For those who homeschool...

She'll rack up on the Class Favorite Awards.

My GF homeschools her son.

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what curriculum or style are you using?

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She is an Unschooler LINK

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Is anyone using the Louisiana "Connections" online school? LINK

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I'm a little skeptical of that. I helped my GF do some research about online schooling. She eventually decided not to go in that direction, but if she had, it wouldn't have been through the LA offerings. We weren't too impressed with the virtual charter schools associated with the LDOE for several reasons. There are some very good choices out there-Laurel School, Calvert School, and especially the ones associated with Stanford University and Texas Tech. She almost put him in the local Episcopal school this year but decided to do at least one more year at home.

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What was your main reason for choosing to home-school?

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She went to highly competitive high school and an Ivy League college, and came away burned out and disillusioned by the educational assembly line. She wanted another path for her son. They also wanted to diagnose him ADD/ADHD and she was adamantly opposed to medicating him for it. She's been successsful in avoiding that.

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Do you participate in a group with other home-schooling parents so that your kid(s) have socialization with others?

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She did, but he's too old for most of the activities now. They're designed for elementary age kids for the most part. They're big equestrians, so most of his socialization is around horse activities. She's looking into some kind of work-study or aprenticeship related to that for him.

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She'll rack up on the Class Favorite Awards.

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Nope, NanaKittie doesn't play favorites like that. Right is right and wrong is wrong. If anything, I would tend to let her get away with less, rather than allow her to get away with more than the other students.

Basically, all of the kids will be my favorites for different reason. There will only be about 5 of them so I have more than enough love and attention to make them all feel like my special favorite student.

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What happens if one of those other kids is a tard, you going to ship it off to the public school system as not to affect the others in your school?

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Well, I would never call a child a tard. I would actually accept a child into my school knowing that they had severe learning disabilities. My students would benefit from the experience of being friends with a child who is different than them. I expect my student to develop empathy for others and a willingness to help out others who need it.

I would welcome such a child because I know they need the special attention that many public schools cannot give because they are too busy with the other 25-30 kids in the class.

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Just teach her how to make a damn good sammich.

/thread.

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She will learn that and more. We will do cooking, sewing and a million other things that are useful in life. Those will be our "fun" activities.

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My GF homeschools her son. She is an Unschooler LINK

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I like the idea of the Unschooling. I plan on blending quite a few strategies and in our case, Unschooling is great because I often teach based upon what the kids are interested in, what is in our enviroment , nature and other aspects of life. We live on a large piece of land with cows, horse, sheep, ducks, and many other animals. We also have and woods and a small wading bayou to explore and investigate.

I have always taught form the perspective of making learning hands-on and fun so Unschooling appeals to that aspect of my teaching style.

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Is anyone using the Louisiana "Connections" online school? LINK
I'm a little skeptical of that. I helped my GF do some research about online schooling. She eventually decided not to go in that direction, but if she had, it wouldn't have been through the LA offerings. We weren't too impressed with the virtual charter schools associated with the LDOE for several reasons. There are some very good choices out there-Laurel School, Calvert School, and especially the ones associated with Stanford University and Texas Tech. She almost put him in the local Episcopal school this year but decided to do at least one more year at home.

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This is very helpful input. I was considering it just to ensure that there was a state approved curriculum in place. I want to make sure that my kids are achieving and exceeding whatever the state deems as appropriate. I was going to use that as a basis and then pretty much expand based upon my teaching style, the kids' interests and the land we live on.

When I taught public schools, their textbooks were worthless, outdated and having only 10 of them meant they were pretty useless. So I am used to making up my own curriculum based upon state standards of what they say should be taught. I made my own worksheets, workbooks and love doing all of that.

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What was your main reason for choosing to home-school?

She went to highly competitive high school and an Ivy League college, and came away burned out and disillusioned by the educational assembly line. She wanted another path for her son. They also wanted to diagnose him ADD/ADHD and she was adamantly opposed to medicating him for it. She's been successful in avoiding that.

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She sounds like a great mom and teacher. I want the kids to see learning as fun and as something that they love doing. I want them to see that learning never ends and there is always more to explore. I like the ability to accommodate each child's abilities, learning styles and interests. I also want to create kids who are self-motivated and can be independent learners who don't have to be constantly told what to do and when to do it.

