Tips for Homeschooling Inexpensively

Homeschooling doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Below are some ideas for homeschooling on a budget:

1. Use the library to borrow books, CDs, movies. The Ventura County library system allows users to log in to their accounts online to search for and request titles.

2. Find sites online that are free. Some favorites for younger children include Study Dog (a free download) and Starfall – both are reading readines sites.

3. Buy memberships to the zoo, museums and other places of interest. Memberships allow families to make weekly trips to places like the zoo for less than a dollar a week.

4. Arrange book, puzzle and curricula swaps with other homeschoolers. Trading books and other materials means you get more resources for your money. This can be as simple as making arangements with one other family while you’re sitting at the park, or creating a grand-scale swap and inviting as many homeschoolers as you can to attend.

5. Skip the manufactured manipulatives for math and make your own instead. Counters can be pinto beans or beads; fake money can be skipped in favor of the real thing; graph paper can be used to create ones, tens and hundreds when talking about place value.

6. Find a used bookstore, or go online to places like half.com for used books or yourself and your child. You can often find books in great shape for a fraction of what you’d pay for them new. There are some other sources for used books and curricula in the links section of this site.

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Homeschool Education – A Critical Tool For Parents

Education is a process of learning how to learn. It is a building process. We all learn more efficiently when we use that efficient learning process for ourselves.

The purpose of this website is to share with you my experiences with homeschooling, to help you decide what you should do, and to answer other questions you may have. I am not a professional counselor, and I hope that my past experience and enthusiasm for homeschooling speak for themselves. If you are trying to decide whether to become a homeschool parent, please don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions! I would be happy to answer them.

I chose to homeschool because I believed that my children’s academic deficiencies, as well as other students in my community, speaks to a much more serious problem than I had thought. Many parents have similar stories. HESI is a critical tool for assessment and to help target help where it is needed.

The tools within the HESI:

The HESI is a comprehensive tool for parents that must be used together with the parents’ homeschool curriculum. HESI offers parents comprehensive tools for:

And, it includes a “Homeschooling Checklist”:

Check out the Books

While many people leave the learning of their children to an outside source (the public school system), parents who homeschool their children do not have to sacrifice their children’s education. In fact, parents who homeschool their children see it as a great way to spend their time with their children. Parents also gain a compelling reason for homeschooling when they see their children struggling in school with academic interests and requests.

The “Checklist” is a key tool for parents that will help make a bad situation far worse. The checklist is a Summary of Needs (not a list of demands), created with the help of educators and submitted to the school district where the child attends. Parents can easily use this “checklist” to make their children educated and engaged as they prepare for kindergarten.

The biggest issue with public schools is the lack of engaged parents. SES is designed to work for parents and teachers working together to make a difference in the lives of their children.

Here are some links to resources:

Parent’s spent more time with their children as a result of using this curriculum.
21st Century skills for learning included Writing, Reading, and math for all children.
A review of a recent national report showed that reading practices improved for all test subjects except Reading Comprehension.
In almost every subject, difficulties were identified in two or more areas.
The most common areas of difficulties were Maths and Verbal Reasoning.
Many parents and teachers were shocked by the high number of struggling readers who could not understand more complicated material.
Many struggling readers had extremely high levels of performance in the primary grades, but they were failing in Math and Verbal Reasoning because they had not mastered these skills.
Many of the children who were performing well in Math and Verbal Reasoning had not mastered the printed form of numbers and only counted with their fingers.
Parents were astonished at the low number of middle school students who could compare synonymously with older students.
Almost half of the students who had not mastered the printed form of numeracy could not perform simple quantitative calculations.
One-third of the students in the secondary grades had not mastered the printed form of numeracy.
Only 15% of the students in the elementary grades had mastered the printed form of numeracy.

In our current school system, only 15% of the students have arithmetic literacy of a very adequate standard, and 83% have literacy of a basic or satisfactory level.

Out of the 15% of students who have basic literacy skills, 71% had not learned sentence repetition, and only 19% could not read a sentence at a conscious level.

The results of this study show that reading skills are a very important factor in the learning of most of us.

Although reading is not the only factor that affects our lives, it is the most powerful. The results of this study also show that reading improves throughout the grade level.

