I am not satisfied with my daughter’s school, and want to home school her. What is necessary to home school?

It is a shame you waited so long. How can you hope to give her 12 years of education in only three years? However, with luck the public schools at least gave her a third grade education by the time she is in high school, but even so that 9 years of education she needs and only three years to give it to her.

I ave been home schooled since first grade, and score very ell on all standardized tests. This is what my curriculum entailed:

We used Sonlight curriculum for history and creative writing. It is from a Christian perspective, but even if you are not a Christian the program is still very good. They have a website and catalogue you should check out.

Up until this year I have done the Saxon math program. This year I hired a private tutor, which may be a good option for you considering you’re daughter will be doing algebra.

I had an Analogies workbook.

My English program has varied a lot over the years, most recently the Stuart English program.

Science varies a lot. Do NOT get anything by John Holsman.

I participate in at least one athletic activity.

I would also recommend that you yearly take your daughter to your public schools and have her do the standardized tests with the rest of her grade. The school should do this for free.

You should also contact your department of education. They will most likely have forms you need to fill out regarding attendance and return back to them.

Also, as far as purchasing textbooks, I’d recommend the Rainbow Resource catalogue. It can be very overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but everything is discounted. I hope this helps. Good Luck!

The main thing to do is factor out how much of your time you can honestly spend on this. If you’re holding down an intense job and you won’t be able to keep a close tab on her, then don’t assume she’ll just do her work on her own. I was a responsible teenager, but that temptation would be too much.

As to the requirements, that differs depending on where you live. Different states will have different educational requirements. All states have the parents mail in a monthly calendar of how many days the child (or children) had in school. My aunt home schools and she keeps her calendars on her refrigerator and marks off the days as she goes.

If she’s 15, I would strongly encourage putting her in some college classes. She’ll get the advanced skills she needs, even in the subjects that you’re rusty on (because, let’s face it, we don’t remember what we don’t use. I took high school chemistry 2 years ago, and I couldn’t tell you the mass # of an atom to save my life). I did dual enrollment in high school and it was the best decision I ever made.

By 15 years old, many home school students can take courses part-time at their local community college. Call it and try to schedule an entrance exam or take the ACT or SAT. That will take a lot of pressure off of you. Community colleges often offer courses that are a cut above high school classes but not quite college level classes. Admissions criteria is often lax. She could take 2 courses first semester and 3 second semester.

Many states allow online home school education instead of attending school. You could check into online schools. Your daughter would be registered as a public school student with the online school.

You state along with others should have its state guidelines for each grade listed on the Internet.

State homeschool requirements should be on the Internet. In my state, I just fax a form to my school district stating that I am homeschooling.

One advantage of homeschooling is that you can work ACT or SAT prep test work into the curriculum so that your daughter can get higher test scores. Make sure she takes some AP tests also as she won’t have a report card.

I have posted several answers to this very question lately if you want to look them over.

Every state is different, what state are you in?

I learn WITH my boys. My oldest is in 6th and some of the things he is learning, I learn right along with him.

There are always tutors

Great web pages that make learning easy

Hit your library online and see what they have. Mine even has college profs videotaped and discussing things like advanced math, science, history. Plus the libary has tons of books or they can get them from another library for FREE.

I love homeschooling and have been doing it for years. When friends take their kids out of ps they almost always say “I can’t believe how much my child did not know!”

Get with a local group.

Join an online group.for sure. Lots of good information there.

Good luck and remember, take it one day at a time. Consider homeschooling year round, so you can take it easy and not forget stuff over the summer

Be SURE your dd knows that school is not optional. The biggest problem for most moms who take their kids out so late in their schooling is that the child feels they are home…they can skip a day or a week..they can slack off..they can push you around.

Set specific times for teaching. No days off in the beginning. Teach whatever way she learns best, be it books, videos, online, etc.

First, find out about the laws where you live. HSLDA may be able to help, but their information isn’t always complete. Try to find the legalities on your state’s education website and if it’s not clear there, find a website for a homeschool association/group where you live. Just typing in a search engine _[your state] homeschool laws__ should give you some links.

