How to choose a school / curriculum?

We have used Lifepac's as well as stuff from Bob Jones University. We like the BJU stuff.

How to choose? Well it depends on what you want out of it.
(questions are in no specific order)
Can you look at a sample of some of the textbooks?
How is the child's progress tracked?
What is the end state of the child? (GED test or do they get a diploma?)
Does the material mesh with your values? (I want conservative Christian values presented)
What options are there? (text books, online, DVD, etc)
Cost? (sadly this is an issue for most of us)



BJU tracks the progress of the kids through testing and they can get a diploma at the end of high school. We also have an active home school association in our area.

 

Web, if I remember correctly your kids are still pretty young, right? In that case, I would suggest waiting for the online academy part until they are bigger, simply because of the cost involved. In the younger grades, you can easily give your kids everything they need and it will take less time and expense. If you're wanting the online bit just for computer usage, I'd recommend Switched On Schoolhouse. A Beka has instructional DVDs' but in the elementary grades you should do fine without them. We found them time consuming and boring as well as expensive. For higher grades, I can see their value.

My oldest is now in high school and we decided to do an online academy (Alpha Omega) simply because I wanted to make sure all her high school credits would transfer if she ever wanted to attend another school. Also, the higher maths give me trouble and I wanted her to have a certified teacher for those subjects.

See if your area has any homeschool support groups. There will be many people with many types of curriculum and you can ask them to show you theirs. The support groups also offer extracurricular activities and socialization.

You'll be amazed at how easy homeschool is for the younger grades. It used to take us 2 or 3 hours a day when mine were little.

 

be careful with K12. If I recall correctly public schools use this as a way to "homeschool" while keeping the authority and decision making in the public school's hands. Not a bad cirric, but use it on your own and not through your public school system.

Little kids don't need a cirric anyhow, unless you need the comfort of having one all listed out for you. 3rd grade (once they've learned to read well and add and subtract, count money, tell time etc) is soon enough for a strict cirric. Just my two cents of course.

 

Well I'm a very relaxed style homeschooler. I'm not quite an "unschooler" but I fail to see the need to direct every learning experience my children have. So we do a lot of independent and child directed learning around here. That's not to say we use textbooks because we do. We just don't follow them exclusively and if we get off track while studying something a kid finds interesting more deeply, we dont worry about it. Either we'll come back to it later or the next book in line will review it. (lots and lots of review in today's cirrics)

 

Get out of Ohio. It's what I did


But seriously...what options for private schools do you have in your area? Would it be realistic to move to a suburb and rural area that wouldn't be far from your work where you could get your kids into a smaller school?

Obviously this stuff can happen anywhere. My wife and I are moving from Indy to a small town here in the next few months. School she grew up in. I'm really excited for that, because I was absolutely not sending my kid to the public school in the area, and I didn't want to fork out the cash for a private school.

 

If I were to look at home schooling, I'd use the common core state standards and use texts and trade books (the more trade books, the better and the fewer textbooks, the better), and supplement/integrate it w/ Bible.

 

When I choose the curriculum for my sons, I actually researched colleges and their preferences. I was afraid of limiting my children when I began homeschooling. I found a study done by Sanford University that stated they actually prefer homeschooled students due to their ability to be more independent in their learning that they found was beneficial to doing well in a college atmosphere. I also researched preferred transcripts and such and used that when comparing curriculum. In the end, I choose the CD based Switched on Schoolhouse for most subjects but switched out their math curriculum for Saxon Math. I also added in other things like grammar notebooks and such. Regardless of what you choose, I think you will still find you customize based upon your needs but do look long term and not just short term in way of needs. SOS was great for my kids who are naturally independent learners who stay focused on task and enjoyed going at their own pace and the ability to re-do various tests and such to earn better grades. As their teacher, I really enjoyed how easy it was to customize and to print out transcripts.

My children are all grown now. The eldest just finished 8.5 yrs with the Army. The middle son has two jobs and writing a Christian novel in which he's doing endless research into fallen angels and the lost books of the Bible to write. The youngest graduated at 16 and had a professional salary job by 19. He now has an even better salary job as well as his own budding company (highly technical computer programmer). I only regret taking as long as I did to begin homeschooling them. As a man I once knew told me when I was trying to decide: "God gave you your children. He didn't give them to the government. You are meant to teach them."