Apart from that, this study has also proven that reading improves the understanding of other subjects too.

This is the time to take action children! Don’t let the sites that teach incorrect information pass your child.

We try to bring the best resources for our students. To bring excellent resources and a challenging educational environment for your children.

How Important Is Education?

If I had to base my opinion on how important education is, I would have to say that it is the most vital thing for a person to achieve. Without it, I would not be considered a complete human being. I have read many opinions on this topic and I have gathered them together to form what I believe is the most realistic analysis of the matter.

I will put it in clear concise words as I see it. Education is the most vital component of a person’s life regardless of his or her age. Not only does education serve as a means to realize one’s full potential but it also teaches one to be considerate, to act in a reasonable manner, to communicate effectively, to excel in one’s craft, etc. It teaches one to make decisions, control one’s actions, and use reason to arrive at sound conclusions. If one is not formally educated, he cannot be considered fully human; however, because he is human he has the capacity to learn and adapt quickly.

If you ask ten thousand people to describe what education means to them, ten thousand different answers would be given. People would say that it is the process of learning and gaining knowledge. Others would say that it is the path that leads to success. Yet, most people will agree that education is the process of learning. It is the technique by which one’s mind develops through the stimulation of learning. Learning takes place on three levels, earth, sky, and hell.

The earth is the layer of facts and knowledge on which one’s body is nourished while on this layer is the human’s base of vital forces. All things that can be identified with the human being are on this level. Hence education begins at the human level and its highest point is the human mind. Mental growth is the primary concern of children. Hence it is the children who are the head and shoulders of our educational system. The mud of the classroom is the foundation of our education system. The things that the students learn on a daily basis are scientifically confirmed and scientifically true. The science class is the laboratory for the students’ learning.

The earth is the layer of vital forces on which people depend for their possible development. The vital forces determine one’s capability to learn and to solve all kinds of mathematical, scientific, and other logical puzzles, and they are located on the three layers of the educational system. People draw their powers of reasoning from the various layers of the educational system and their educational system as well.

The sky is the layer of feelings and emotions on which people based their decision and action on. People rely on the feeling layer of education. The feelings of joy, love, and sadness help people to get their reactions in a proper way. The layers of education are decided by the stage of human life that each child has. The child who is happy at the school is the one who will grow the best in society. The one who is not oppressed by the system is the one who will grow the best in society.

The hell or the negative side of education is the thing that people don’t know the importance of education. The ignorance people have can lead to superstition that causes a lot of problems in the world. The superstition may cause serious health and economic disturbances. It is the teachers and the activities of the school that against superstition.

The education of the people is the foundation on which the social order is built. Modern technology will change the way of learning but the teachers will still play an important role in modern education. Students will still learn on the principle of being knowledgeable and learning that is unique and different from what has been taught to them in the past. The children will learn to differentiate the old knowledge from the new knowledge and apply them in different circumstances. This will create a great impact on the social structure of society.

India is under the algorithm of the 21st century where the talent seekers the unbending, lift the bars when it comes to social status and the reality of life keeps on evolving. Musical education will enhance the social scope of a child even more than what students get now. The present education system not only restricted access to education but also the quality of education and so it will create a new type of society.

The states of the U.P and PTgovt are the most backward in terms of the current education system but with the illumination from the internet, music education will make a lot of alterations in the lives of the students and the schools also. The students with musical inclined abilities can seek employment through online music schools. So that they can commence with the help of the internet immediately. This is one major reason that most aspiring students today are opting for the online method of learning music.

Why the Charlotte Mason Method is a Good Choice For Your Homeschool Education

I heard about the Charlotte Mason method of homeschool early in my homeschool career. My daughter was in Kindergarten and several of the mothers in my homeschool group used the Charlotte Mason Method. I preferred using a standard curriculum, however, as I was new, nervous, and still afraid of ruining my daughter’s life!

However, about a year later, we had moved to another town. And as luck would have it, our house backed up to the local elementary school. One day as my daughter sat at the kitchen table doing her studies, I looked out at the school, and I suddenly had the thought – why exactly am I homeschooling? I knew that having her at home was way better than having her in school for a variety of reasons, but with that perspective, I decided that I wanted to do more than just give her a school-based education at home – I wanted to give her something more. Something that she couldn’t get even at the best of schools, something that only one on one time at home with me could provide – and so I started to look more into other forms of homeschooling, rather than just using a private or Christian based curriculum at home.

