Author: esther7dancing

Where do I start with homeschooling?

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I live in Washington State, so this will be most helpful for those who live in Washington. Check out HSLDA.com for other state homeschool laws and requirements.  The compulsory age for Washington State is age 8, so you do not have to declare that you are homeschooling until the school year your child turns eight.  The benefit of waiting is that once you declare you are homeschooling, they have to take state tests once a year.  I personally wait until they are 8 years old so I have the option of not testing.

In Washington State, you have to fill out a “Declaration of Intent” before September 15th or within 2 weeks of the first day of school.  A parent also has to have a total of 30 semester college credits or the equivalent of 45 quarter credits to be eligible to homeschool.  Another alternative in Washington State is to take a parenting homeschool class that is provided if the parents cannot meet the required college credits.  Once you have signed up your child by filling out the the “Declaration of Intent”, they must be tested once a year.  These records need to be retained by the parents and kept as a permanent part of the their child’s record.  The test scores are not submitted to any public district.  For more detailed information on Washington State Laws on homeschooling, go to hslda.com.  They are the Homeschooling Legal Defense Association and they have every state’s homeschool laws in the entire country.

If you are starting at the beginning in the elementary years, the best thing to start homeschooling is to develop a love a learning.  Reading, Writing and Math are important in the elementary years but you also want the kids to love learning.  I have found when they are little, they have a natural desire to want to learn about things.  So if my preschooler or 1st grader wants to learn about hippos, then we go to the library and get books on hippos.  We still do the basics daily, but I do like to incorporate fun learning things that they want to know about.

If you are unsure about what you are doing in this new adventure of homeschooling, get a curriculum that has is all laid out for you like Sonlight.  Another full curriculum that I like is “My Father’s World”.  A good resource to check out if you are willing to do some research is CathyDuffyreviews.com.  She reviews a ton of curriculum, so parents can get a jumpstart on what they might want to use.  I will continue in the near future to put some of my favorite recommendations for various ages on this blog.  You can also feel free to ask me questions through the comments on this blog if you are wondering about anything that I have written or want further details on something.

Sonlight Curriculum

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Sonlight Curriculum is a literature based curriculum.  This means that they use “real” books instead of textbooks to teach the kids the different parts of history, science, bible and other subjects.  They are a user friendly curriculum because they lay out each day for the homeschool parent.  The teacher manuals are a great way to keep records by writing in the dates that you do the different readings or activities.

I love the selection of the different books that they incorporate in the curriculum.  They do not always use just Christian literature.  I like this aspect because it gives my kids a worldview that I can bring the biblical perspective to.  We were recently reading a book on a young girl’s life that had her belief system in Hinduism.  This opened up discussions on what the Hinduism religion was about and how we can pray for the people in India and Tibet to find Jesus.  My kids enjoy the different variety of books that end up being part of our library.

A more economical way of doing Sonlight is to purchase their teacher manuals only and then get the books from the library.  If your local library does not have it, they can  usually buy it for you.  Our library has all this information online and we can reserve books for pick up.  You can also buy the books on a Kindle app for sometimes a fraction of the price of buying the actual book.  If you are going to buy the book, I would buy it from Sonlight.  Their prices are competitive with Amazon and you can order just one book and still get free shipping if you are a member with Sonlight.  If you purchase a teacher manual you are automatically a member on Sonlight.

Sonlight is a great curriculum for a new homeschooler but also enjoyable for a seasoned homeschooler.  I am quite an eclectic homeschooler, I enjoy a variety of different curriculum and tools to help the unique learning styles in each of my children.  Regardless of the curriculum that I am using, I usually have some kind of library of Sonlight books that end up being part of my year.  Check it out at sonlight.com.

Fun Fact Cards

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I love little tools to help make a subject I am teaching my kids a little more fun.  “Fun Fact Cards” by Sally Borrink is a  great tool to use with your elementary kids for any subject.  Fun Fact cards are a set of cards that have a fun fact on each one.  We are working on the Space set.  My 7 yr old son loves space and looks forward to picking out the next card that he wants to read.  For example, one of the facts was telling us that there is no wind on the moon, so the astronauts footprints can still be seen today on the moon.  When we visited the Museum of Flight recently, my 7 yr. old son remembered this fact.  Sally Borrink has fact cards for many different subjects, holidays and seasons. You buy them as a download and print them.  Even my older kids want to be part of learning the fun fact cards.  The older kids enjoyed the U.S. Presidents set.  Each card also has an illustration  to go along with the fact for the day.  You can find “Fun Fact Cards” at Sallieborrink.com .  Its a great way to enhance some of your history and science subjects or in helping to remember the significance of a holiday like President’s Day.

