling. In fact, each and every year a growing number of parents are discovering and taking advantage of the homeschooling option in their state.

One of the options that parents have when homeschooling their children is to go with an accredited homeschooling curriculum. These types of schools can give your child the same education as they would otherwise get in a public school, yet accredited home schools make this task a bit easier.

Accredited home schools basically have the same type of curriculum as those of the public schools. However unlike their public school counterparts these accredited homeschooling curriculum allow for the students to learn the subject matter at their own pace. Parents and kids can also telephone their teachers and receive extra help that they might be. This type of coverage will very from subject matter and from one accredited type of homeschool to another.

These types of homeschooling programs are gaining popularity with many parents. With the growing concern of not only the educational quality of the public school, but the safety of the children while in these public schools as well; accredited homeschooling is becoming a more and more viable option for parents wanting to educate their children outside of the public school system.

Another great advantage to homeschooling your children is that with homeschooling as parents you aren’t subjected to attendance rules and strict scheduling requirements found in the public school system. Homeschooling your children is all about flexibility both with the education and with the family schedule.

As we speak there are over a million children now who are receiving some sort of homeschooling. Parents opting to use some form of accredited home schools enjoy the advantage of having the accredited schools keep track of their students progress and also have any records of the students and their studies if such documentation is needed. Although most state colleges readily admit home schooled children, some parents preferred the peace of mind to have the documentation handy from an accredited homeschooling source.

As a parent if you’re considering homeschooling your child there are certainly a number of considerations to be aware of. Don’t let the vast amount of information available to you get you overwhelmed. Take your time in looking over all of the material that you gather, but don’t try to gather it all. Take into consideration your family values and what you consider important in your child’s education.

If you’re new to homeschooling, you may wish to get started using a prepackaged curriculum or some type of accredited homeschooling program. Many parents find this type of structure the best use of their time and their child’s education.

No matter what type of homeschooling format you choose, I think you’ll find the work is hard but just as rewarding as you watch your child grow into an adult knowing that you’ve provided the best foundation that you could for their lifelong successes.

Mary Joyce is a former educator & homeschooler who`s website homeschool-curriculum-4u.com offers resources and articles on homeschool curriculum, & more

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by Mary Joyce -
There are more and more parents every year who have reached the conclusion that educating their children at home has become a much better option than what the public schools today have to offer. The advantage is to homeschooling are many among the top that homeschooling has to offer is the flexibility of the scheduling and knowing that your child is be presented with and learning the values and morals that are important to your family.

When it comes to homeschooling there are many different types of homeschooling approaches that you will no doubt come across in your research. Probably the most common type of approach taken today would be best described as an eclectic approach. This is where the parents over time have come to use various components of several different approaches and combined them into an overall educational process that works best for their child and their family.

Many parents when they just start out seem overwhelmed by all of the information available. And believe me, there is a vast amount of information available. Don’t panic, you’ll sort through it in time and find what works best for you and your family. Don’t grind to a halt and suffer from paralysis by analysis just because you try to gather more information than anyone could possibly process.

For this reason, many families choose to go with a packaged curriculum. Although initially you might feel as though a packaged curriculum is not within your budget, if you are just starting out this may be the best and most organized way for you to begin. You can always take what you learn from a packaged curriculum and develop your own model.

As you look through all the possibilities for homeschooling your child and all of the programs out there, keep in mind that any homeschooling program under its packaged for your own needs to follow the natural growth pattern of your child. In other words, you’ll want to find or develop a package that contains not only a natural progression in the subject matter, but you’ll also want to be mindful of any documentation that is required by your state and local regulations.

I would think that it would be safe to say that for the majority of homeschooling parents their curriculum has developed over time. Don’t worry if you feel like you don’t have everything perfectly aligned in the beginning. This is one of the great advantages to homeschooling… you don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to follow a perfect schedule.

