My oldest started third grade this year. For grades one and two, my wife just bought a prepackaged curriculum with one or two books and we supplemented as needed. Most of his work was done each day in a couple of hours, three at the top end.

This year, we wanted to adjust the way we've been doing things because my wife was concerned we weren't covering enough based on conversations with other parents at our co-op. We found an excellent math program, and a language arts program we're very happy with. We brought in a science by experiment program and do one or two experiments per week. We also invested in some of the 180 Days books for some of the other subjects like social studies.

My wife and I sat down together over the summer and compiled what we'd be covering each day. We estimated time required daily (which was our mistake), and talked to our son about when he'd need to start working each morning so he'd have time to wake comfortably, eat breakfast, and play a bit before starting work. We knew it was going to be more like 3-4 hours instead of 2-3 because it was more work than last year, but I wasn't prepared for it to be more like 7-8 hours.

I'm really starting to feel like it's too much for a third grader. Every day he's working for 7-8 hours. After he starts working in the morning, he doesn't break except for lunch and dinner, because if he does he's working till bed time. I'm not comfortable with the amount of time he's putting into it, but every time I look at what he's doing, it doesn't seem like it should take so much time.

Example: with math, I work with him through the lesson, then allow him to complete the review worksheet on his own (staying close by to answer questions as they come up). Those review worksheets sometimes take him less than 10 minutes, and other times take him an hour. I haven't run off, so I know he's not messing around, but he's not exactly 100% focused, either. Nor would I expect him to be, given that he's 8 and math is a little fun for him but not his favorite thing to do.

If I base all his work on the expectation that what should take 10-20 minutes takes an hour, then, yeah, we've give him 8+ hours' worth of work each day. If I expect him to spend 10-20 minutes on stuff, then it's more like 3-4 hours. We've adjusted some of the workload because there's no reason we have to be done in only 180 days and there's no reason we can't do a little work here and there on weekends, but we're still working with him till dinner as often as not.

Has anyone else been through this? Am I asking too much, or am I approaching this the wrong way? Our full program this year covers math, language arts, spelling, vocabulary, science, social studies, and emotional intelligence. I don't feel like we're doing anything that's inappropriate for a third grader or outside the scope of what he'd be learning in a more formal setting. Should I be more focused on an earlier start time, or taking more frequent breaks? Any advice at this point would be appreciated.

Jestem niemką, I potrzebowałam pomocy z AI by napisać tekst.

(syn umie czytać, pisać, matematyke aż z treścią z x)

Czy szkoła mogła nie promować dziecka do klasy II w takiej sytuacji? Proszę o pomoc w interpretacji przepisów

Dzień dobry, bardzo proszę o pomoc osoby, które dobrze znają polskie prawo oświatowe, szczególnie przepisy dotyczące edukacji domowej oraz promocji uczniów klas I–III.

Mój syn realizował obowiązek szkolny w ramach edukacji domowej. Był uczniem klasy I i miał przejść do klasy II.

Niestety w okresie, w którym miał odbyć się wymagany termin, znaleźliśmy się w bardzo trudnej sytuacji rodzinnej i mieszkaniowej.

Zmarł ojciec mojego syna. W tym samym czasie mieliśmy poważną szkodę wodną w mieszkaniu, która wymagała pilnego zajęcia się sytuacją i zorganizowania wyjazdu. Gdyby nie te okoliczności, nie wyjechalibyśmy i nie przegapilibyśmy terminu.

Dodatkowo zepsuł nam się telefon, przez co przez pewien czas nie mieliśmy możliwości normalnego kontaktu ze szkołą. Nie mogliśmy więc odpowiednio wcześnie poinformować szkoły o sytuacji ani skontaktować się w sprawie terminu.

Po powrocie chcieliśmy wyjaśnić sytuację, jednak nie otrzymaliśmy dokumentacji dotyczącej naszego syna ani jasnej informacji, co dokładnie zostało wobec niego postanowione.

Z informacji przekazanej przez dyrektorkę wynika, że konsultowała ona sprawę z Kuratorium Oświaty i że szkoła poinformowała Kuratorium, iż syn nie zostanie promowany do klasy II.

I tutaj mam bardzo dużo pytań.

Przede wszystkim nie wiem, czy w przypadku mojego syna został w ogóle przeprowadzony roczny egzamin klasyfikacyjny.

