Sharon sent me this information below in email and I thought this might be the best place to share it with you, Lois. Thanks Sharon for sharing it. She said, "Here is something I ran across in the John Lyons discussion board. (He is horse trainer, and a born again Christian) this computer program they are talking about near the bottom of the message sounds interesting. Might help Lois out."



Okay, so the homeschool laws in your state are pretty good! You don't have an attendance requirement, you don't have a requirement on how many hours a day and you don't have a subject/curriculum requirement. AWESOME. You only have to keep a portfolio of some of her work showing her progress and either get her tested or evaluated each year.Do you know the minimum score she must get for you to be able to continue homeschooling? In some states it has to be above the 13th percentile, that's it. NOT that you want your daughter to score badly, but it does take off some of the stress of us homeschooling moms since many frequently struggle with feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Many times we don't take into consideration that our homeschool curriculum is usually a year or two ahead of public school, so even if we get a little "behind" we are still fine. If you have a concern, you can get one of those test study books for her grade level and have her go through it to gauge her progress.Do you know that what takes the average public student to do during a normal school day, the average homeschool student can accomplish in 2-3 hours? You don't have homeroom, recess or lunch. You don't have the time it requires to make 20-30 kids pay attention and answer their questions. Your child doesn't have to sit there doodling while she waits for the other kids to finish their work, and when she has a question she doesn't have to wait in line. She doesn't need 2-4 hours of homework a night because you can tailor her progress to her mastery of the subject matter, and she doesn't have to do 100 problems in order for the teacher to make sure every kid gets it so the test scores improve and the school gets more funding!Your state doesn't require the structure you are talking about, but if you are really wanting structure, my best suggestion is computer curriculum and a laptop. You don't have to buy either the laptop or the curriculum new, either. Many homeschoolers make a copy of the software for the kids to use and then sell the master when they are done, so the disks are like new. Laptops are really coming down in price, and you can get a used one that has the minimum requirements for the software for maybe $200 or even less. Switched On Schoolhouse is excellent curriculum put out by Alpha Omega Publishing. It's based on their Lifepac series. I LOVE it! You plug in what you want the school calendar to be, what subjects you want, and it automatically makes up a lesson plan for you. It's set up for the child to mainly do independent study and has videos of teachers built into the curriculum to help. The best part? It's SELF-GRADING. I would slow the kids down because they would all complete the work more quickly than I could grade it. It also has spelling and vocabulary games built in to help them learn.My homeschooling sister, whatever you are doing, you are doing just fine. We've all been where you are, and we are here to support you.


I have an introductory cd to Switched On Schoolhouse that I ordered years ago. I looked at it once and thought it sounded a little complicated. I don't know if it is really, I haven't really checked it out. It seems like what I am doing is working for us so I won't mess with a good thing. I plan to test Sarah Beth this year to make sure she is up to par then we can decide to continue as we are or make some changes. When I first started Homeschooling I was so determined to make sure she kept up with the public school kids in everything but as I go along I see that sometimes it is better to wait on something until she is ready to learn that. Like for example, I had Mavis, a first grade teacher, test her during first grade and the public school first graders were writing their own stories at the time. Well Sarah Beth failed that miserably, had no idea how to do that. I was worried at first but decided to wait on that and it was in about the 4th grade that she picked that right up and took off with it. Who cares if she can write a story in the first grade. All I care is that she can do it by the time she gets out of school. The same thing happened on a few other things that she can do fine now, we just needed to take our time and work slowly.