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Swasyb
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| Posted: Feb 09 2012 at 11:22am | IP Logged
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Hi All.
I'm a Catholic mom of 3 kids, who are in the local public school (in Louisiana). We love the school and have not had any problems with it. My youngest is in 3rd grade and has been diagnosed ADHD (though I believe he's borderline). I don't want him on medication (we've tried it in the past), and he's having a lot of trouble with focus/attention and behavior.
This is not new for us. I pulled him out in the Spring of his 1st grade year to homeschool b/c of the same types of issues and b/c his teacher was absent a lot, which caused him more problems (he needs consistency). We're having similar problems at this point in the year. He's not doing his work and is very disruptive. His outlook is poor and he really dislikes going to school. We've tried everything we can think of with talking to him, punishing him, offering rewards, etc. Nothing works.
Anyway, I wanted to pull him out and homeschool through an online public school such as K12 or Connections Academy. I discovered both of them have closed their enrollment for the 2011-12 school year. I'm at a loss now. The last time we homeschooled was with Seton. Though I liked some of the program, it is just too expensive and my son does not respond well to that type of lesson/work. Are there any other ideas that I'm missing? I have no idea how to work with my own curriculum, and I don't have time to develop and implement one now as I also work from home and will have to continue to work even while homeschooling him. Any advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated. He may have to finish the year in our local school, which wouldn't be so bad overall. He has no academic issues and is doing well. He just feels like a bad kid, and I know his teacher is having a hard time too. She is a good teacher and cares about him, but is overwhelmingly frustrated and upset by his behavior.
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guitarnan
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| Posted: Feb 09 2012 at 11:31am | IP Logged
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I work from home, too, so I can empathize with your time-management situation.
You mention that Seton is not a good fit for your son. Can you articulate why (to yourself)? I am thinking the first step is to decide what does work, based on your knowledge and experience, and then look for materials that use that approach.
If you can be a bit more specific about what you are looking for ("My son loves/hates workbooks/hands-on learning/reading to find out about things that interest him/talking about books he's read/computer-based learning"), I'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions here.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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JennGM
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| Posted: Feb 09 2012 at 11:55am | IP Logged
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I just will insert a few thoughts, as I'm short on time:
I don't think an online program is good for younger children, especially with a tendency to ADHD. Computer screens and such aren't healthy for the brain synapses. Slower and calming, time in nature, reading living books, hands on is better for the development at this age.
Seton might be too much seatwork for someone with short attention spans.
You probably already do this, but you might find improved attention spans if there is no artificial colorings or sweeteners in his diet. Sugar and gluten might be other areas to try, but just simple eliminations of the former have be known to really improve behavior.
Praying for your decisions and journey!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: Feb 09 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged
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We had a similar problem with my oldest. He was never in public school, but a heavily structured, boxed program was NOT good for him. I would be hesitant to do an online program, too, for the reasons JennGM listed above.
With the help of the ladies here I was able to piece together a program that suits his needs very well and has really aided in helping him mature and progress academically.
It would help if you could list things that specifically did not work for your son. Workbooks don't work here, I already know that. Anything that requires me teaching at my son isn't going to work (for either of us). By messing up (a lot) I was able to put together a list of things that I knew DIDN'T work and then use that as a springboard to try things the ladies suggested here.
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Swasyb
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Thanks for all the responses!!!
We have eliminated all artificial dyes and other ingredients that he reacts to. We are in the process of eliminating gluten, and casein in next. We also work on sleep and exercise to make sure he gets enough of both.
Seton was too much seat work. It was too long for him to sit there and read or write or both. He can do workbooks as long as they're not overwhelming to him. A page full of math facts would push him over the edge, and he's very good in math and usually loves it.
He dislikes reading, but is slowly overcoming that. He is now willing to read some chapter books on his own. He has no trouble reading...just doesn't want to do it.
He absolutely loathes handwriting. Any suggestions with this would be greatly appreciated. Part of his problem is he holds his pencil incorrectly. We've been working on that for quite a while without success.
Part of the enticement for me with the online school is the time and money it would save. It being free fits in my budget. The fact that it is all prepared for me, fits in with my schedule. I work from home and will have to continue. My schedule is flexible enough that I could teach and guide him during the day, but I just don't have time to develop and plan a curriculum. I'm too ignorant of homeschool regulations to just wing it, and right now, I don't have the time to devote to understanding all of the requirements. I know it would be best, but it's just not possible right now.
The other thing about online school is that I know he would enjoy it and want to learn. He has a very anti-school, anti-learning attitude right now, and I know it's because of how he feels at school. He could learn at his own pace and wouldn't be bored like he is in class. Still, online schooling is not an option now anyway. I'm just not sure what direction to turn.
This has been going on for a few months, and I'm trying to let the Lord show me which way to go. I'm just not getting the message.