The Charlotte Mason method was exactly what I was looking for – using living books instead of textbooks, helping the kids to learn knowledge of the subject, not just memorize a few facts, and most importantly – working to develop the child as a whole – spiritually, intellectually, creatively, and physically. I knew immediately that the Charlotte Mason method would be perfect for our homeschool.

What is the Charlotte Mason Method?

The first thing you need to do has become familiar with the Charlotte Mason Method. There are plenty of books that can help, but the Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason is the best, although a long read (six volumes). You can also purchase shorter versions or notes of her series if you want the speed reading version of her philosophy.

Basically, Charlotte was a British educator who believed that education should be about more than just memorizing facts, passing an exam, training for a job, or getting into the right college. Charlotte Mason believed that education was a discipline and a way of life. The goal of education was to find out who we were and how we fit into the world of human beings and into the universe God created.

Charlotte Mason believed (and I agree) that children are able to deal with ideas and knowledge. Children are not simply blank slates or empty sacks to be filled with information that has been pre-filtered by a middleman (teacher or textbook writer.) A Charlotte Mason education includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through living books, not textbooks in each school subject, and through art, music, and poetry.

However, the Charlotte Mason Method is a very carefully planned out method where books are chosen for their value and ideas, and the child is given directed reading and study each day in several areas. The child is expected to not just read the books, but to be able to narrate what they have read as a sign of comprehension. Younger children will do the oral narration, while older children write out their narration. (Such a difference from the prevailing method of education that checks whether or not children can repeat information through memorization, but no thought is given as to whether or not they actually understand the information!)

So if you are looking for a homeschool method that will do more than just provide an education, but develop your child spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and more, the Charlotte Mason method may be just the thing for you!

The 4 “Rs” of Homeschooling

Homeschooling your children can seem overwhelming. There are so many books and other options that knowing what to teach can become the straw that sends the kids back to school.

You don’t need to do that nor do you need to make life hard for yourself and your kids. If you begin with four basic subjects, the rest will fall into place. I call the subjects the “4 Rs-Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmatic and Respect.”

Learning to read is the most basic skill children need to master. After learning to read, a person can read the cans in the grocery store, books on history, and information on the internet. My personal choice for reading skills is to use phonics with a smattering of sight words. A child can learn the names and sounds of the letters at the same time.

One thing you might want to take into consideration with boys is that some of them are physically not ready to read until they are as old as 10. There is nothing wrong with these boys although public schools would tell you there is.

When you try to teach someone who is not ready for a subject, you will meet all sorts of resistance. What would you do if you handed your child a 100 piece puzzle and he got so frustrated that he threw the pieces around the room? After helping him pick them up, you’d probably put that puzzle away and reach for one with fewer pieces. It’s the same with any subject you try to teach a child who is not ready. You might need to back up.

Arithmetic is now called math in public school. There are many ways to teach fundamentals. Different sized blocks, popsicle sticks, buttons, numbers, and so on can be used to teach math. If you are dealing with a non-reader you will want to work with actual objects and start introducing the numerals. Some boys can do written math before they can read.

In the old days, girls were not expected to be as good at math as boys. They lived up to the faulty expectation. When using actual objects to count and do simple math, math readiness begins as young as three or four years old for boys and girls.

Writing has become keying as in using the computer keyboard. I think that all kids need to know how to write by hand as well as with electronics. There is a possibility that the electronics might not always be with us, but kids will always have their hands and heads. Writing, however, is more than just keying and using the spell check and grammar check to assist. A spell-check will not find anything wrong with the word “over” when the word wanted is “oven.”

Not every child is ready to form letters by hand as soon as he learns to the key. Treat these as different skills and don’t keep him from being able to communicate just because he doesn’t do one or the other well.

Kids need to understand how to make themselves understood however they write. A child who cannot write will not be able to apply for a job or college.

