Home Schooling

I've looked into a couple already, but was wondering if there were more suggestions for home schooling options for us. We're looking to get him started in the Fall.

 

What grade is he in?

 

He's going in to 9th grade next year....

 

Hire a really hot, full time, live in tutor.

 

His mom won't let me....:down:

 

I was home-schooled for 2 years of high school. it was the best move. i may not have much technical info about the actual process but send me a PM if there's anything i Can answer. good luck to you.

 

www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com has tons of resources.

 

A Beka is the best. Our son should have been in the 9th grade this year, but teachers held him back. long story. Anyway, my wife was able to fix his skill gaps in 3 weeks where his teachers couldn't get it done in a school year. So we bought the 8th grade stuff and purchased some of the 9th grade stuff so that she could put him on base for 9th grade so he could try and pass out of 9th. He loves it...it is a bit of work for whoever is doing the teaching. Wife does all of his correcting and scheduling for the following day the night before. He gets up and everything is laid out for him to do. He is usually done by 1 or 2 pm. It's nice because we can take vacations anytime we want.

 

I was home schooled my whole life until college and now I'm working on a Ph.D at the University of Michigan so it worked for me. PM me if you have any specific questions, I'd be glad to help in any way that I can.

 

GO BLUE

 

this is the one im doing, its pretty good and you can take your tests online:up:

http://pennfoster.com/

 

Question for you. Who does the home schooling work as far as college applications and getting into schools? That's always been one of my biggest worries about homeschooling.

 

I did a home school program for my senior year and was able to graduate in december instead of may. The deal was I had to pay for it myself and teach myself. I worked full time and often brought some school work to work to do on breaks and i was able to graduate with the hope scholorship(GA scholorship). It was pretty kool how they didn't give textbooks but instead every week i would drive to the school and pick up a big chunk of papers and scantron sheets. the papers included the information i needed to learn along with the questions and essay asignments. It was a lot of reading but i thought it was a lot better than doing online or traditional home school. The only thing is you have to be able to take the time to teach yourself. I don't know if they have a program like that up were you live, but if so you might want to take it into consideration. My only problem with the school is that since they were a christian school, they tried to mix religion in a alot with the subjects, which in my opinion had no relevance into what I was learning.

 

A Beka is the best

We home school both of our girls ( 3rd & 4th grades). The course is very well laid out and orginazed. They use DVD's to teach along with the books, so it is easy to follow.
Both our children have tested 2-4 grades higher in every subject.

 

College acceptance rates are actually higher among home schooled students than conventional. I got into both the University of Michigan and Calvin College (a top private liberal arts school) with no trouble, I think that schools put more value on standardized tests with home schooled applicants and I did quite well on both the ACT and SAT so I also got a good scholarship at Calvin College. Also, regardless of how you feel about the politics of it, being in a "minority" may play a helpful role. So there could be some "affirmative action effect" though not overtly; more psychologically with the admissions committees.

There's my 2cents

 

We have home-schooled our kids for 10 years now using the A-Beka program and it has been very successful. Both kids test way out of their grade. My wife taught Philip up until high school, then he started using their DVD program. My wife grades the papers and sends them in to A Beka and when he's done he'll have a transcript and everything for the colleges to see.

A Beka is a very solid Christian organization which is one of the reasons that we chose it. For us, everything in life revolves around God, so it's not a problem. If you're studying science for instance, it's from a Christian perspective, that's not an issue for us because we don't see contradictions between the Bible and science, but since several people have mentioned A Beka I thought I'd let you know where they stand as a curriculum.

 

A-beka is about the best I have seen. They have both religious and traditional course work. I found it to be the most challenging sometimes maybe a little to challenging if there isn't someone easily avaiable to help teach/reinforce a concept. Getting into a college can be difficult so pick a program that has been around awhile. Make sure they have a testing program that has a report function that will show mastery of a concept/subject. Don't totally write of your local school. Find a good guidance counselor who can walk you through what kids in each grade should be taking for classes so your childs home school transcript will look similar to a students at your local school. Obvioulsy taking the ACT or SAT will be a large factor in college acceptance. Also try to access some courses and extra curricular activities at your local school. Maybe get your fine arts and phys. ed credits. Keeps your child in touch with some of his friends if they decide to go back in the future. Also it might be easier to get credits than documenting a trip to the art show 15 times. Colleges like it when an applicant can show they are a well rounded student. You should be able to attend dances, play sports and access any class you choose to at the school. We have had home school students participate in about everything and it benefits the school because we can count them for part-time students and get state funding for them.

Just curious why are you chosing to home school?

 

Because Corey misses more school then our state allows. Even though he keeps his grades up, as he goes into High School, they won't allow him to miss as many classes next year and I don't want his education to suffer. We travel more during school then in the summer. Our school year starts in Sept. and goes until late June. Our race season is March until Oct., so there's just too much to miss and I want to try to get him into a program before the next school year.

 

Another thing that we're looking into is Dual Enrollment with the local Community College. He can take some of his college prep stuff there while finishing high school. Obviously with traveling like we do to race he needs to pick classes that meet Monday -Wed. during the race season.

 

That is the thing that sucks about big school systems they won't see around the rule to benefit a student. Back in Maine I was the pricinpal of a very small school and it was a lot easier to make exceptions. I always felt if a student kept up with their work and made the grades they shouldn't be penalized for having a talent that doens't easily lend itself to traditional school rules regardless if it is motorsports or music. I guess all the abuses of the system hurt the honest people who are just trying to do the right thing.