IEW-Institute for Excellence in Writing

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Writing is not my favorite subject to teach but I wanted my kids to do well in communicating verbally and with the written word.  I found IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) to be a great resource and curriculum for writing.  It gives a formula to teach kids how to write and then uses that knowledge to expand the kids writing ability.  I love how they first give the kids a foundation on how to structure a well written paragraph or paper and then the kids use their own creativity with the solid foundation of writing that they have built.

This really helped my reluctant writers who couldn’t come up with any ideas if you gave them a writing prompt or their writing didn’t grow beyond what they were writing in the elementary grades.  IEW gave them tools to use in their writing that were clear and easy to add into their writing across all the subjects.  Once my kids learned the process of IEW and how to structure a well written paragraph, we used it in other subjects such as Bible, History or Science.

IEW has programs from Kindergarten all the way through high school.  They also have curriculum for Spelling, Poetry and different types of Unit Studies for writing.   We are doing the “Fun and Fascinating Facts” writing curriculum which the kids enjoy because they are learning about bugs, inventors, and other interesting facts as they write.  I also love how IEW has curriculum of high school that teach kids how to write short essays or research papers.  This is helpful especially to the parent that is unsure of how to make sure their child is becoming an effective writer.

IEW Student Intensive A or B, depending on your child’s age and readiness is what I would recommend.  Its a DVD set that walks you through the entire lessons step by step.  This helped me understand how to be more effective in my adventure of teaching writing.  Institute for Excellence in Writing is  a great resource that I am still enjoying in teaching my kids how to write.

Making a Difference

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One of the ways that I have been able to influence my kids in the things of God is through books.  I enjoy researching and looking for books that will challenge and inspire my kids on their journey with God.  One of those books that I found was by Max Lucado called “You were made to make a difference”.  He wrote an adult version and a teen version.  You can also get it on audio.  My kids loved it on Audio because they tell a lot of testimonies and stories of how kids changed the world.  I wasn’t sure if my kids would find the book boring or exciting.  They ended up loving the different stories.

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For example there was this kid named Austin Gutwein who wanted to try out for his basketball team at nine years old.  Unfortunately he didn’t make the team but he made an amazing impact on the world using basketball.  He saw a video on World Vision about kids in Africa who didn’t have parents because of AIDS.  He wanted to somehow help these orphans.  So he came up with a plan to shoot hoops and raise money for these orphans.  For every shot that he got, someone donated a certain amount of money.  The money went to Africa to help the orphans.  He did great and was able to bless Africa but he wanted to do more, so the next year he got 1,000 of his friends to also get different people to donate and they would all shoot hoops on the same day.  Austin ended up starting an organization called Hoops for Hope.  In just five years Hoops for Hope had raised one million dollars for orphans in Africa.  The money has been used to build schools, medical clinics and orphanages. If you are interested in checking out Hoops for Hope, you can find Austin’s organization website at HoopsofHope.org. This is Austin Gutwein’s book that shares his journey.

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These kind of testimonies inspire kids that they can make a difference in all kinds of ways.  Austin’s story was just one of the many inspiring stories in this book.  I was surprised how interested my kids were and how they wanted to think up their own ideas and ways to make a difference.

Akebu to Zapotec

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My oldest son is on his first mission trip without us to Guatemala.  He went with an organization called RIM which stands for Real Impact Missions.  They take 20-25 teenagers from around the United States and go to different countries around the world.  The first 2 weeks of the mission trip is outreach and serving the people.  There is an option of staying for another 2 weeks for a medical mission trip in the same place.  RIM is a great organization and opportunity for young people to go on mission trips.  They have a website that you should check out if your kids are wanting to go on mission trips.

I have always wanted my children to have a heart for missions and the world.  If God asked our family to move to Africa, I would be there in a heartbeat.  My challenge as a teacher and parent has always been on how to cultivate this in my children while still  living in the United States.  One of the resources that our children have enjoyed doing is going through the children’s book called “Akebu to Zapotec”.  This book goes through 26 countries that do not have the Bible in their own language using the first letter of the alphabet for each of the different countries.  This is the 2nd book that the author has written because kids prayed for the countries in the first book and all those countries received the Bible written in their own language.  We take a different country every week and pray that they will receive Christ and get a Bible in their own language.  This has been a great introduction to kids on how they can reach the nations and change the world with their prayers.

A Unique Learner

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My 12 year old son was diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder a couple of years ago.  The easiest way to explain what that is if you are not familiar with the term is a dyslexia of the hearing.  He cannot process things through listening.  This made it very difficult to learn how to read and write because of how phonics works.  He does read quite well but only because I taught him with a whole language curriculum.  Phonics don’t make sense to him because he has a hard time processing the sounds.  He is brilliant in science and math but reading and writing are still a struggle.

