Hello from MD

[fritz_monroe]

My wife and I have started seriously looking into homeschooling our kids. We have a boy in 3rd grade and a girl in pre-k. We looked into it briefly last year, but my wife wasn't entirely convinced that it was right. This week, we watched him in class and saw what we think is the problem, he's bored. We have him in catholic school because the public schools in my area are not good, but the catholic schools around here aren't equipped to challenge him. Our daughter needs a little bit more one on one attention. But we've been working with her and she's coming along.

So, here I am trying to decide if homeschooling is right for us. We've been thinking that for the first year we would probably be best off with the boxed set type of curriculum. I figure that it would be a pretty big change for us and that would make things a bit less stressful.

Any suggestions about the prepared curriculum? Any companies to avoid? Any other advise would be appreciated.

P.S. I'll be reading just about every post here on the forums, but I wanted to introduce myself first.

[Jazzy]

You sound just like me. I probably read everything I could find on homeschooling before diving in. Homeschooling is great because you can tailor the program to the child and not the other way around. You can speed up or slow down or change materials as you need to.

I think starting out with a prepackaged/workbook type curriculum works out well for new homeschoolers. That's how we started out. After a while I could see what was working and what wasn't, and I began making changes here and there. I learned about new products from reading on homeschool forums and going to conventions, and now I feel really comfortable with what we are using.

Here is some information on complete home school curriculum and a list of popular providers. There is general information about pros/cons, etc. on that site as well.

http://www.homeschoolreviews.com is a great place to read reviews of different companies.

Good luck with your research!

[mark_egp]

Hi Fritz and welcome to the homeschooling adventure. I'm a homeschool dad and many of our family's HS experiences are on our website: http://www.everygoodpath.net/

First advice is to keep it simple - don't get a bulky all-in-one curriculum to start. Just read with your kids and do a little math each day. You can grow from there. More ideas on our site.
Blessings to your family! -Mark

[Miss_Kristy]

Hi fritz

Welcome. You've found a great board for advice. There's lots of information floating around here and people will always answer your questions. I've been homeschooling for 6 months now and I already feel like an old pro ! The reason? Trial and error. Don't expect to get everything right the FIRST time you try. When we started, I was super organized, tried to keep everything in order, wanted to stay on schedule at all costs, made unrealistic rules for myself - and ended up totally frustrated and burned out.

I've come to realize that what works for us is simplicity and fun. I don't use boxed cirruculum because it doesnt' fit our lifestyle. I use themes alot. This may be something to look into if your son is bored with the things he's learning now. I make a list of about 10 different themes and let the kids choose what they want to learn about. We spend about 2 weeks on each theme. Right now my son ( 8 ) is learning about China and my Daughter ( 7 ) is on ancient Egypt. They both chose global warming so we're doing that too. I've found that if they have a say in what they are learning about it makes teaching much eaiser. I've even caught them reading about " thier subject " on their own time !