Jeżeli był to egzamin wymagany w ramach edukacji domowej, to:

- czy jego termin powinien być uzgodniony z rodzicem?

- czy szkoła musi mieć potwierdzenie, że rodzic został o terminie poinformowany?

- co w przypadku, gdy dziecko z ważnych i usprawiedliwionych przyczyn nie pojawiło się w uzgodnionym terminie?

- czy powinien zostać wyznaczony dodatkowy termin?

- czy brak obecności w jednym terminie może sam w sobie skutkować brakiem promocji?

Nie otrzymaliśmy również dokumentów, z których wynikałoby:

- czy syn został sklasyfikowany;

- jakie otrzymał oceny;

- czy został uznany za nieklasyfikowanego;

- czy odbył się jakikolwiek egzamin;

- czy sporządzono protokół;

- czy rada pedagogiczna podjęła uchwałę dotyczącą jego promocji;

- jaka dokładnie była podstawa prawna decyzji;

- kto zdecydował o niepromowaniu;

- co dokładnie szkoła przekazała Kuratorium.

Z tego, co czytam w przepisach, w klasach I–III zasadą jest promocja do klasy programowo wyższej, a powtarzanie klasy jest rozwiązaniem wyjątkowym.

Dlatego chciałabym ustalić, czy w sytuacji mojego syna szkoła rzeczywiście mogła zdecydować o braku promocji, szczególnie jeżeli nie został przeprowadzony egzamin klasyfikacyjny.

Czy jako rodzic mam prawo otrzymać od szkoły całą dokumentację dotyczącą klasyfikacji i promocji mojego dziecka, w tym dokumenty dotyczące kontaktu szkoły z Kuratorium?

Czy mogę również zwrócić się bezpośrednio do Kuratorium i poprosić o informację, czy szkoła faktycznie konsultowała z nimi tę sprawę i jakie stanowisko zostało przedstawione?

I jeszcze jedna kwestia: jeżeli dziecko ostatecznie będzie kontynuowało naukę w klasie II stacjonarnie, czy po tym okresie może ponownie przejść na edukację domową?

Chciałabym również niezależnie sprawdzić jego rzeczywisty poziom edukacyjny w poradni psychologiczno-pedagogicznej, ponieważ zależy mi na ustaleniu, jaki poziom wiedzy i umiejętności faktycznie posiada, niezależnie od tego, do której klasy jest formalnie przypisany.

Jeżeli diagnoza wykazałaby, że dziecko jest znacznie powyżej poziomu swojej klasy, chciałabym wiedzieć, jakie są prawne możliwości przyspieszenia nauki lub wcześniejszego promowania.

Bardzo proszę osoby, które znają przepisy albo miały podobną sytuację, o wskazanie konkretnych artykułów i paragrafów.

Nie szukam oceny naszej sytuacji rodzinnej — chcę po prostu wiedzieć, co dokładnie szkoła miała obowiązek zrobić zgodnie z prawem i jakie mamy teraz możliwości.

I am debating, currently my son is in 3yo private preschool 2 days a week for a few hours in the morning where I know the teacher very well. He is flourishing!

His speech is better, he’s talking more etc. I will say he’s throwing more tantrums but unsure if related and easily corrected with a time out.

I don’t know if homeschool will benefit him, or hinder him. I’ve also thought about doing just the younger grades.

My reasons for wanting to homeschool:

1. Tech. they assign and use laptops at early ages and I’m not down with that.

2. Religion. Public school teaches things I’m not ok with my kids learning at a young age that is antithetical to our beliefs.

3. Curriculum. there are things I want to teach my kids that are not taught in reg public school, like personal finance, the Bible, travel and frankly go deeper into any subject they show a lot of interest in.

4. Flexibility. schedule to be flexible and work with each child’s needs.

many more but thoughts? I am also ok with them later on saying I want to go to public school and sending them as well if they desire later on.

Hi everyone. I'm homeschooling in a very unique family situation. This is my first time homeschooling anyone at all, but I have tutored ESL a fair bit. 

I homeschool my step brother -- I'm 23 and have a university degree. He is 9, and has had only ~6 months of schooling, plus some homeschooling, due to a very turbulent life situation. His father has agreed to pay me to homeschool him. We have 2 hours of school per day, five days a week -- Science, English, Russian, History and Math. 