Mary Joyce is a former educator & homeschooler who`s website homeschool-curriculum-4u.com offers resources and articles on homeschool curriculum, & more

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by Harris
There are some universities in cyber space which offer bachelor’s degree based on experience. They are actually a pretty handy facility for someone with sufficient enough experience in any field but don’t have a degree to be acceptable to employers. Online universities such as Belford University, Ashwood University, Rockville University are few examples of the online Universities that offer accredited degree based on experience. If you are finding it hard to take some time off of your busy schedule and get enrolled in a degree program of a traditional brick-and-mortar academic institution, you should seriously consider getting yourself enrolled in the bachelor’s degree based on experience program of an accredited online university such as Belford University or Ashwood University.

Are you one of those people who have a vast experience, but lack written proof of that? Quit getting bothered, because you are not alone. Why don’t you do the same thing others like you are doing? Many people who have a vast experience in any field behind them but don’t have a degree to prove themselves to the world opt for the master’s degree based on experience programs offered by the accredited online universities.

Since a degree based on experience doesn’t require the student to attend classes or engage in studies, even if you are one of the busiest professionals, you can easily get your degree based on experience.

Harris Jhosta is well known in education field. He is doing research on online education. Harris Jhosta wrote many articles to highlight online universities to provide help to online students. Read more about degree based on experience.

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by Donald Saunders
When a friend of mine announced her decision to take her two nine year old boys out of the local public school and teach them at home many people said that she had to be out of her mind.

When you think about it this would seem like a perfectly reasonable reaction not simply because the public school system has evolved over many years and developed an expertise in teaching children, but also because my friend was simply a housewife and had no training or qualifications for teaching.

But did you know that there are currently more than one million children in the United States undergoing home schooling in just the situation in which my friend found herself.

Now the reasons for opting for home schooling are many and varied but, at the end of day, most parents choose to home school their children because they believe that it is better for their children, not simply in terms of academic achievement but also in terms of removing children from many of the bad aspects of a public school educations such as bullying, getting in with the ‘wrong crowd’ and a host of other problems.

In simple academic terms there is little doubt that home schooling produces better results than both the public school and private school systems in the vast majority of cases. For example, the winner of the 1997 National Spelling Bee was home schooled and four sisters, all of whom had been home schooled, gained master’s degrees from an Ivy League university. Another young girl gained her master’s degree at the age of just 16 and was teaching at a Texas community college by the time she reached 18.

Now you might well think that these were simply bright kids and this had nothing to do with home schooling, however, even the US Department of Education would have to disagree with this as their own studies show that by the time home schooled children reach the equivalent of the 8th grade they are as much as 4 years ahead of their public school counterparts.

Home schooling is certainly not an easy option but, as any home schooling parent knows, it works. For the parent home schooling is certainly hard work but, although the teaching profession might not like to hear it, you do not need any special training or qualifications to teach your own children. Indeed, as long as you can read and write then you’ll find that, with a little help from your local home schooling support group, not only will you be able to teach your own children but you will find that it is one of the most rewarding things you can do as a parent.

It is also one of the most valuable things you can do to really draw your family together into a tight-knit, loving and supportive unit.

Parenting4Dummies.com provides advice and information on many aspects of parenting and can also be your best homes schooling resource with information on such things as the advantages and disadvantages of home schooling, home schooling law and much more.

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by Wade Robins
When you think of a college education, you immediately think of bachelor degrees. The majority of society actually knows very little about the degree system and tends to band the options offered for post-high school education together. However, taking a bachelor is not the only option as a first rung on the ladder of high education. You can opt to take an associate degree online as an alternative to a bachelor degree. An online associate degree education differs greatly from a bachelor degree in a number of key areas, and the purpose of this article is to show you that difference.

Associate degrees online are marketed as two-year courses, which is markedly different to bachelor degrees because they are usually expected to last four years. However, it is possible to complete both degree programs in a much shorter period of time if you take them online and demonstrate sheer hard work and dedication to your education. Taking an associate degree online can be useful if you are unsure of the direction that you want to take in life and are not set on one specific career path. In effect, getting an online associate degree education is the equivalent of taking a community college degree and can always be used as a foundation for a bachelor degree at a later date.