The last R is for respect. Whether you call it the Golden Rule, integrity, being green, or being polite, respect has to do with how we treat each other, ourselves, and our planet. In public school, they try to reinforce the rules of respect through posters, talks, and finally negative reinforcement with no success

I think that the problem is that the home is the place to teach respect and the parents are the teachers whether they are homeschooling or not.

Homeschooling should upset the parent. You can have high expectations and still be willing to drop back if your child becomes frustrated and is not ready for something. If you stick to the four basics, the kids will start asking about advanced topics.

Teaching Kids Creativity Through Science

Creativity is a subjective thing, usually considered an inherent trait and one most often associated with “soft” school subjects such as music and art class. You either have creativity or you don’t, right? But is that really true? Can kids, in particular, be taught how to be more creative and can that happen in science class? I happen to think so and here’s why.

Rote Learning Stifles Creativity

In the public school environment, creative answers and solutions are often not appreciated. And it’s no wonder with all the red tape and national requirements that teachers face these days. They are more worried about getting their kids to pass standards tests than encouraging them to think about new ways to approach old problems. Fortunately, as a homeschool teacher, you can get past those barriers to creativity.

The biggest obstacle to promoting creativity in the classroom is rote learning – asking your kids to simply memorize facts out of context. There’s nothing creative about that type of learning and it can actually be detrimental in the way it discourages kids from thinking outside the box or making decisions on their own.

Let’s look at an example. If you are teaching astronomy this semester, you might be studying the planets in our solar system which, of course, revolve around our sun. That’s a fact – but a pretty boring one. Your kids might be memorizing the names and orders of all those planets, again a fact but not one that gets kids excited. And learning those random facts doesn’t result in good retention because they aren’t associated with things within the child’s environment.

Exploration Promotes Creativity

No matter what subject you are teaching in the home classroom, it can involve creative learning if you help them explore new knowledge while allowing mistakes to be made. Kids are much more likely to become creative when presented with “what if” questions without obvious answers.

In the above example about teaching astronomy, an easy way to get creative is to ask students to create a model of the solar system while talking about color choices based on what each planet’s atmosphere is like. While you’re at it, have your kids explore why or why not human beings might be able to one day live on other planets. Ask them about the elements necessary to support life and discuss which planets are most likely to contain those elements. There was a recent scientific discovery of a new planet in the Alpha Centauri system closes to our own which is very similar in size to Earth. Exploring science news such as this opens the door to creative exploration.

When it comes to teaching science, experimentation should be a major aspect of the curriculum. And there are few things better at promoting creativity than the ability to form hypotheses and then perform experiments to find out whether they are supported or found false. The less knowledge a child has at his disposal, the more likely those hypotheses are to be outlandish, but that’s okay. He can hone his knowledge based on facts about the natural world as he progresses through the basics of science. Thus, making mistakes is itself an integral part of creativity because it leads to an exploration of how to get it right next time.

Giving kids the answers to every problem and asking them to memorize those facts is one way to teach science, but a more effective way that also promotes creativity is by allowing them to explore knowledge. Help them get excited about the wonders of the natural world and they are sure to think of all sorts of fantastic new ideas. Creativity can be taught as long as the homeschool classroom encourages it.

Finding the Right College for Your Homeschool Student

This will come as no surprise to you, intellectually, but the world is much bigger than we think. We live in familiar communities with our favorite friends and we frequent the same stores and shops most of the time. Occasionally, we will venture out to a new restaurant, but often we prefer to stick with our favorites. This is true for how we live, and it’s also true for how our homeschool students pick their colleges. More often than not, our college-bound homeschoolers stick to the colleges and experiences that are closest to home, or most similar to those of their friends and family. But if we remember that the world is much bigger than we think, then a whole new world can be opened up to our students.

Recently, another homeschooler shared his experiences with his son’s college application process. He came to the conclusion that with all of the online information available regarding college options, his potential list of colleges was significantly greater than he expected. He lamented the fact that he didn’t feel that he had so many choices when he was preparing for high school. I don’t think any of us would argue that this is one benefit of the internet. Getting in-depth information is much easier than it used to be, but we forget this truth when picking colleges.

So how should a homeschooler go about looking at larger options for college? The first place that most parents probably start is either with costs and location. For instance, many parents tell their children that they have to stay in their home state for college because the out-of-state tuitions are higher. While that may be true for many schools, it may not be true for all of them. So, the first step is to avoid making false assumptions about costs, and therefore location.

