Questions for Moms Who Homeschool Their Child(ren)

When I see grammatically challenged questions about homeschooling, I worry for the children.

If you insist on creating your own school for your children, please be sure whoever teaches them knows what they are doing. I know many who homeschool. Some of the children are advanced far beyond their peers, but most are being educated by parents who are barely educated themselves. Please carefully consider your reasons for wanting to homeschool and learn ALL your options before taking that step. Your previous question concerns me that you are considering this because you wish to shield your son from others and be in control, not because you believe you can provide him a superior education.

ETA: for example, if you don't even know to use google to answer these questions, how will you help your kids learn? Here, let me google that for you: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=laws+for+homeschooling+in+california

I homeschooled in CA for 7 years, and the laws are not too strict there. You need to just register yourself as a private school, and this is typically done in October, although if a school is strted up in the middle of the year, you will need to register then. You need to keep an attendance log on each child, and keep a faculty list of who is teaching/administrating. I think that's it. However, I always kept a log of what the kids did every day, a book log, and pulled out weekly samples to archive at the end of the year. You do not have to be licenced/certified to teach your kids. Neither do private school teachers in CA. Only public teachers have to be certified. (this was in 2010.)
I took some courses to teach reading. It was called SWR and it is based in Ca. It was a very good program, so I encouraged other moms to use it and offered to tutor their children too, free of charge.
There are SO MANY options in California. I noticed you were in Sacto, there is a group there called scope. You can find them here along with many others:

www.homeschoolchristian.com

Also , yahoo groups should have some support groups listed. Meetup.com should have secular groups listed. There should be at least 3-4 Churches in your area with homeschool groups. Call a few.

I would also advise anyone going into homeschooling to sign up with HSLDA.org especially in this day and age when freedoms are under attack constantly.

I do agree that google is your friend. There is A LOT of information out there. One of my favorite go to blogs is confession of a homeschooler. You can even find information and other homeschoolers on pinterest! I'm not in CA myself so any legal questions you have I can't answer.

Ok, well I homeschool but I stay home. My mom helps but I do the lion's share right now. But my MIL did it, she worked nights and weekends as a nurse and did lessons during the day and she had her girls in like these classes, she paid for them and they were given by teachers who were homeschoolers I think. I joined a large co-op, I just googled 'homeschool co-op' and my area and found one with 400 families and there are just so many groups within the group, it's amazing. So maybe start by connections with experienced homeschoolers in your area. I have a good friend who home schools in CA and she has never said anything about a lot of restrictions. Wish you the best :)

I don't have advice specific to CA (I homeschool in FL) but if I were you I'd google local support groups and attend some of their meetings.

I have heard of people doing what you describe (grouping together). I actually knew of a set of families who hired a certified teacher and they met in a church classroom 4 days per week.

Good luck - where there is a will there is a way! Of course always check your state's homeschooling laws.

Hi there! I live in your neck of the woods. (Closer than my city name suggests. ;) My husband and I own a business, so although I'm technically employed full-time, I have a lot of help and can delegate freely at work. I also work from home most of the time, so that's helpful.

Anyhow, a great resource is www.hsc.org. They have a conference every summer (usually at the Red Lion near Arden Fair, but this year it will be in Santa Clara).

There are many local homeschooling co-ops. Some are more involved and structured than others. If you are religious, there are more options to choose from, and in some of these co-ops, parents will teach a certain subject in exchange for another parent teaching another subject (I'll teach French, and you can teach Biology, or whatever). We belong to a co-op mostly for park days, crafts, the occasional science day, and the like. (Sacramento Fun Homeschoolers - check it out on Facebook and MeetUp).

You should definitely check out A Brighter Child in Citrus Heights. They host classes in all kinds of subjects for homeschoolers, and have curriculum available, as well as lots of supplementary items. It's like a teacher store, but for homeschoolers.

If you don't want to go through a public charter (like CAVA K12, Visions in Education, or Horizon Charter), then you just have to register with the state of California as a private school. It's very easy to do (HSC can point you in the right direction). As to whether you can legally homeschool other people's children (or they yours), people do it all the time in a co-op setting.

For what it's worth, we are currently switching from K12 to Oak Meadow, and from public school charter to private/independent homeschooling. If you're new to homeschooling, K12 isn't a bad option to look into. It is very structured, and is a complete curriculum ("curriculum in a box," as it's called in the homeschooling world). The only reason I'm switching away from it is that my youngest is a very kinetic learner, and I felt like Waldorf would be a better fit for her. I have several friends in the area who use everything from Sonlight to Abeka to Natomas Charter to Horizon Charter to K12. If I can answer any questions, let me know!

For what it's worth (since some of the moms here "worry for the homeschooled child"), homeschooled children are FAR above the national average in terms of test scores. Last I checked, the average homeschooled child scored in the 87th percentile across the board (vs. the 50th percentile for the average public school student). No need to worry for us, we're doing just fine! http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/30/home-scho...

I homeschooled through PCOE (Placer County Office of Education) for grade 4. There was a group of parents that had a learning co-op and the lady that was teaching was a retired teacher. I also homeschooled for 7th and 8th grade, but used CAVA (California Virtual Academy). Call the Sacramento office of ed and see what they have. I would bet that there are co-ops, as Sac is a huge city! I switched to CAVA because it was so much work going thru the county. I had to pick the curriculum, make up and grade the tests, etc., it was A LOT of work. When we switched to CAVA it was so much easier. Most of the work was online, I didn't have to make up the tests, or pick the curriculum. I did like the field trips with PCOE best, we went on a lot of field trips! CAVA didn't have a lot of kids up in this area, so we did our own field trips. In regards to Veruca's comment, if you're weak in a subject, have the assigned teacher work with the child. Once we hit algebra, I had the teacher take over as math has never been my best subject! I also hired a tutor.
I loved spending time with my son while learning.

I have a friend who homeschools. Her husband works a 9-5 M-F job, she is a nurse and works three 12 hour overnight shifts on the weekend when her husband is home with the kids. I don't know what the rules are regarding homeschooling here, and it is extremely uncommon, so there is no support from other homeschooling families.

I am not a homeschooler but several friends are. In our state, you have to register with the state/county. Most homeschooling families have the teacher parent not work (in one family, the parents swapped roles when the children got older). Most of them homeschooled more than one of their children at a time. Most of them use a curriculum from a company, with online tests and evaluations. One family is part of a co-op and does field trips (especially science related) with other families, and uses local county resources geared to homeschoolers (every month there is a lesson at a nature center, for example). Another family swapped kids for certain subjects. Son A wanted to learn French so he went to Parent B's house on Tuesdays and Daughter B went to Parent A's house for piano. Other than via the co-op or situations like above, nobody I know homeschools a child that is not their own.

If you would homeschool as a business, I suspect that is a whole different ball of wax.