Homeschooling??

Is anyone else considering or already doing home education??

I have thought about but not seriously looked into it.
I feel like I wouldnt have the skills/ knowledge to teach them properly. Are either of u teachers? The only homeschoolers or unschoolers I know, or have seen on tv o read about have been teachers themselves.

i totally agree with all of the above Babe - those are exactly the same reasons we want to 'unschool', although we are nowhere near as self-sufficient as you.

I am not a teacher, although I did 1 semester of a primary degree (then got pregnant! lol), but my mum was a high school maths teacher, and both my grandparents (her parents) were primary teachers, so i do have a large pool of knowledge that I can draw from. I also know several teachers.

Will look into those curriculums, thanks Babe. I would love to have a slightly more permanent thread on here for those of us thinking about doing HS/US...

For your enjoyment This is the Charlotte Mason requirements for a 6yo and what we're currently focused on with DS1. She believes that til the age of 6 children should spend most of their time outside discovering life and learning skills such as observation, memorisation, describing, etc through play so while we don't formally study we do things like name the flowers and trees in our yard while we're out there, watch the birds, encourage Jake to tell us about stories we've read, practice where east, west, south and north are in our yard, etc. The amount of knowledge he puts away with this method has actually surprised us

."A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six"

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns

2. to recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm

3. to add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters

4. to read--what and how much, will depend on the child

5. to copy in print-hand from a book

6. to know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows

7. to describe the boundries of their own home

8. to describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach

9. to tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history

10. to be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views

11. to mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.

12. to do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees

13. to know 6 birds by song, colour and shape

14. to send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed

15. to tell three stories about their own "pets"--rabbit, dog or cat.

16. to name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences

17. to sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song

18. to keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.

We are also wanting to homeschool and have planned to start casually when DD starts morning kindy (we will have a special activity in the afternoon). I have allowed myself to try it for a year...if it doesn't work or whatever then we can enrol her in school.
I am also not a teacher but am looking forward to (in a way) re-educating myself too.
We have heaps of resources collected already, but feel quite daunted at the prospect of looking at particular programs. I'm going to a home educators meeting in a few weeks to see about joining a support group, perhaps this will help?

Thanks for posting the list of ideas, might be a good starting point.

Definitely seriously considering it!

Quick question, what's the difference between home schooling and 'unschooling'?
Also, how do you find the literacy/numeracy side of things?
I've heard that Auckland has an amazing home-schooling network, and that if you're rubbish at maths, for example, you can network and go off to someone else's house for a maths activity afternoon etc. It sounds very organised. The people we know who did it took their kids out of school because of bullying issues.
Like Flake, for us it would be a cost issue!

After a lot of consideration we have decided to Homeschool our daughter next year. I am really looking forward to it. We have a wonderful Home school network in our local area and I have already met a few people who I hope will become good friends in the coming years
We don't intend to buy a curriculum for the first few years but will see how we go. I love the idea of interest based learning - where they show in interest in a topic and you go with it.
We have managed to get a spot at the upcoming Auckland Home Educators information evening and I am looking forward to finding out more about how to go about the whole process.