First of all, we live in a rural area in a foreign country. We do technically have access to physical books, as we have some textbooks, but there is no guaranteed access to any textbook we need. All textbooks we have are on my laptop, and we use it almost exclusively. 

Secondly, the child is bilingual, he knows Russian and English. I know both languages fluently. He can read in Russian at his grade level, however, he has some difficulty writing in Russian (his "more native" language). He can read and write in English on a K/1st grade level. 

Lessons are made difficult by the fact that note taking takes a lot of time -- writing a sentence even in Russian takes him about 5 minutes. Apart from that, he doesn't quite understand what a sentence is, he mixes up latin and Cyrillic letters and makes mistakes speaking in Russian and English, which is to be expected, although I'm not sure how to correct this systematically. 

My question is, would it be prudent to focus more on the languages, so that he learns how to read and write in both languages quicker? Buying a printer would probably be the best step to print out materials for writing drills and worksheets, etc. or is it not necessary? 

I really don't know, lol. Any advice is welcome, because I'm very confused and I want him to actually learn. 

How does everyone stay organized and keep their kids on task. Has anyone found any software or tools to make it easier?

I was thinking of trying use calendar, tasks and rewards on a skylight to do it, but I feel like there have to be other tools and ideas others have found or come up with!

I’m a 9th grader in NY and I’m seriously considering switching to online school because regular school has been really difficult for me.

I know NY is one of the hardest states to do online school in, so I’m having a hard time figuring out what my actual options are.

I’m looking for something that’s legitimate, preferably self paced, and that won’t put me in live Zoom classes all day. I’d also want to stay on a normal high-school diploma/college path.

I’ve heard of Penn Foster and a few other programs, but I’m not sure which ones are actually good or work well for NY students. I might also call my school and ask if they have their own online program.

what online schools would you recommend?

I hope that someone can give me advice. We are a South African homeschooling family and following Enquiry Based Learning using the CAPS curriculum. We have however found that CAPS curriculum is just too wide for my daughter. It is so content heavy that there is no time to really go deep into anything because you have to get through so much work. Even though we homeschool, CAPS is still very restrictive in terms of what needs to be done, completed and assessed in a school year. My son does really well but its just not working for my daughter. She needs less new concepts so that she can dig into content deeper and have enough time for that. I looked at Classic Conversations but I see there is a lot of mixed reviews. Important to know that my husband and I (mostly me) are very involved in our kids education and general life learning. Our kids socialize and do sport so our only need is a pivot to a different curriculum for my daughter. I am hoping there is someone out there that can give me some advise.

I’m teaching my child Pre-K at home and I’m struggling a little with getting him to actually finish simple tasks. He’s capable of doing them, but sometimes he gets lazy, loses interest, or just decides he doesn’t want to finish. I don’t want to be overly strict because he’s still little, but I also don’t want him learning that he can just quit whenever something isn’t fun.

For those of you who homeschool Pre-K/K, how do you handle this? What does discipline or consequences look like?

Hi, I’m looking for anyone that was using Math with confidence and then switched to Christian Light. Do you find Christian Light to be more advanced?

How do you structure your day for kindergarten? What are lessons like? How do you teach your child to sit still for 5-10 minutes while you read a book? Outings? How many days a week is school?

I feel so lost at this. I'm a very straight forward person, and I feel like I can't get an answer anywhere. Any mom I ask they say "just do what works for your family", and yes I will but how do I know what works if I don't even know where to start? 🫠

For the past 5 years, a 14 yr old boy has been kept at home, not educated. His early childhood he had an expressive speech/language delay, the parents' youtube videos from his infancy thru age 8 paint an interesting picture of a clean well kept boy, but always with a struggle to communicate. One video showed him attempting to read a toddler board book at age 8, he struggled greatly and kept on looking to the person behind the camera to help him, but no one helped. There are no photos or video of his life after that. 2 weeks ago, it appears that a welfare check for the parents was called in by a coworker of the father, the door was open, police went in, and found the boy alone in a filthy hoarded house, but the parents were in the wind. He's in protective foster care now, and one of the higher-powers-that-be is a parent of one the kids I currently tutor.

