[lucyjoy]

If you already home school or could change your child's school, what would you want it to look like?

I think kids are taught a lot of useless information and not enough of what they need.

I'm seriously thinking of home schooling next year, have before, but want to do it different.

If I'm going to do this, I want to teach my child to think for himself and to have a desire to learn more.

Looking for ideas of what the "perfect" school experience. What would you want your children to know?

[Lylac]

I don't homeschool...yet. I'm looking forward to the responses you get Lucy.

[momraine]

I think it would be great if the kids could learn at thier own pace. Like if a kid got interested in dinosaurs he could study them as in depth as he wanted. A creative teacher could tailor all the subjects to it. Putting discoveries on a time line for history, writing about each one to create a booklet would be language arts, math lessons to figure out how many were in different places or how much they ate, etc.

[qs mom]

I have a sensory kid. I would like to see lessons be more 'hands on'. Let the kids touch, feel, smell their lessons. No all kids are visual learners.

For my son, the perfect thing would be something like a hammock chair, something he could move in, music in the background - instrumental, no singing, that would compete with teacher voice. Field trips outside. Explore our world. Science isn't the only thing learned outside. I think the kids should be able to go outside to learn at least an hour a day in good weather. We have snow and cold weather here, once a week trek to the botanical gardens or something like that would be cool. That would cover geography along with science class.

My sons class does word games which is kind of cool and he learns alot. But the only do it for words. How about math games?

[chickymum]

I am starting homeschooling in 2 weeks!!!! I am very excited. We have what seems like a great distance education program that I am going to use.
My plan is to do the schooling in the morning and have her work with me on other life applications for the afternoon. She has a difficult time picking up on things like everyday stuff so I want her to get a good grasp on things that she will need to survive as an adult. She is only 8 but I think it will be easier to hs her at this grade level than at a much older grade level. Also I am hoping that this will be a good bonding experience-again something I dont want to wait too long for.

[seekfirstthekingdom]

I home School, my bios are 17, 15 and 15. my 17 yr old is already done with School finished last year before he turned 17. he is now in the Marine boot camp woo hoo.
my two 15 yr olds are doing well, they both have medical conditions and that is why I chose to home school them.

That being said let me tell you it is HARD to home school, our lifes revolve around it, but when I pulled them out of public school in 5th grade they didnt even know their multiplication tables and it is so rewarding to see your kids pick up things that they could never get in a "classroom setting".

The thing I like most about homeschooling is the freedom to stay on a subject until they get it. if need be we could spend a whole day or week even on things that they have trouble with. I found in public school that if the kids had trouble with something they had until a certain time to 'get it' before they moved on.

Alot of people think that because kids are home schooled that they arent getting socialization skills which is totally not true, my kids have done more things and met more people since they have been homeschooled then they ever did in public school. We use the library classes weekly, take field trips ect..

So if you think Home Schooling is the right thing for your family I say go for it..It is hard but the rewards are awesome..

[Kelly Rae]

I home-school and use a literature based curriculum which is awesome. I like it because if we are studying the Eastern Hemisphere every book we read (there is a lot of reading cuddling time) is related to this area and they aren't dry text books, but real books about the people and places. We cooked food from related to our reading to make it more interesting. You can group several children together for all the reading (history,science) and then break them up for language arts, and math.

That said I haven't found a science program that is great for High School I feel like biology is more memorizing and less real learning. I'd love a great video or online course in this subject and just haven't found the right one.