Do you homeschool?

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I am thinking about home schooling my 8 year old son. How many of you homeschool?
Do you use one of those homeschooling programs from the web?
How has it been?

I'm in the Orlando area.

I do not home school yet but I am interested in what everyone has to say! I seriously thought about it because I am fed up with our school here. I have even went as far as contacting our governor!

Self Learning is the best way to go.
It is what I did.
I do not agree with sending ANY child to a public school.
Public schools generate a massive amount of negative energy (try finding a reiki master to learn more)
Through self learning I have learned far more things in a week than I could in half a year of school.
Here is some of what I have studied:
Calculus, Advanced Algebra's, Trigonometry, Quantum Physics, Theoretical Physics, General Physics, Exo-Sciences, Para-Sciences....
All of today's public school systems are the same system from the Industrial Revolution.

We "unschool"...but sometimes we also do worksheets, although not much...I spend lots of hours researching the internet, checking what my kiddo is into and buying books, renting videos, finding stuff on the internet based on what his current interest is...it just works better for us for right now...

ie. he loves the heart, blood, etc...so instead of making him do worksheets of A, B, C, etc...I go to an online site where I can make our own sheets and do worksheets with the words "heart, blood, veins, aorta, etc..."

He's 7 1/2...some days it is scary to think he's not learning enough, but then he does really know alot more than other kids...it's just not necessarily in the same order as what other children learn...

A great book I got was "Just give him the Whale"...I found it on Amazon...a great book about teaching our kids...

Look for the book, Hitchhiking Through Asperger's Syndrome. It's by a mom who did the public school thing and ended up homeschooling. She had a lot of good resources and ideas listed. Just reading through threads, it looks like a lot of parents here do homeschool, so hopefully you get some good responses.

I have spent a great deal of blood, sweat and tears agonizing over this very decision with my own son. He "should have" been in kindergarten this year. Part of it is just one's philosophy in general: is it the job of the government to educate our kids, or ours? I will agree that the public schools don't do a great job, and I am a teacher. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of wonderful people with the best intentions inside some of said schools...it's just that the system really doesn't support what is best for kids. (And I mean kids in general, not only our kids with additional needs.)

That being said, I found a charter school that I really like and threw our name in the hat. I didn't expect we'd get in...there were only 42 spots and hundreds of families in the lottery...but we did. So we will try it for one year. Even so, I only see it as a trial. My little guy loves to learn in such a way that I am afraid I couldn't possibly supply all the mental stimulation he needs while trying to chase the other three and keep house. But at the first sign of trouble for my little guy, I will pull him in a heartbeat.

We mostly do unschooling, but we also do lots of learning actvities incorporated into it. We follow the kids' leads. It just depends on what the kids are interested in. I do have a shedule to go by, but that's mostly for therapies and things. Of course, my kids are still young so it just depends on what the kids need as to where we'll go with this. We're pretty eclectic with our ideas though and open to new things.

Yes. We home-unschool. My son is probably AS/PDD of some kind, 9 going on 10 years old. Loves reading, playing on the internet, drawing, ( the most extrordinarily complex diagrams, plans, landscapes, etc ), and does Karate.

He tried school on a couple of occasions, hated it, so we did three years of correspondence courses, which were very boring, before daring to leave the system this much. He has to go for a "control" every year, ( last year was the first one and he did ok at that ), and so we do about an hour most days of school exercises, ( mainly maths and french, we live in France ), so that he is in practice for that.

Otherwise he just follows his nose, which isn't much into subjects as such, but more in rules, organisation, systems, connections, ( after a couple of years of being into dinosaurs in detail, space, robots, etc! )

Unfortunately the french govt is tightening up its homeschooling laws so from next year or the year after we may have to start doing specific subjects, ( geog, history, science etc ), aswell as the french grammar and maths. We are not looking forward to this.

Wish that he could already participate actively in society, by working/training/apprenticeship at something for a few hours a week for instance, because as it is the 6/8 years until he is 16/18 seem like exclusion from anything that really matters to society, like being "on ice".

And because most children are shut up in the school-ghetto during the day he finds it difficult to make/have friends, even more difficult than it need be because of AS. On the other hand he is still confident, lively, sensitive, without any of the low-self-esteem about his "differences" which school so often seems to induce.

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We homeschool (mostly unschool) too. My son is 7.5. We knew from the time he was a toddler he would not do well in a school setting, and he is several grade levels ahead in some subjects, and we knew we could best fill his educational needs ourselves. It is wonderful for us, he LOVES to learn, and if he was being made to sit still and be quiet most of the day-along with the teasing and bullying he'd no doubt encounter in school, he'd hate learning.

