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Hi! My name is Maria. I am a homeschooling newbie to my 7 year old daughter. We also have a 8 month old son and number 3 on the way. When my daughter was young I worked so off to school she went:( after a few years our situation changed and i was able to stay home. For me it was a no brainer, not so much for my husband. In the end we said we would try it for a year and see. The first few weeks were tough and every once in awhile i question myself but i know this is what i should be doing. I donā€™t really know my style yet but i would say between classical and eclectic. I love that I am involved with her education and she learns what our family feels is important.

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Hello out there!! Iā€™m a mama to 4 monkies/blessings/kiddos :smile: 9, 5, 3 & 2! The two oldest are in public schoolā€¦waiting for mommy to pull them out & begin homeschooling :smile: I have been on the fence with homeschooling since my son finished 3rd gradeā€¦heā€™s in 5th now & is ā€œlost in the sauceā€ I guess you could say! My husband & I have officially decided on homeschooling & are now deciding whether to pull them both out now & give us all a good amount of time to work on being with each other ALL DAY LONG, unschool my 5th grader & rebuild his confidence & creativity, repair my relationship with my son (we have fought MANY battles due to school work, homework, projects, etc.), OR let them just finish & hope summer break is enough for all of us to get adjustedā€¦any tips out there on that?? I have been following COAH for a couple yrs now & am so grateful that the blog & now this exists!!! Praise God!!! Looking forward to this journey & the new friendships I will be making here!!!

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Hi! Iā€™m Lisa and we are just beginning our homeschooling journey. I think? :smiley: We have 4 kids, 6, 4, 2, and 1. We do not yet have a curriculum chosen but I think we will begin in the fall so I hang around Ericaā€™s blog a lot reading and learning and am in the middle of her 101 book right now. I think my style will be somewhat traditional/electic/maybe some Charlotte Mason thrown in there? I am looking for ideas on how to incorporate nature/play into our day.

Looking forward to meeting others on here!

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My name is Marisa!
Iā€™ve been homeschooling for about 3 years- to my two girls (kindergarten and Preschool). I also have a little boy who is one and full of energy.
I also tend to go toward the traditional way of teaching. ( I was a public school teacher for 7 year and old habits die hard)

We started homeschool because we wanted to be able to teach bible and life skills and be able to have more flexibility as a family. We are loving this new process and learning more each day!

How long have you been homeschooling? Iā€™ve been homeschooling for 10 years. My kids have never been to ā€œschoolā€ outside of the home.

How many children do you have? I have 3 girls. GeekGirl age 15 and in 9th grade, Princess age 13 and in 8th grade and Boo age 9 and in 4th grade.

What teaching style do you like best? Charlotte Mason, Traditional, Eclectic, etc. We are an eclectic bunch. Each of my kids have a different learning style and my middle daughter has dyslexic tendencies so being able to work with each kid in their own way is a wonderful plus in homeschooling.

Why did you start homeschooling? I always knew I wanted to homeschool. I myself am a homeschool graduate. My father was a minister and since we moved often and he traveled quite a bit my mother took me and my sister out of school so we could go along with him when he traveled. It has had a wonderful experience for us and thankfully when my husband and I married he was all for homeschooling. We take it year by year but I really doubt we will stop. :smile:

My name is Jakki. I just decided to start homeschooling my kiddos this past week! We will begin in August '15 and I am so anxious to start! :slight_smile: I have a 6-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. We also just found out we are expecting #3 in early October! I still have to figure out our style and curriculumā€¦ Iā€™ve been looking into Classical Conversations as a jumping off point.
Thanks for reading :wink:

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Hi Erica! Hylary here. I have 3 boys 14, 5, and 2. The younger boyā€™s birthdays are next month so they will be 6 and 3. Iā€™ve always worked in education- special ed., preschool, kindergarten. Iā€™ve been all over. I consider myself a diverse teacher but I see how children are categorized and how difficult it is for teachers to have time to go outside the box. That coupled with my youngest sonā€™s severe food allergies has led me down the homeschooling path.