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: Feb 09 2012 at 2:59pm | IP Logged
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I have heard from other moms' experiences that when a child is pulled from a public school setting they need time to detox and unstructure themselves. I know when my son has been forced (by me) to use an over structured program and I have finally come to my senses about it he has needed time to stop seeing learning as a burden and start seeing it as a joyous way of life again. This usually means, for him, several weeks or even months of zero school expectations, just him doing whatever he wants and his household obligations. We usually start working on virtue training first, then introduce a read aloud for the family for fun (something that is good quality literature for his age), then some fun science experiments or living math books might be conveniently left out where he will find them, etc. Meanwhile, I work in the background building a program for him to meet him where he is at. Eventually he starts to self-learn through nature, books, experiments, good quality toys, etc, that we already have laying around but he had previously seen as too much like school to enjoy.
With you needing to work from home, though.... if you decide it would be beneficial the initial detox stage of him doing essentially nothing is no problem other than he might be bored (in which case I would just offer a few suggestions of non-screen things he could do or he can find himself something to do or he can clean for me if he is really bored.)
If you do chose to do an initial detox stage that would certainly give you more time to decide what is the best school approach for your family.
Also, it is very important that you at least know the regulations for your state. Here is a link!
__________________
God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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CrunchyMom
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One conflict I see in your choices is that any "ready made" curriculum with detailed lesson plans is going to cost money.
If you don't want to develop and plan a living books curriculum, there are free options you could follow. Ambleside, Mater Amabilis, and Tanglewood come to mind. Many of the books used in these curricula can be borrowed from the public library.
You would still have to do some planning like what subjects to do what do, how many pages to read, etc...
I've never used it personally, but from what you describe, if you want a ready made curriculum to order everything at once, Catholic Heritage Curriculum might be a good fit for you. It is often described as "gentle." It would cost money upfront, though.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Swasyb
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| Posted: Feb 10 2012 at 9:21am | IP Logged
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Thanks again for the responses. Ya'll have been a great help. I like the idea of school detox. He would really need that. It looks like I won't be able to find what I'm looking for. Either I'll have to get busy and plan out some lessons or purchase something.
I'm just wondering here... How do you know if your child is learning everything he needs for his age/grade/ability? Or is it not a big concern? Sorry, I'm so clueless.
Sherry
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: Feb 10 2012 at 10:20am | IP Logged
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Sherry,
It's taken me a long time to change the way *I* think about education, but now I really don't worry about age/grade/ability *too much*. I worry about two things:
- Is my child showing reasonable progress? Is he happy, growing in virtue, learning, and seeing learning as a joy and not a burden (at least over all, even if not in the short term)?
- (Much much less important than the first consideration) Is my child roughly fulfilling what his peers would be at this age? Is he falling VERY far behind? Does this mean I need to concentrate more on a specific area than we have been?
It's very easy to find guidelines and scope and sequences online for each grade, just to keep an eye on what would normally be expected in a public school. I tend not to really put a lot of stock in these, but just use them to decide if my kids are making reasonable progress. I get much, much more information just from having conversations with them and watching them progress in their lessons. Scope and Sequences are also helpful if you feel your child is struggling in a particular area, because you can look and see if there is something you missed or if there is something you think they need more time spent learning.
There are a lot of homeschooling resources to help build lesson plans, or there are some available free online that were listed above- Mater Amabilis, Ambleside Online, etc. They give you the book lists and general lesson plans and you just do the legwork and gather the materials (many of which are free and in the public domain).
In the grand scheme of things, is it going to matter if a child learns his times tables in third grade or fifth grade? Or if he learns cursive in first instead of third? Not really. The most important thing is that they are progressing and learning and growing in virtue, so you can pretty much tailor any program to where they are beyond those things.
__________________
God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Swasyb
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| Posted: Feb 10 2012 at 12:15pm | IP Logged
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Thank you, Krista. I appreciate the answer, and I think you make very valid points.
My heart tells me not to worry about such things, but my brain keeps worrying about the 'what-ifs'.
My kids are very bright, and I'm afraid that I would be an inadequate homeschooler and they would miss out on things they could/should learn. Though at the same time, I also know they're not reaching their full potential in public school. Maybe I'm just making things more difficult than they really are.
Does everyone cover everything in homeschool? If I skip Shakespeare or Mesozoic times, does it really matter? I'm inclined to think it doesn't matter, but I have that fear of 'what if it does.'
Sherry
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guitarnan
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Everyone doesn't cover everything in traditional school either (for example: geography as a separate subject, penmanship, music appreciation). Every school district/state makes choices about what to teach and what to leave out.
The difference is that you can play to your son's strengths and help him increase his concentration at home, because you are only working with one student, not 25. You can share your family's faith and values at the same time, in a gentle way.