We do unit studies (we use 5 in a Row & Beyond 5 in a Row curriculum and I make up my own) and mostly hands on learning, he does some seatwork, a little more now than he used to.

wow, justn noticed alot of "unschooling" here...interesting...

PS - I "teach" all the "courses" that are required, such as reading, math, science, blah, blah...except that I teach these with whatever interests my kiddo...he doesn't have to read some boring book if I can find him one on space, volcanoes, etc...which is what he is into...same with writing...we learned math addition-subtraction with cars and rocks, since he was into both of these at the time...instead of worksheets...after we counted/added/subtracted cars and rocks, he was much more willing to write down the equations, etc...

It does take alot of work to gear things towards what they like, but it makes life so much easier for BOTH of us...although alot more work doing research for us...

We started to home school our 8 year old daughter this year. She uses the Alpha Omega Switched on Schoolhouse program. The SOS program is on the computer and she seems to enjoy this program over the usual books. For Math, we use the Math-U-See program. A good book that helps is called What Your Third Grader Needs To Know. Our daughter loves museums so we bought a museum pass which includes several museums in our area. Many of the museums now have special home school days --- you may want to contact your local museums. The local library has a lot of fun stuff to do. Recently, we went to a chess club group and discovered her interest in the game of chess. Our local wellness and fitness center has swimming lessons for home school children during the week days. Fortunately, there are several home school groups in our town and we joined one at the beginning of the school year. We have participated in many social events and field trips with the group. Also, one of the home school teens gives horseback riding lessons for a low fee. The horseback riding has really helped my little girl in so many ways. Moreover, just this week, we joined a support group for kids with AS and their parents. We are going to our first social event with the group Friday evening. (If you belong to a church that would also be a great place for socialization.)
At the beginning of the year I was really worried if taking her out of the public school was the best option. Her neurologist was not pleased when we told him we planned on taking her out of public school to home school her. He was worried about the lack of socialization. I was worried that she might not work as hard for me or learn everything she needed. Now, I am so glad I did. She is so much happier and has very little stress compared to last school year. We are so blessed that I am able to be a stay at home mom in order to teach our daughter. My husband puts in a lot of extra hours at work in order for me to stay home and for our daughter to have these opportunities. It is unfortunate that the public school administration has to be so worried about test scores ( to get funding) that they are not looking out for the emotional well being of the children. (VA, USA)

LMR, I am so glad to hear that you know you've made the right choice.

I cannot advocate any situation as being the right one for any child or family, but I DO tell people that when you've made the right choice, you KNOW it. If you don't feel good about the schooling situation with your child, CHANGE it. EVERY child can thrive with learning. It is really worth discovering what it takes for your child to experience that.

I do not homeschool, but I consider it to be a solid and important option, because for many kids it IS the right choice. I think too many people make a mistake dismissing it so quickly.

I pulled Kyle out of the 4th grade, and did school-at-home him for the last four years. It has been a frustrating, wonderful experience. Homeschooling turned our withdrawn, suicidal kid into a happy one. He also went from a 1st grade reading level to a 3rd grade reading level in just one year.

For us, the online K12 system paid for by a (free) "virtual school" worked the best. The lessons aren't always suited to Kyle's learning style, but the school allows us to deviate from the lessons themselves as long as Kyle can pass the test at the end of the unit.

Using an online virtual school also means that Kyle has the "paper trail" that makes it possible for him to go back to school or to college if he chooses to later. Another advantage is that there are monthly field trips and weekly school clubs, so Kyle doesn't totally miss out on the social aspect of regular school.

The biggest advice I can give, whether you unschool or homeschool or school-at-home, is to stick with it for a few months before you decide to call the experience a failure. The first couple weeks were pretty dreadful. You know how our dear kids are with change! Once Kyle and I settled into a routine, though, things got a lot less stressful for us both.

Feel free to email if you want more details.

A possbile resource for you is the discussion boards at The Well-Trianed Mind site. With folks of all persuasions and neuro status homeschooling, there's likely to be some info that you'd find helpful. The Accelerated Learner and Special Needs boards may be of particular interest. The book, The Well-Trained Mind, will be revised this year to include suggestions on home-educating kids who aren't especially NT. The book has lots of suggestions for curriculum and implementation and is (in my opinion) a well organized resource that cuts to the heart of many issues

Homeschooling has been a good fit for us, but it should be noted that it requires a constant attention to one's expectations. (Or maybe it's just me. ) The most difficult thing about it has been getting sidetracked by all the fabulous options out there. What a problem to have, huh? The best part has been having a less stressful learning environment for my kids and a more flexible schedule with which to allow music lessons, sports, and therapies.

HTH and have fun!