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I am not sure about groups in Detroit but you are welcome to join our group(we are in Macomb County) and ask all your questions directly to a homeschooling community. We are an active group which are very involved online and with things such as field trips and park days. You are welcome to also email me direct with any questions!
Hope to speak with you soon!!
http://tinyurl.com/86bfau

I can't help you with details but I can encourage you. Many families homeschool with four kids. There are groups all over the metro detroit area that get together. I am not homeschooling yet but plan to (my youngest is 3). I go to a homeschool open gym at Woodside Bible Church. It is the second tuesday of the month at 10:30 - 12 noon. It is for moms with little ones and more importantly moms who want to or who are homeschooling. It is an open play time in their gym for children 6 and under. Older kids are welcome to bring something to do at the tables provided.
IF you are interested in comeing (April 9th is the last one for this season) let me know and I can give you more details. Atleast it is a good place to get together with other mom's who are believers and that are already homeschooling. I pick their brains for all kinds of ideas.

Good for you for doing what is in your children's best interest! I think Homeschooling will be hard work but lots of fun!

Also know that with homeschooling, because you have more focused time with your children and more flexabile time with them it won't look much like what the kids do at school now. What you do will likely work much faster cause the teacher /child ratio is 1:4 not 1:25. Plus you can choose to spend some evening time or weekend time doing 15 mins of work. You will find your kids actually have more free time during the day than school kids.

Well, good luck and have fun!

Hi,
I am also a Mom of 4, ages 9,6,3,1, and we also homeschool. We started right out from the beginning homeschooling, so we have built up gradually. We started with simply reading and the usual fun stuff with little ones - the various concepts of counting, numbers, up and down, shapes, etc. and followed up with whatever they happened to be interested in at the time. Mostly, and most basically, it was just me reading to my little one every day and helping him to sound out the letters as began to try to read himself starting with 1 and 2 letter words and moving on to include 3 letter words, etc. and explaining the various grammar and phonics rules as we went to help him sound out the words and figure out what they meant. Once he was reading well on his own, we moved on to more formal math. My oldest was reading well at 3, and has largely led his own learning, and my job has simply been to keep up and provide materials and exposure. He's like a sponge a lot of times, so that even now, he is working on Algebra, knowing all the other concepts well enough, and remembering them, to build on them well.

My second, however, prefers play over reading or study, so at 6 he is just getting to read well to begin to find it interesting enough to pursue subjects on his own. He requires a little more structure, but he is also learning well.

My 3 year old takes after my 1st, and my 1 year old is beginning to get interested in books.

So much for the progress report. Now, we are also Christian (LDS) and my children's first readers are the Book of Mormon and the Bible. We have so far been on our own, we have not been part of any group. To make sure we are meeting up to state standards, we have gotten the standards from the State of Michigan website and been able to tell that they are at least keeping up with their appropriate grades and covering all their subjects, but usually they are far ahead of the grade they would be in at their ages. Also, in homeschooling we can cover much more material and learn much more than could be done in a school setting because of the one on one time and parental supervision.

Housework: The children do their part. But, when they are as young as yours, well, it's harder, but insisting they do their parts at least by putting away their clothes and toys can go a long way to keep things within reason, and the 2 year old can do a lot with help from the older siblings, too. For example, my 1 year old puts away everyone's clothes in the proper drawers with guidance from the older ones as to which drawer, and sometimes opening the drawers for him. It helps a lot.

Ideas: You can feed the baby, cuddle with the 2 yr old at the same time, and read to the older two (well, the 2 yr old will listen and might take over the reading, but that's okay, too). If you sit on the floor leaning against the couch with the newborn in your lap, the other 3 can settle around you so they can see the book or whatever you happen to be doing. When contention breaks out, deal with it as you feel inspired, perhaps even being done with the reading session for a while or sending them all off with a book each for a time-out, etc.

There are as many ways to homeschool as their are people, but it is basically the commitment to do make sure your children learn all they need to learn, and taking personal responsibility for it. We do our homeschooling in our living room, usually, but all we do goes into the learning -- whatever trips we take, whatever activities we do, whatever place we go. For curriculum, we print worksheets off the web, and don't really have any particular company we take books from -- whatever looks like what we want at the time. For us, the cost is basically printing costs, and little else. My husband and I have many of our introductory math and science textbooks from college, and as the children are progressing, we are encouraging their use, and the children get further skills in reading and comprehension and memory retention.

Anyway, good luck and I hope everything goes well with you. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to respond.

Hi Francis!

We have been homeschooling for 8 years now. We have six beautiful blessings, ages 14, 10, 8, 5, 2, and 3 months.
As of now, we have homeschooled through three newborns, four moves, and three deployments (dh is in the Army).
You can do it! Sometimes it will be difficult, but all things good are. We started out homeschooling because our 1st grader was gone from home all day, couldn't tell me what he did all day, uncooperation from the school, and we missed the Christian cirriculum that was used in his PreK.

At first I tried to do "school at home", but now we know that homeschooling is really a lifestyle and not just schooling. We use every oppurtunity to learn, not just so many hours a day in a workbook. Don't get me wrong, we use a lot of workbooks, textbooks, "real books", computer courses, etc. We enjoy being there when one of the children learn something for the first time. I have taught three children to read now, being right there when the letters clicked and they were finally able to decode the words! It's an awesome thing to see.
Also, not only can we teach them school subjects, but we are also always there to teach biblical moments as well. "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds: tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deuteronomy 11:18-19 We take this verse literally and find it easier to do while homeschooling. There are still opportunities to share their faith.
As for cirriculum, there are tons of homeschooling cirriculum out there. We use/used ABeka, Sonlight, Switched on Schoolhouse, The Story of the World, Teaching Textbooks and miscellaneous. It's easy to become overwhelmed at all the options. Since you'll be doing K or 1st grade, I would like to reccomend Rod and Staff. They have a great K cirriculum that is biblically based. Let me know if I can help with any other cirriculum questions.

I would also reccomend reading to the children, a lot. Play games with them. Draw shapes, letters in sand, play dough, etc. Make learning fun with them.

Just google homeschool support groups, and you will likely find many in Detroit.
As for your husband...My husband originally agreed to it, but insisted that it would be my endeavor. Now he is fully on board with it and sees it as the best option for our family.
Pray, don't be afraid, talk with your husband. Feel free to email me if I can be of any more help.
M. G.

ps-as for socialization, there are so many activities available that you will have to turn some of them down. :) Plus, should children really be around their peers for hours?