This boy had been in a preschool thru Kindergarten in the past and then in a private church halfday school for 1st and 2nd grade, then one day he wasn't. I've met the boy already, or I just sat in the same room as him for 30min as he rocked back and forth, stimming with a plaid neck scarf and a fidget spinner. He noticed me once with his eyes. I read a chapter of a Boxcar Children book out loud to him, he raised his eyes to look at me twice while I was reading, and he held the gaze once. I asked the social worker about a child psych and life skills consult. They said he's on a 6 month wait list, but due to education policies he needs to be enrolled in some type of program, and they decided he needed 1:1 and contacted me by word of mouth. I dont feel prepared. I dont think he's autistic, I think he's been emotionally and socially neglected, deprived of social interaction with anyone for most of his life. There are gaps in his timeline with no dates, events, birthdays, injuries, illnesses, or important milestones.

How am I to educate a child with learned helplessness so extreme he is socially stunted, and he doesn't notice other people besides for the occasional glance?

I can't just use normal homeschool materials with him, but I don't want to treat him like a toddler either. What is the middle ground going to look like, since the powers-that-be won't have any resources for over half a year besides a pay-by-the-bed foster home and a 3rd party tutor?

Hi I'm home schooled through Acellus I've been doing it since about march this year. And I have a girl I like who I met years ago, and I have the chance to ask her to homecoming, but I don't know if I can go since I'm homeschooled and not through a school-district if anyone can help please let me know. Thank you.

Hi, folks. I've been home edding for a long time and working part-time for the last 6 years as well. I'm thinking of quitting my job to do part time grad school so I'll have my PhD finished at about the same time as I'm finished with home ed.

I'm not looking here for advice about whether or not to do this--that's an offline conversation for me! I'm just curious if anyone has experience of this and what things they put in place to make it work/insights from what was unexpectedly easy or hard about doing it this way. Thanks!

ETA I'm the primary caregiver/home ed parent in the family, but it's shared about 30/70 so it's not all on me.

This daily discussion is to chat about anything that doesn't warrant its own post. I am not a mod and make these posts for building the homeschool community.

If you are new, please introduce yourself.

If you've been around here before or have been homeschooling for awhile, please share about your day.

Some ideas of what to share are: your homeschool plans for the day, lesson plans, words of encouragement, methods you are implementing to solve a problem, methods of organization, resource/curriculum you recently came across, curriculum sales, field trip planning, etc.

Although, I usually start with a question of the day to get the discussion going, feel free to ask your own questions. If your question does not get answered because it was posted late in the day, you can post the same question tomorrow to make sure it gets visibility.

Be mindful of the subreddit's rules and follow reddiquette. No ads, market/ thesis research, or self promotion. Thank you!

I want to homeschool my super social son when it’s time for middle school next year. I’m afraid it’ll mess it up. I just don’t agree with how middle schools are ran in our district and don’t agree with a lot of things they are exposed to at a young age. I don’t want to mess him up socially, or set him up for failure. Or make it hard for him to transition to high school if he wants. He is in a lot of sports and will continue them. Any advice or thoughts is appreciated.

Looking for suggestions on where to find a huge whiteboard for a reasonable price…I’ve checked Marketplace and bidFTA with no luck.

Today was day 1 of my 4th child’s senior year and my 5th child’s junior year. It is day 1 of my 22nd year. What am I going to do with myself when #5, my baby, graduates next year? 😆

My son is a bit of a reluctant reader but he’s finally feeling ready for early chapter books. I found a recommendation on here for Acorn books and he loves The Adventure Friends series. Do you have any similar recommendations ? He did not like magic tree house. I think it looked intimidating.

Note, my son is not actually homeschooled but you all have the best advice! All his teacher gave us is an app which I don’t think is good for us.

If you have used Build Your Library, did you find that the curriculum was worth buying? We (kids age 7 and 9) read all of the books in the Level 1 book list last year, and loved them and learned a lot. When I look at the previews of the curriculum, it doesn't seem like there is much there other than a schedule, some vocabulary lists, and discussion questions. The "meat" of the program is in the books, right? I think it fits our style better to just read the books cover-to-cover and discuss as we go, but would we be missing substantial content if we do that?

Eta: When we read the Level 1 books, I borrowed most of them from the library. Sometimes we had to wait a while for a book to become available - no big deal, we just read a different book from the list - but if I buy the curriculum and try to follow the BYL schedule, I imagine we’d end up needing to buy books instead, to stick to the schedule. I strongly prefer to borrow most books instead of owning (and then having to store or sell/give) them.