One of the first blogs I read and ordered from was yours! It really helped me get started with preschool for my middle son. My two oldest go to traditional school but my youngest will stay home with me due to his multiple severe food allergies. We do tot school for now but next year Iā€™m going to do start home preschool with him. I do lots of enrichment with my middle son too. Our style is all over the place. Some things work and some donā€™t, itā€™s up to how the kids learn! We are flexible for now. Iā€™m excited you started this forum! Canā€™t wait to learn from others!

I have been homeschooling from the beginning, half the time I didnā€™t even realize I was doing it. My son is 7 yrs and my daughter will be 5 yrs in a couple months. We are a very replaced homeschool and read and discuss a lot for our learning. I started homeschooling because I was afraid of what would happen to my son when he went to school. I didnā€™t want him to get left to the side because he was advanced. And I also didnā€™t want him to get bullied for any possible reason. We made the best decision, we all love homeschooling!

Hi, my name is Catherine. I have 6 kids ranging from 3 - 18 and am still in the ā€œcontemplatingā€ homeschooling phase. I have a strong pull on my heart but am waiting for all of the doors to open to make this a possibility.

Charlotte Mason appeals to me as how I would best learn but the structure of traditional learning seems the easiest route for the teacher in me but unit studies seem like so much fun! Whatever route we take the most important aspect of homeschooling is making God the center of all lessons and strengthening my relationships with my children.

Hi, my name is Stephanie I am considering homeschooling. My daughter is 3, will be 4 in May. I am thinking of homeschooling her for preschool and seeing how it goes from there. My husband is in the military, so I think it would be more consistent for her if we did homeschool, but then the confidence in doing it myself is something I struggle with. I have no idea which method we will end up using if we do decide to do it. I joined this group to get a better idea of homeschooling, and some ideas and opinions.

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Hello!!! My name is Kristy Delgado and I am SO excited about this forum. I am brand new to Homeschool this year. I have three beautiful children, however I am only homeschooling my youngest (as of right now) who is about to turn 5. I am not sure about my teaching style. To be honest, I have never even heard of the different styles so I will be looking into that today :slight_smile: I began my homeschooling journey because it was what I heard the Lord call me to over and over. Our son was attending a voluntary PreK program and he struggled. I remember even hearing the words ADD mentioned (which by the way he isnā€™tā€¦not even close. According to our physician. I knew that though). It suddenly made me aware that at just 4 they didnā€™t seem to understand how normal it is for a child to have selective attention and hoe quickly that start wanting them evaluated for medications. :frowning: My son likes exploration and creativity and he likes to learn in an outside the box wayā€¦none of which is supported in public schools with all the new standards and cores. I also wanted my son to learn Godā€™s Word as he learned his academicsā€¦to find it a part of every detail of life and to absorb it deep into both his heart and his mind. The final reason for wanting to homeschool is that we are a military family and we move every two years. I have met so many families whose children struggle keeping up with all the moving. My two oldest children made the decision to move in with their Dad (my ex husband) in our hometown because the moving was too much on them. I wanted to do what was best and had to make a hard decision as a Mom so we are still trying to adjust to that so I want to make school and life as easy and lovable as possible as we try to work through this new routine without them on a daily basis. God has had to help me so much </3 So far, I am so blessed by what we have experienced together since January and know we made the right choice. I have however been very nervous about curriculum for the fall! We have strongly narrowed your curriculum sets down to one of the finalists :slight_smile: Thank you for this place to come and share and grow together!!!

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Hi! My Name is Emily. I have four children, this is our third year homeschooling, oldest is in second grade. We use a mix of traditional and eclectic. I am so excited for this forum. I loved it when Erica did the ā€˜not a forum forumsā€™ on curriculum choices a year or two ago. I found some great new choices for us that I hadnā€™t heard of before.

