We homeschool 3 kids, technically two are not "school age"; however, our belief is that learning is a continuous process. We have and 8 year old boy, a 2 year old boy, and an 8 month old girl.
About 4 years ago when my oldest was attending the pre-school that my mother owned, she suggested to me that homeschooling may be a good option for my son. I didn't really pay too much attention to her words, I mean after all, I was just a secretary and I wasn't trained to teach him.
During these past four years it was becoming more and more apparent that homeschooling was just exactly what I was supposed to do. He has such a love of learning that often he would complete his class assignments ahead of others and would become disruptive. During this past year as we were preparing to move we did further research, legalities, fact finding, etc...
Once we settled in and our oldest had started his 2nd grade year, we started to notice the patterns again. Our request for gifted testing was slow to be filled and acted upon. Restriction on materials that he had access to had changed, making him bored.
These were our deciding factors. We didn't want him to lose that love of learning. Scared though we were we jumped in with both feet, totally unsure if what we were doing was right. We received some flack from other family members, however, over these past 6 months they are changing their attitude. Our son talks constantly of what he is learning and how much he enjoys homeschooling.
In a nutshell that is why we homeschool. If you have any questions please ask me.
Good luck,
Barbara. Colorado Springs, CO.
Janice wrote...We began looking into homeschooling in the winter of 1998. We were concerned about the immorality in Public Schools. We were so tired of spending our evenings and weekends undoing all the damage that had been passed out to our children. When we began testing for placement we realized that there was a definate academic problem also. The older the child was the further behind they seemed to be. Also at this time we were being called into the public school for conferences because our youngest daughter was becoming a disruption in the class. They had her in the gifted program but that was only for twenty minutes every two weeks. She was finished with her work and was bored. She was getting up and trying to find something to keep her mind busy. They did not recognize that she needed challenging materials. They would not let her take any books out of the library unless they were at her grade level. She had not read at grade level since kindergarten. This all happened while she was in second grade. There is a story behind each on of our four children as to why we chose to homeschool.
Ray and Janice Crane
Martinsville, IL
More to come...stay tuned!
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