The second step is to take advantage of online college search programs that let you and your child craft a list of preferences. These sites have no emotion about you. They don’t judge schools by any other factors than you give them to judge the college. If you and your homeschool student can be confident of what you want in a college, then these search programs can immediately expand your options. Two of my favorites are Peterson’s and the College Board. Both websites allow you to input variables and create lists of colleges that your homeschool student is interested in. Most likely, you will discover many, many colleges that you might not have considered before through the search results.

Then, request catalogs or information packets from as many of these schools as you can. Begin the process of getting to know these schools. If they have email newsletters or alumni organizations, get on those lists so that you can see what others are saying about these schools. Slowly, you will begin to get a “feel” for those few that stick out as the best fit for your homeschool student. As your list narrows, the level of questions that you ask, whether about costs or other issues, will intensify. Once the list is down to five or six, go ahead and begin the application process when your homeschool student reaches their appropriate age and academic standing.

You may have noticed that this process will take some time. Making a decision as to the college you send your homeschool student to should not be rushed. Ideally, you would begin this search process in the early years of high school and continue the process up until the senior year. You may even want to reassess the search engine options as interests of your student change. Thinking about college when your child is a freshman is not a bad thing. It gives plenty of time for you to see the larger world that is available to your homeschool child, and that is always an exciting thing to see.

The Fundamentals of Home Schooling Revealed

To start a non-public school home school you just begin home schooling. To commence a house education program you merely begin home schooling. Home schooling is the most popular in Canada, France, the uk, and the usa.

Parents decide to homeschool their children for a lot of different reasons. In almost all areas of the country, they do not need an education degree to homeschool. They gave a number of different reasons for homeschooling their children. Some parents offer a liberal arts education employing the trivium and quadrivium as the primary models. They may seek information about the school curriculum from the local board of education. Homeschool parents should make sure that their kids get the instruction and the experiences they require.

Homeschooling isn’t an exception. Homeschooling may be used as a sort of supplemental education and as a method of assisting children learn under specific conditions. Homeschooling might also be a component in the option of parenting style. Homeschooling is a huge choice, but it doesn’t need to be difficult or overwhelming to start. Homeschooling is a full-time commitment and to ensure that the kid receives a superior education, parents want to spend time and effort needed. To help other parents that are thinking of homeschooling, here’s a new collection of advantages and disadvantages.

If you’ve recently started homeschooling, you might observe some challenging or confusing attitudes and behaviors from your son or daughter. Homeschooling is legal in a few countries. Homeschooling provides the chance for parents to incorporate their beliefs in their everyday lives. Homeschooling is governed by the state as opposed to the federal government, which means you will want to look to the particular regulations in your state to discover what, if anything, you’ve got to do to be legally homeschooling.

Why Almost Everything You’ve Learned About Home Schooling Is Wrong

Some public schools make it possible for homeschoolers to attend certain classes they choose. The Ogburn on-line School provides online homeschooling programs that may accommodate the requirements of virtually every family members and student. The Ogburn on-line School starts by learning as much as possible concerning the student, before recommending the ideal online homeschooling alternatives available. The Ogburn on-line School will designate the internet homeschooling courses which are best suited for the student’s success.

A Secret Weapon for Home Schooling

Just make sure you look at your state’s homeschool laws so you understand how to properly withdraw your children from school and start homeschooling. Everyone can homeschool a single child for a couple months, but it does not make them a homeschool expert. The job of homeschooling a young child is surely not simple, particularly for working parents, single parents or stay-at-home parents. At home, he or she is learning whenever he or she is awake. Alas, many children are bored or frustrated in school, and some struggle to comprehend what they’re taught while the pace of teaching needs to be dependent on the requirements of a huge group.

If your kid is happy in school and you’re happy that they’re achieving their potential, then there’s probably no reason to consider home education. If your children are in school and you’ll be bringing them home, deschooling is a significant consideration. Write to the headteacher if you intend to take your son or daughter out of school. Homeschooled children can accomplish in a couple of hours what takes a common classroom weekly or more to cover.