If you take a bachelor degree then you either earn the title of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. Associate degrees online work in exactly the same way. You can achieve an AA (Associate of Arts) or an AAS (Associate of Applied Sciences). Within these boundaries, the choice of online associate degree education is immense. There are thousands of associate degrees online just waiting for your application. They are all designed to provide a foundation in general education but provide specialization in a certain subject in your second year. Some of the best associate degrees online are listed below:

1. AA Liberal Arts — Saint Leo University Online
2. AA General Studies — University of Phoenix
3. AAS Criminal Justice Technology — ECPI College Of Technology
4. AA Early Childhood Education — Penn Foster Schools
5. Associate’s Homeland Security — FMU Online
6. AAS PC Maintenance Technology — Penn Foster Schools
7. AAS Criminal Justice/Corrections — Kaplan University
8. AAS Health Information Technology — DeVry University

The eight courses listed above are just samples of the many associate degrees online and serve to highlight the choices available. There is something for everyone under the heading of associate’s degree and all of the major colleges and universities offer them. All you have to do now is find the right one for you!

You can also find more information onOnline Nursing Degrees and Online University Medical Degree . Onlineuniversitydegreehelp.com is a comprehensive resource to know importance of college degree.

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by Jill Manty
You’ve decided to homeschool. You’ve gotten a couple of catalogs. You’ve typed in homeschooling curriculum in a search engine. Maybe you’ve even gone to a homeschooling convention. And NOW— you’re completely overwhelmed.

Twenty years ago, there weren’t many choices in homeschooling curriculum, and that carried its own set of issues. But now? It can be completely overwhelming to try to choose a homeschooling curriculum. Too many choices are the problem now. How can you decide? And what if you choose the wrong one? You can’t just switch, can you? Will a whole year go to waste if you don’t do make the right decision? Your friend swears by her curriculum, but you’ve looked it over, and it looks too boring or too time-consuming, but if it works for her, it must be good, right?

Okay, first stop and breathe. While this is an important decision, the most important decision has already been made. You’ve decided to homeschool. Congratulations!

So, moving on to the decision facing you. First, ask yourself just a few more questions.

What are you looking for from a curriculum?

What kind of things is your child interested in?

Do you know your child’s learning style? If not, you may want to start with an online assessment of that.

There is no one size fits all curriculum. One of the wonderful things about homeschooling is that you can choose a manner of learning that works best for your child. Does your child like to read? Does he like to draw? Does he like to work on the computer? Does he like music? If you use the answers to these questions to drive the curriculum you choose, it is more likely that you will pick a curriculum that both of you are happy with. So, just because a curriculum works great for your neighbor, friend, or family member, don’t feel pressured to use it if you just think it’s not the right choice for your family.

And you don’t have to have a curriculum. Especially in the beginning you may just want to let him research on the computer, read books he enjoys, go with you to the grocery store, the bank, etc. and get a feeling for wanting to learn again.

And what do you do if you make a mistake and choose absolutely the wrong curriculum? If it’s really making you and your child miserable, I’d ditch it. Even if you don’t have the money to replace it, head to one of the many resources for free homeschooling and work with materials from there for the rest of the year. If you can afford to switch, it’s perfectly okay to do that in the middle of the year. If you stick it out for the rest of the year, your child will not suffer permanent academic scarring if you switch to something new for next year.

To avoid choosing a curriculum that’s a really bad match, you might want to borrow the curriculum first if you know anyone else who uses it. At the very least, there are probably online Yahoo groups dedicated to the curriculum where you can ask questions and get a better feel for the realities of using it.

So, welcome to homeschooling! It will be okay. You’ll find a curriculum that works for you and your child, eventually. Or you’ll decide that you don’t need one, after all. In the meantime, enjoy the adventure.

Choosing A Curriculum For Your Homeschool Written by Jill Manty, owner of http://knowhomeschooling.com/This article can be reproduced in whole or in part, providing this byline is included along with a link to the original article at http://knowhomeschooling.com/index.php/Choosing_a_curriculum

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