Once the legalities are taken care of, ideally, find a support group where you live. There may be something listed online for your city/county or you may have to go state-based and find people through there. Also check Yahoo Groups for support groups in your area or even something along the lines of a high school homeschool group (this could be really helpful for learning about resources). They are so great for being able to learn about materials, really understand requirements, getting to know people, setting up social activities, etc.

As for learning advanced skills, you find out about excellent resources out there and have her do most of the learning or learn along with her. Math programs designed for home use all come with answers, for example.

This question comes up frequently in Y!A, so you might search the archives for “start homeschooling” to find even more responses.

Each state has their own requirements for homeschooling, so your best bet will be to find a local homeschool support group or co-op where you can get answers to all of your questions. As time goes on you will have more and more questions and it will be to your benefit to have a local source for the information.

To find a local group, start at the national level. HSLDA is one national group that has general overviews of each state’s laws on their website. They also have a list of state and local organizations, although these may or may not be up-to-date and certainly are not all-inclusive (you will find there are many more groups than those listed on HSLDA’s website).

Your state org. should have a web page listing even more local groups, with more specific info on your state laws. Once you find a local group, see what they have to say about the school district you’re in – some school districts/individual schools make it difficult for parents to withdraw their children (ask for more than the laws require, tell you homeschooling is illegal, etc.).

You could also search Yahoo! Groups for a local support group. Just search for “(your city/town) homeschool”.

One excellent book you should consider is _Mary Pride’s Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling_ by, of course, Mary Pride. It is available on her website or from Amazon. You might also read Grace Llewellyn’s book, _The Teenage Liberation Handbook_, also available at Amazon. Look to see what your library has on homeschooling. The library is a great resource for homeschoolers (much cheaper than buying everything yourself).

Fifteen is certainly not too late to start homeschooling (better now than later). Most homeschooling curricula at the high school level is either self-teaching (the student learns on their own) or has very good teacher guides. This is also a great opportunity for you to learn right alongside her (I’ve learned so much from “teaching” my children). When you consider that many high school teachers don’t hold degrees in the subjects they’re teaching (many didn’t even minor in their field), there is no reason to think you can’t do just as well as, if not better than, they do.

It varies from state to state and country to country. You have to look up the rules.

Some areas have no rules at all.

Others require you to file documents, list youself as a school, keep records, etc.

After that you pick a method that works.

It can be free-form in which you just go to the book store and buy some books on the subjects. Work books, textbooks, related books.

You can also buy school in a box, often CDs and books with a course outline.

You can also do on line schools.

Here’s the bottom line for college

You need to be versed in the following:

Algebra 1-2

Geomentery 1-2

Trig

Pre Calc

4 years of English Literature/Grammar/Writing. A style system such as APA or Chicago or both should be learned.

4 years of History/Politics/Civics/Geography

Biology 1-2

Math Chemestry or Physics

Earth Science (Astronomy, geology, meterology, oceanography)

Economics/Statistics

1 year Fine Art (painting, dance, choir, musical instrument)

For PRIVATE and IVY LEAGUE colleges 2 years foreign langauge (not required for most state colleges).

As long as you cover this adequately you are going OK.

You can look up the requirements on line, it differs in every state. Find out if there is a home school group in your area. In Texas, homeschooling is very easy to do, with few requirements. Join HSLDA. Look the up on the Internet@ www.hslda.org . For about $50 a year, they provide lawyers and legal advise because the are home school advocates. They have their proverbial hands in the pot at the White House. If you were to home school your daughter and face problems with the public school-which does happen-they will send you a lawyer for free. They will point you in the right direction when making decisions.

You need to check the laws for homeschooling in your state. www.hlsda.org. Click on your state and it will tell you all the things that you must do.

I will suggest Penn Foster High School. It’s a great school for homeschoolers. I use it and I have no problem learning the material. I self-teach myself. It’s $900 for all four years of highschool. It’s actually a lot cheaper if you send in transcripts from your previous schools. They usually credit you with classes that you have already taken.

It is a bit more difficult when starting in the teen years.

You will need your teens cooperation.

It is your dedication to your daughters education and well being that will matter most.

You do not need prior experience in all subjects, the teacher guides, and solution manuals can help you in that area.

I would try to connect with a local home school support group who can give you the information you need for your area.

If there are none close by, contact the state home school association, they will have the same information available.

For state requirements go to http://www.hslda.org/

Good luck.