Do you homeschool

Oldest child went to government school for grades 1-3. She's now 17 and in college.

Next one went to government school for grade 1-2. He's now sixteen and in college.

Third one has always been homeschooled. He's 14 and is taking some college classes.

The next two are currently being homeschooled and our youngest will be homeschooled (she's only 13 months old).

 

I currently homeschool my children.

 

My wife is a private school teaher. I send my kids to her school. If theyr'e bad, I make sure they're in her class.

 

Our children went to excellent neighborhood public schools thru middle school (actually the elementary & middle schools are within walking distance). Then, we moved them to a Christian preparatory high school.

I have many friends who have home-schooled their children-- some part of the way and others all the way thru high school --- all depending upon their children &their needs, and their own gifts as teachers. For example, one friend's child was home schooled thru middle school and went to a public, magnet high school for dance. Obviously, that would have been difficult to teach at home at such a high level. She made the transition very easily --- as have most children that I have known that have moved from being home-schooled.

 

How do you teach your kids, engineering, metalworking, carpentry, building skills and all the others things you cannot usually do at home?

I was thinking about this this morning. Maybe home schoolers are making a generation of Jacob type people, a dweller of tents.

 

That's why we have homeschool associations. We parents can pool our specific skills. Happens all the time.

 

Do they give official qualifications? You will need them when applying for a full time job. Welding for example or brick layer! ( master builder )

 

I worry about similar issues, but more on the academic front -- higher level classes such as physics, chemistry, calculus, english lit, foreign languages, etc. However, my home-schooled friends' teens were able to take dual enrollment classes at the local community college for these subjects.

 

Homeschool is all about thinking outside the box. It's amazing to me how we've let ourselves get sucked into the mentality that only the government is fit to teach our children for us. We homeschooling parents want the very best for our children, as I'm sure many non-homeschool parents do, and we are resourceful in achieving our goals.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. The same applies with teaching our children. Learning is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and the beauty of homeschool is that we can explore various ways of learning without being crammed into a cookie-cutter style educational system.

 

Like somebody else said, we do this by pooling our resources.

In our family, we're very fortunate in that we have resources that many people don't. My parents and grandparents all have homes on our farm, and my mother lives on our farm for about six months out of the year.

I'm a former history teacher at both the high school and college levels. My mother is a former high school English teacher (although you'd never know it by my grammar) and now teaches sociology at the college level. My grandmother is also a former English and Latin teacher, as well as being an amazing piano and violin teacher. Both my father and grandfather are engineers who are able to teach our children math and engineering. And my wife is a former forensic accountant who teaches them math and business.

As for math and engineering, my father and grandfather are always working on projects with the children. We have several bridges on our property, all built at least in part by the children as a part of their math and engineering lessons. We've built catapaults and trebuchets, which do double duty in our Western Civ and History classes.

Obviously, I realize that not all homeschoolers have the resources we do and that we're very, very lucky, but homeschoolers find a way around these things by partnering with other homeschoolers and trading knowledge and lessons.

 

Wow -- I thought that you would have more friends ... :laugh: Really interesting to hear how people are abe to pool resources. Seems like there are lots of different ways to get the job done. (We don't like talking about killing cats where I live).

Also, I've heard that in certain public school districts that home-schooled kids are able to play sports.

 

I was home schooled and so have been my children.