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Do you participate in a group with other home-schooling parents so that your kid(s) have socialization with others?

She did, but he's too old for most of the activities now. They're designed for elementary age kids for the most part. They're big equestrians, so most of his socialization is around horse activities. She's looking into some kind of work-study or aprenticeship related to that for him.

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There are no home-school groups here other than one which is religion based (pentecostal). So it looks like i will be creating my own. Luckily, everyone in our small town knows each other so I have already enlisted my sis in law to come school her granddaughter with us and the BabyKittie's mom has a few friends who have kids of the right age to join us. We want to be able to go on field trips and bring the kids up as friends.

I think an apprenticeship would be a great idea! Developing a work ethic is such an overlooked skill in our society. That is why i hope to teach my kids skills like cooking, sewing, basic woodwork, caring for animals, gardening and things to help them discover what kind of career they may want to go for.

Horses are a big part of life here. It is entirely possible that our class pet could end up being a horse or a calf. That would be pretty awesome!

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She went to highly competitive high school and an Ivy League college, and came away burned out and disillusioned by the educational assembly line. She wanted another path for her son. They also wanted to diagnose him ADD/ADHD and she was adamantly opposed to medicating him for it. She's been successsful in avoiding that.

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Well the school can't diagnose ADHD, and they most certainly cannot make any decisions regarding medications. They can present their concerns, which your gf could have chosen to accept or ignore. I would think that an Ivy educated person would be able to figure out those well known and simple facts.

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Public schools are mandated to accomodate disabled children, sometime at extreme expense, whether it actually even benefits the child or not. I visited my nephew's class for something or other one time. There was a child strapped into a wheelchair with his own attendant. I couldn't tell if he was even conscious, but by God he was there getting exposed to whatever the lesson was, same as all the other kids. I support this in theory; in practice it can be taken to extremes.

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All too often I saw kids who had learning disabilities mixed into classes where a majority of kids were BD ("behavior disordered). They bullied their classmates, disrupted learning and the kids who behaved ended up getting less attention and help because the teacher was too busy with the bad kids.

When I taught 2nd grade, I had a student who was 12 and could not read. (I was in 8th grade when I was 12 by comparison). However my school refused to put him in special ed or to help in any way. Sad to see indeed.

There are some great schools who do it right and some who do so danged wrong. I taught at an inner city school and there wasn't even money in the budget to buy toilet paper. We had to provide our own. Special Ed was just one teacher with about 16 students. Where we live, I wouldn't send any child there or have any confidence that the child would anywhere near a good education or proper treatment.

Congrats on the future social misfit.
But seriously this country is getting cray cray. I may go join the Mennonites in Belize.

....are smart as hell but lack social skills.

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A 12 year old in second grade? You're either lying, misremembering, or you taught at one of the most backwards schools the country as they are clearly refusing to follow a multitude of laws.

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Well I am definitely not lying or misremembering. Sadly what i am telling is the absolute truth and it is not the worst thing that happened at that school.

I taught in inner city New Orleans at one of the worst schools and laws were being broken all over the place and the Orleans Parish School Board did not give a f*ck. The openly cheated on standardized tests, refused to supply toilet paper to kids bathrooms, sold juice and Popsicle in the cafeteria (that were issued by the gov't) and kept the money for the "principal's fund", etc.

The 12 year old was a student who came in halfway thru the year as his family was living in a homeless shelter. He stayed with us thru the end of the year and disappeared.

But he was not the only "older" student I had in 2nd grade who could not read.

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....are smart as hell but lack social skills.

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That's why I am creating a class of other kids so she will have friends to play with and to go on field trips with.

I'm well aware of the stigma that home-school kids can sometimes lack social skills but that is often in cases where the parents are hard core on some restrictive religion or beliefs and isolate their kids or are controlling.

BabyKittie's parents are very outgoing and we often have large get-togethers where all the kids have a blast on the property, roaming around, playing in the bayou, feeding the horses and running wild while the adults BBQ and kick back. I love that because I had so much fun doing that as a kid.