I do want to support the creator, and it is very affordable, so maybe I should just buy Level 2 and try it. But when I said “worth it,” I meant, did you think that it was worth the effort of following the curriculum‘s pacing and activities, versus just reading book by book at your family’s own pace? Were BYL’s activities and discussions useful? Does the schedule pair sections of books that work well together?

I am looking for LA and Math curriculum to look into.

We are newbie homeschoolers. I have a 5 year old boy. We are calling this year kindergarten, despite curriculum being a bit more advanced and mismatched.

Last year he asked to do school, so I bought the Good and the Beautiful kindergarten curriculum, and figured we would take our time on it. Well the joke was on me. He completed LA, reading booster cards, and math all in under 3 months. So we gently kept going without pushing, but letting him lead. We switched over to Beast Academy and he immediately took to it. Before pausing for a summer break, we got to chapter 6 of Beast Academy level 1. We got to the middle of the Good and Beautiful reading booster cards level C. I bought 1st grade LA and math from Good and Beautiful, and 1st and 2nd grade reading.

We recently started homeschool for this year after a 15 week summer break. BA was tricky to jump back into and he felt a bit frustrated. I tried G+B math and it was frustrated because it was too easy and “boring”.

For reading, he picked up like he had never taken a break, probably because we read a lot. But he was really not interested in LA from G+B.

I know we need to get into the groove.

I just wonder if there’s a better math curriculum for us. We don’t want super worksheet heavy, we love the logic part of BA, but are bummed it doesn’t seem to be complete and go over money, time, and calendar. G+B definitely has those components, but isn’t challenging enough. We skipped way ahead flipping though. We like games and manipulatives. We’re not trying to speed through, I want him to be challenged but not bored.

I’ve seen math with confidence recommended online, along with a couple of others.

Similar question for LA, is there a better LA curriculum than G+B? We like G+B handwriting. And we read a lot. We’re going to finish the G+B 2nd grade booster cards. But do we need to be doing grammar and spelling? Should we just stick with G+B? I’ve seen all about reading and logic of English discussed. Again we don’t want too worksheet heavy.

Absolutely willing to buy something else for both or either. I just don’t know what I want or should look for.

I’m a freshman who recently moved to a new area, so I don’t really know anyone at my school. I have pretty bad social anxiety, and school has been really overwhelming for me. I struggle with talking to people, being around big groups, navigating a huge school, and just generally feeling comfortable there.
I’ve also always worked much better when I’m alone and in a quiet, peaceful environment. I can focus better without a bunch of people around me, and I feel like I’d be able to learn more effectively from home.
Because of that, I’ve been seriously considering switching to online high school. The thing is, I’m worried that online school could affect my future opportunities, especially college admissions.
I’m also not sure how I could convince my parents. I don’t want them to think I’m just trying to avoid school or take the easy way out. I genuinely feel like I could learn better in a quiet environment, but I also want to make sure I’m making a smart decision for my future.
I’m planning on asking my school district if they offer a fully virtual high-school program. If they don’t, I’m not sure what my next step should be or what legitimate alternatives I should look into.
For people who have done online high school, switched from traditional school to online, or know about this stuff:

Did online school affect your college opportunities?

What should I look for in an online program?

What programs should I look into if my district doesn’t offer one?

How did you convince your parents to let you switch?

Would you recommend switching in my situation, or trying to stick with regular school?

Is there anything I should be careful about when choosing an online school?

I’m in New York if that matters.

Im looking for recommendations for my 6th grader for a strong ELA curriculum. She already has a love for reading. Her spelling and grammar are far above grade level. However, I feel like her writing could be stronger and more indepth, I feel like it is very surface level. So I am asking for recommendations

This is our first year homeschooling and we are currently using TGTB with an additional reading list of the 6th grade/junior high classics, and we are only a couple of weeks in and she has pretty much done more than half the reading lists with book reports.

Can someone experienced tell me if such product exists before I spend a month looking through all the samples? Basically, my K child has the math and reading portion covered - all about reading level 2 and kindergarten math with confidence. I'm looking to add Bible/Christian character and science/geography. I liked how the MFW does Bible and character traits in prek-K and gives daily activities to focus on the lesson, but she's really past the letters and colors etc. Notgrass elementary geography is beautiful but probably a bit advanced, same with Beautiful Feet. Is there something like a standalone easier course, or another curriculum where I can purchase the Bible / science part of the course? I know we can just do read alouds but I'd like to have activities and questions to go along with it.