We've used bits and pieces of CHC and Mater Amabilis as well as living books, printouts from online sites (great for penmanship and science!), DVDs, field trips, CDs in the car...you can use all kinds of media, not just textbooks, in your home education environment. My daughter's interest in birds led us to 50birds.com and our library. She spent the year creating a bulletin board covered with pictures of birds she'd colored and learned to identify, and we all learned about nests and bird songs and migration patterns and wildlife rescue. Even the cats got in on the action...they loved the DVD of birds in the wild! 
No, you don't have to cover everything. Cover the essentials and build from there. Your son will let you know which subjects really interest him. And for the ones that don't, consider projects and field trips/experiences/performances that focus on aspects that might appeal more to him. (E.g. Shakespeare - watch a play on DVD, build/draw a model of the Globe Theatre, learn which phrases Shakespeare contributed to our English language, learn about acting and prop-building...all activities related to the Bard but not the same as reading the plays aloud or silently.)
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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JennGM
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I was thinking of different ways you can "detox" but you are still learning.
1) Themed picture book baskets -- we replenish our library basket with different themes all year. Right now we're on winter and snow themes and gingerbread, next will be George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, African-American themes.... The books can run the gamut of fun rhymes, silliness (like George Washington's Cows), and then interesting biographical ones and poetry, the nature connections, and side stories related to the themes. There are loads and loads of lists here at 4Real.
This doesn't have to be forced, and it doesn't take too much time -- just one or two a day, even just at nighttime read out loud together. But the books being accessible can inspire him to read on his own.
2) Living chapter books -- get some audio books and the matching books. Read along while listening.
3) More living books -- Find good enjoyable books to fit your bill for subjects to cover (say, Ancient Egypt). Read aloud a bit a day. I think over time he will be attracted to want to read them on his own. But it is a gradual process.
I wouldn't worry if he's not getting Shakespeare or Mesopotamia. Shakespeare there is plenty of time, and history has cycles, and this will all be repeated.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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JodieLyn
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3rd grade??? Singapore Math for 3rd grade is on Khan Academy They don't have a lot for younger kids but they do have math. It's free and the videos do the teaching. You'd still need to get the workbooks though. And singapore is set up without a huge amount of repetition.
Remember everything doesn't have to interrelate. If you find a decent math program, they're probably set up for 1 or 2 exercises a day.. and you don't have to plan it out.. it's just "do the next exercise".
There's also free fun math websites.. and if you want to work on the basics for a bit those are perfect.
You don't have to plan out reading.. pick a book.. read for 20 minutes twice a day or read one chapter twice a day or something like that.. when you get to the end of the book.. pick a new book. You don't have to sit down and plan out how many pages for particular books.
Talk about the book after it's read.
There's grips you can put on your pencils which help keep your fingers in a correct grip. But also simply know that one trait of ADD/ADHD is overgripping a writing utensil.. you hold too tightly and it's very tiring.. and it's something that you have to think about to not do.. so it makes writing very difficult. Teach him typing for writing for content and do minimal writing work so that he can write when stictly necessary. Writing might even be fun on the computer. 
There's grammar programs out there.. like Easy Grammar.. daily grams.. very short one page a day type of stuff. Again, you don't have to plan it out.. just do the next one the next day.
And that will cover your basic language arts and math. Anything else is cake and can follow interest.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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elynnmom
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| I've never used it personally, but from what you describe, if you want a ready made curriculum to order everything at once, Catholic Heritage Curriculum might be a good fit for you. It is often described as "gentle." It would cost money upfront, though. |
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We're currently using the 3rd grade curriculum from Catholic Heritage Curriculum and if you would like my thoughts about their program, I would be happy to share (we do like it). It would be hard to jump in mid-year though and not very cost effective because you'd have to buy the whole year... My suggestions for you would be to follow the suggestions of the other forum members and take some time to detox, enjoy read alouds, follow son's interests (even if they don't seem very academic), etc, but limiting screen time, for the rest of the school year. See if that works for you guys and if not, check out some more "school-y" type curriculum options (who knows, maybe he'll miss worksheets  ) for next FAll. We're new to homeschooling this year, so I liked having the assurance that we were covering what we should be by going with CHC. HOpe that helps. Good luck with your decision.
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JennGM
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| Posted: Feb 13 2012 at 9:51am | IP Logged
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Karen Edmisten just wrote a fabulous post on 12 Things I've Learned in 12 Years of Homeschool. I thought some of her points would be helpful to you starting out.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Swasyb
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| Posted: Feb 13 2012 at 3:57pm | IP Logged
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You all are wonderful!!! I still don't know what decision I will make, but I'm not going to worry about it right now. My son has had a few GREAT days at school and maybe he's seeing how much he benefits from self discipline. We'll see how things go.
Still, I feel led to homeschool all of my kids. The responses here have helped alleviate some of my fears about being inadequate as a 'teacher.' I've always thought that my children could excel in a homeschool environment, and I'm beginning to see how to do that. I'm still afraid of the paperwork/documentation/requirements.
I guess I need to start considering what to do in the Fall.
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: May need to hs my 3rd grader-please help
