[sghulett]

Over the last 5 years we have tried the following.Sonlight 3yrs (disliked it)Mater Amabilis 1yr (Catholic Curriculum online under MaterAmabilis.org no forums just curriculum info)SOS last year and this year.LifePac's this yearI have found that each kid loves different types. Son is SOS and dd is lifepacs because she loves, loves loves work books.

[twinzplus3]

Yeah I'm not nice like that. I couldn't do five different types of curriculum so I make what I have work. . .but I totally understand why people do it that way--especially when they don't have as many kids.

[lavatea]

Thanks for the link. It looks like Texas is a pretty good homeschool state. Not sure how we'll fare when we move - if we ever do. We're interested in both CO and NY. I'll look up the state-by-state HS blogs when I have more time.

[twinzplus3]

New York is a horrific state to homeschool in. That's where we just moved from. If you have a choice and it's at all based on homeschooling--I'd avoid NY like the plague. It has one ofhte most burdensome sets of requirements in the US.

[scottiegazelle]

I'll chime in with the "four is too early to be writing letters" stage. I also recognize myself as too overbearing; it has been something I have worked hard on. But never fear: my poor daughter (my oldest; I was learning moderation) practically had to force me to teach her to read - I only worked with her when she asked the letter sounds and words - and she was reading at four. (I let her teach her brother, and they are both teaching my three year old now, .) I had to consciously pull myself back.

If you want to work on some fun alphabet games, you can have them draw letters in sand or cake icing, shape them from clay, etc. My five year old still writes some of his letters backwards - but he was reading in last week's children's program at church and everyone was stunned when he covered big words like "sacrament", etc. I remember reading somewhere that children that age literally don't have the right muscle structure to be writing, and that forcing them to do it over and over like in a school situation can cause them physical problems, in addition to behavioral/educational.
As for "aptitude" for homeschooling - I struggle a lot with this. In all honesty, I am not sure that I have - or, rather, had - the right "leaning" towards being a mom. When I was a teen, I swore I would never had kids; I just didn't grow up in a great situation. Now I have four kids. I am by no means a perfect mom, but I have made a lot of changes. Nor am I a perfect homeschooling mom - before HSing, I was very excitedly waiting for my DD to turn four and GO TO SCHOOL and give me a break, I am ashamed to say. My point is that if something is important to us, we work hard to make the changes we need to make in order to achieve it. We won't do it immediately or perfectly, but generally the desire to homeschool stems from genuine love and concern for a child. If you want bad enough to change the things that YOU see in YOU as inhibiting HSing, you will. If you don't, you won't.

In the meantime, I can't imagine too many kids that would prefer to be stuck sitting in a classroom silently all day instead of exploring learning. <shrug> Any "problems" you see that are not age-related are just going to manifest themselves more strongly in a classroom.

[mcmama]

Please discuss the original topic in this thread, and do not use it to promote other websites dedicated to homeschooling. Some posts have been removed. Thanks.

[ahermitt]

Originally Posted by lavatea

...but now I'm worried.

I've been tossing about the idea of homeschooling my kids for a while now. My daughter just turned four, so the prospect of school is looming on the horizon. I have relatives that are shocked that I'm not putting her into preschool this year, but I can't bear the thought of sending her to school yet. It makes me sick to think of sending her in a year even! I've even been wondering if I can keep from sending her to kindergarten until she is 6 (she has a summer birthday).

Anyhow, homeschooling is a very attractive idea for me. I do worry about college prep for when she would reach high school age, and by prep I don't so much mean the education, but the opportunities and access to colleges that formal schools have.

Here's tonight's dilemma, though. Amelie knows her letters by sight and can write some of them. She was given this tablet that has all of the letters in it, and you can trace the letters and there is room to practice them, too. So Aaron wanted to work in the tablet with her so she can start learning all of her letters. Well, she just wasn't "getting it". She drew a couple of the letters but wouldn't write them on the lines where they were supposed to go. Aaron was getting frustrated so I stepped in. I sat her in my lap and tried to be positive, but she immediately was like, "I can't do it," and put her pencil down. We encouraged her to try, but she wouldn't even pick the pencil up right! I got frustrated and sent her to her room. A couple of rounds of this, and I gave up.

So are we not cut out for homeschooling? She is a very strong-willed child and just doesn't obey very well. She's not as out of control as the Nanny 911 kind of kids, but I have a hard time keeping her in line. I let her get by with a lot. I try not to spank (which my parents think is the problem) and most punishments have very little affect on her. She is a very bright kid. My family agrees, naturally, and I've had strangers comment on it as well. (Oddly, Aaron kind of scoffs at this assessment as if we think she's exceptional and she's not.)

As for our style, obviously I get frustrated fairly easily, and Aaron does, too. I'm sure he'd just as soon send her to a school than work at teaching her every day, although he does enjoy teaching her things on the side. So I think homeschooling would be my responsibility. I was a good student in school, and I (sadly) had little compassion for kids that "didn't get it". So this is probably part of my frustration with Amelie - maybe a fear that she won't be as good as me or even better? Or maybe I just lack the patience?

Any insights/suggestions/comments welcomed and appreciated.

Have you made a decision yet as to whether or not you plan to homeschool?

I agree with the comments everyone here made and hope you are encouraged. When my daughter was 4 she was very much like your own and school did not make a difference in her willingness to cooperate. She got bad grades for not reciting numbers and alphabet because she did not want to... not because she could not... so it looked like she was not learning. I asked her why should would not recite the alphabet for her teacher and her answer was "the teacher already knows the alphabet".

My advice. Introduce the alphabet to her in different ways. Keep lots of related materials around. Hang an alphabet poster or border in her room or a playroom. She will learn it... she probably already knows it.

At the end of the day... go with your heart on homeschooling.

[mcmama]

Andrea, I seriously get this. I really wish that when certifying teachers for K-8 they would pay more attention to how YOUNG children learn, and assessing the ability of divergent thinkers.

We didn't homeschool, but this very same response by my youngest son made for some interesting parent teacher conferences in private school. I ran into this again with him in 7th grade - in algebra, show the teacher your work - and his response was, why we already know how much the answer is. When he was younger, the oldest child was in a private gifted program on saturdays, and he got interested in it because they played chess and he figured maybe he could play with people his own age who could really play. The admission for this program was an IQ score, so we got IQ testing. He bombed. He did not feel like drawing pictures, he thought the questions were stupid, and anyway, what did this have to do with chess. So he did not go.

He got admitted to one of the most selective colleges in the country. But it sure took some kicking about his attitude from me.

Glad he wasn't just written off as a troublemaker!