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I have been homeschooling for about 6 years now. I have a 4th grade girl, a 3rd grade boy, a 2nd grade boy, a 1st grade boy, and a 6mo boy. We do a little bit of all styles, it just depends on the subject, but mostly I guess I would say we are eclectic.

I knew I what to homeschool my future children when I was in high school. I could tell that public school was not for me and that the teachers didnā€™t know how, or didnā€™t have the time, to teach me the way that I needed to be taught and I wanted something different for my children. My husband wasnā€™t fully on board until after our first three went to kindergarten screening (because of head start in the school district we just moved to they screen 3-5yo) and our children were harassed and picked on by the teachers. My children were only 3, 4, and 5yo at the time and were traumatized! They are now 10, 9, and 8yo, and still to this day talk about a fear of teachers.

Hello! Iā€™m Bekah from Indiana. I am homeschooling two. They are 4 and 7. I use a lot of different methods so I guess Iā€™m an eclectic homeschooler. I originally started to homeschool because we lived in California when my son turned 5. The schools around us were overcrowdedā€¦ Now we just love the freedom we have and my kids love it.

Hi! With my daughter, math was the main subject she struggled in. I tested her to see where she needed to be and we actually went back two grade levels in that subject. It was a hard and scary thing to do, especially being our first year homeschooling, but I donā€™t regret it! Iā€™ve actually tried two different maths this year, the first didnā€™t fit well with us, so we found another that has worked great. Sheā€™s flying through because a lot of it is just review for her. My plan is to have her caught up by the end of school next year. She is a very strong reader and wonderful speller (I have to ask her how to spell certain things Lol) so the other subjects Iā€™ve kept current with her grade level. In my opinion, if you plan to homeschool indefinitely or at least until heā€™s caught up, I would try to look into placement testing (at least in the areas he struggles in) to see where he is and make a fresh start. I would much rather my daughter go back and understand and grasp what she has missed and be a little behind, than to go forward without a full understanding. (Especially in math) I think it wouldā€™ve only made it harder and more frustrating for her. I hope this helps you! :blush:

Hi! I have 4 children, 2 school-age and 2 toddlers. I have been homeschooling for 5 years. I like to mix up my methodsā€¦some CM, some classical, and some traditionalā€¦it all depends on the subject and the kid :slight_smile: I decided to homeschool because I used to be a public school teacher. And although I loved working with the children, my joy for teaching was lost as more & more curriculum requirements were put on me. I didnā€™t enjoy teaching everything from a teacher manual and textbook. I saw the joy come out of the kidsā€™ learning experiences and too many kids getting lost. I didnā€™t want my kids to experience that, so we learn at home!

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Hi! My name is Kaylee. We have been homeschooling for 2 1/2 years. I have one daughter who is 8. I lean toward eclectic, mixing Charlotte Mason (I use My Fatherā€™s World) along with various other styles. We started homeschooling for a couple of reasons. One being that our daughter doesnā€™t fit the ā€œmoldā€, and we realized after sending her to kindergarten at a charter school that we might end up with a square peg trying to fit in a round hole! Also, our familyā€™s schedule doesnā€™t fit well with the public school calendar, so in order to have family and vacation time, we needed a different schedule. As we began the journey I also realized the great benefit to having my daughter with us, being able to guide her and raise her, not sending her off to be taught by someone else in an environment that is unknow.

Morning! My name is Sara and I am in my second year of homeschooling! I have two children that are 7 and 3! We use the Classical Method!

Hi Iā€™m Linda. Iā€™m a parent and grandparent. Iā€™ve raised 3 sons. They were school taught. Now thereā€™s more to learn and share. I think that nature is very important and teaches children many things beyond numbers and letters. I think thereā€™s lots I can learn and hope to get to know you better.

Hi! My name is Katrina. I have two kids, 1 & 3. Iā€™m not homeschooling yet, but we are seriously thinking about it. My daughter has a real thirst for knowledge so I have done a few little lessons with her now and then. Iā€™m mostly considering homeschooling because of the family bonding that would come with it, but also because I want my children to be able to learn at their own paces.