I found an awesome curriculum that is for dyslexic students.  It is called the Stevenson  Curriculum.  Stevenson Curriculum is created for kids with learning disabilities.  We have been using their language arts program.  It has helped my son quite a bit.  They use mnemonic devises to teach the kids how to read, write and spell.  If my son can associate a picture or story with a spelling rule or phonics rule, he is more likely to remember it.  Stevenson Curriculum is worth checking out if you are working with a student with learning disabilities.  Its a great resource.

Homeschoolers Buyers Co-op

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Homeschool Buyers Co-op is a resource that can be very useful to homeschoolers.  They created a website for homeschoolers to buy a product together to get a big discount.  There are hundreds of different products or curriculum that you might buy anyway for your school year.  The way the website works is you sign up to become a member for free.  Then you can pick and choose curriculum that you would like to buy.  If you find a curriculum that you want to purchase, you sign up for it.  The organization will then purchase that curriculum on a certain date that they set.  This allows many people to sign up for that purchase and then buy it as a group for a significant discount.

I bought Discovery Education Plus which is an internet resource that allows you to put any subject and grade of your child and it has learning videos that can go along with any of your lessons.  This product is usually a year membership for $375 for a year membership but because homeschoolers buyer co-op is arranging homeschoolers to buy it as a group, we can get it for $99.  This is a brilliant idea and amazing resource for homeschoolers to take advantage of.  The website to sign up is homeschoolbuyersco-op.org

Will a College accept a Homeschooler?

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The answer is Yes!  85% of colleges nation wide are now accepting homeschoolers.  The percentage maybe even higher now. You can go on the different websites of colleges and many of them will have a list of requirements for homeschoolers.  This is helpful when you are planning out your high school years.  I went on the website of our local University to get an idea of what to plan for the next 4 years of my son’s high school years.  Even if he ended up going to a different university or in a different direction, we have a plan that could fit in a number of colleges or universities just by changing it a bit.

The transcript that you create for your child is just as valid as any public or private school.  If you need help creating a transcript, I want to recommend Lee Binz again.  She has webinars that walk you through how to do a transcript that a very helpful.  Your child will also need to take the SAT or ACT to go along with their transcript. There may be other requirements from a university that are unique to that university.  That is why its helpful to go on their different websites and look to see what they require.

I recently found out through my quest in researching homeschooling high school that it is more ideal to homeschool high school all the way.  If you start homeschooling high school and decide to put them back in school, the public or private schools do not have to accept your transcript.  They can count some credits and not count others.  Colleges accept homeschoolers transcripts but public or private high schools sometimes have a harder time just taking them at face value.

Some Colleges are actively looking for homeschoolers because they have seen how well homeschoolers can do in college.  The nature of homeschooling helps our students become great independent learners which is essential in college.  Homeschoolers also have more opportunity to show their unique talents or interests to different universities because of the freedom of their schedule.  For example, my oldest son it passionate about the piano.  He want to practice quite a bit and compete in competitions with piano.  Homeschooling allows me to give him time for his piano so he can pursue what he loves.  This part of his life will be a unique part of his high school journey that I can add to his transcript.

Who is living in your house?

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Have you ever had one of those moments where your perspective is changed and its like putting on a different pair of glasses.  You start to see things just a little bit differently.  I had one of those moments when I was listening to a speaker talk about who was living in my house.

The question was in reference to my children.  Who was living in my house?  They could be the next King David or Daniel.  The next Queen Esther or Mary.  A doctor that finds cures to diseases.  A missionary that preaches to unreached people.  A teacher or political leader. A loving parent to raise more world changers. God has entrusted and given us the privilege to raise world changers that are going to make an impact in the nations.  This changed my perspective on how I look at myself as a parent.  I was seeing my kids through a different set of lenses.   My job as a parent to help them to be equipped to do what God created them to do.  God gave each of our kids unique gifts and talents that He wants to use in His wonderful plan for each of their lives.

I started thinking about different people in history that have made an impact in the world.  Mary the mother of Jesus is an example.  I wondered who her parents might have been and how they impacted her life.  I don’t know many teenagers that would have an angel tell them they are going to have a baby and their response is that they are willing to do what the Lord says.  She was strong in her faith.  Could her parents have had a part in that perspective?  I think of King David and the impact that he made and how close he was to God.  How did his parents influence him in helping him grow in faith towards God?  Parents have great influence in their kids lives.  We have the opportunity to have a positive impact in helping them become what God has designed them to be.  Kids are an adventure and an amazing gift that God has let us be part of.  I am excited to find out what God’s unique plans are for each of my children.