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Old 06-03-2013, 04:37 PM
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Darcy Baldwin Darcy Baldwin is offline
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First, make sure you're going to hslda.org to get exactly what you must legally do. Don't rely on an administrator to tell you. You're safer that way to follow the law in your state.

Switched on Schoolhouse and K-12 are good online school-in-the-box kind of programs. K-12 is used by many school districts for at-home care as well. SOS is another I've heard good things about (I think SharonKay used it with her boys).

We do very little pen to paper schooling at our house. I do use some worksheets to work on math and grammar exercises, but we do a ton of reading and a ton of talking and a ton of real-world / real-life learning. I let my boys type out assignments instead of writing when it's appropriate. We school everywhere in the house and rarely in a formal sit-down status except for math which we always do at the table. You can find many websites that do rundowns of the major curriculum, but you can buy a curriculum in a box or you can pick and choose and use from a bunch of different sources.

Just remember, Rachael, while you don't want to get on a curriculum junkie cycle, tossing curriculum every few months, understand that sometimes you'll choose something, and it just doesn't work and you'll have to choose something else. It's really okay. But do pick on the merits in relation to your son..not to you. You may love the idea of a ton of workbooks and textbooks but he may thrive on hands-on everything (this is a generalization, not specifically to you).

If this helps - here is a comprehensive curriculum review site of out of the box type systems for a full day

Here's a good way to read up about the different philosophies of homeschooling (let's you get an idea of what your ideal approach would be and maybe what your son's would be)

I love Well Trained Mind's forum. While Well Trained Mind is a classical approach to education that we follow loosely, the forum is for all kinds of homeschoolers - unschoolers - school at home - Christians - pagans, etc. And all types of curriculum are discussed, so it's a good place to browse what people are asking and what real-world users are saying about particular curriculums, etc.
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