A good way to homeschool and stay organized?

My step-sister home schooled her four daughters, and I really don't recommend it unless you really know what you are doing. The place where she home schooled them was always a mess, she wasn't organized, and she really had no clue what she was doing. She was an RN and she had a theology degree, but none of this really qualified her to teach. Her daughters mostly taught themselves, and they were social idiots (for lack of better word), meaning they didn't know how socialize with people, which is something you learn in school. My boyfriend and my cousin were also home schooled for a year and they lacked a lot of the social skills that normal people have. I strongly recommend private schools (people of all religions can put their children in Catholic or Lutheran Schools, I have seen people do it), or charter schools because I think that they are so much better than public schools or home schooling. Many of my friends have been to private and charter schools and you really do get a good education from these schools.

I don't home school and as you know, not very organized, but my daughter was homeschooled in I think 9th grade. This was only because the school she attended stopped busing for the high school kids when the levy didn't pass. Now because your child is 11, maybe that is why you have all these books and supplies. But when my daughter took a state funded class, all we needed was online access..They provided the computer, printer, scanner and even paid 32.00 a month towards internet service. Yeah we did have to pay for paper and when she had a science project due, we had to buy the materials, but mostly it was all online work..It was great.This program still sends me info, so if ever we decide to home school my son, I will go with them..

My husband and I don't yet have kids but have thought that we might homeschool them at some point in their school career. The schools in this county are great schools though so that wouldn't be the reason we'd homeschool if we did. A suggestion just popped into my head and I thought I'd better go ahead and say it before I forget about it. I was thinking to keep your son "on track" you could make it a little fun by getting baskets long enough to hold an 8 x 10 piece of paper in and get two of them. One for "in" and one for "out". Someone here was talking about they're kid gets a homework packet on Monday that is due on Friday. You could always do the same. You may even think about only doing certain subjects on certain days. You could group English with Math and then Science with Social Studies, and fit in a time during the day that he goes outside to play and get exercise, maybe an hour play while you fix his lunch? These are just suggestions I thought up. As for organization, you could use the same idea of the "in" and "out" box to organize by subject. Work sheets for each subject could be put in the box and under the box could be the books he needs per the subject required. If he gets bored of a book, try getting him to read a few lines and act the lines out as he goes, this might amuse him and help him enjoy the books more while broadening his imagination.

Congrats on homeschooling your son! Mine just graduated March 18th 2010. I chose NOT to go through the STATE curriculum. I went to Alpha Omega Academy. They have two programs probably one like you are doing with just books and little help and aid or the program I chose which gave me my principal,counselor and ASR who was my right hand! My son graduated 25 in his class out of 569 students this year and graduated with a 3.42 rating. When we First started he was a sophomore in high school. He had a reading disability and was considered a 6th to 8th grade reader. So I took him over and under my wing and our kitchen aisle became a biology lab, chem lab, home ec cooking and sewing, and any other imaginable thing you can think of. We had set hours for school sometimes the classes were easier to him and he finished quicker than others. As I said we were between the diningroom table and the kitchen aisle. On the computer desk, I have cubby holes above the computer and had 6 folders. One for every subject. he would have 10 units per subject and then lessons within each unit. So we would have a folder that would hold papers on both sides. While we were in each lesson per chapter of the unit we would go through each chapter. I pulled EVERYTHING off the computer so we could study without all the eyestrain. Then when we needed to do tests naturally he had to use the computer. Once a unit was finished I had a large tupperware bin that I would roll up each chapter and unit and place in the bin in case we needed to reference back to it or if we needed to prove we were homeschooling as you are doing. For all 3 years I homeschooled him I kept his work in 3 seperate tupperware bins in case anyone wanted to see his finished work. This really minimized losing work finished or unfinished and then all the units we had finished were safe and we knew where to go get them. As far as any records those were stored in an attache case so I had any school records at the tip of my fingers and I could just pick the attache case and go meet whoever. I live in Florida and we have the FCAT which is a very hard series of tests. Texas is the other state that has this series of tests too. Since my son was legally enrolled in Alpha Omega Academy he was exempt from the tests that would tell him if he would graduate or not. This eased his mind a lot and he could concentrate on his studies. I wish you the best of luck and hope if you need any help check out the Academy they were the most awesome group of people I have ever met and would never have been able to homeschool my son without them. The ASR I had said she wished half the parents that homeschooled even with them had worked half as hard as I did in keeping my son interested and so well versed in each subject. I took Nick on biology field trips (we live by the ocean) we went on history field trips, I had countless help with Chemistry and math through meeting online students that were majoring in college in these subjects in the college chat library areas it was awesome the help I got. Dont be afraid to use any resource you can think of people everywhere will aid you in succeeding to be a teacher. I was terrified when I started, and I have to say doing highschool was very hard considering I graduated in 1970. I kept telling all the school personnel that when my son graduated I should get another diploma too because I learned just as much as him! I hope you enjoy this time with your son. It bonded my son and I even more and he is VERY GREATFUL or he might have been another statistic of dropping out of school. He is interested in Animals and will start Vet Tech school in 2011 he wanted to take a small break from school he has worked at pet shops, takes care of exotic animals, has caught sting rays for our local Gulf World for the sting ray petting tank, he is amazing with Alligators (yea next Steve Irwin) and has even owned a black widow spider for a year. So needless to say, for me it has been as much a learning experience as him. I hope this helps with how I kept everything under control. Just be prepared to use a LOT of INK cartridges. WE got a laser printer as it was a cheaper way instead of all the little bottles and we just used black ink it worked for us God Bless and good luck.!

I have a 3 years old kid and although he isn't going to school yet I'm already teaching him stuff even he was 1 1/2 yr old. I know the feeling, there's so many things you need to teach your child the only thing I do is that I make sure my child understand before I go on to the next subject. Although, if a certain topic is really hard for him and I feel that we took a long time for that already I decide to just move on and just get back to that afterward. I guess just, follow the curriculum strictly, make plans on what to cover monthly, weekly and daily remember to give a certain allotment like if you think your child could finish and understand a certain topic by 1 day, make it two days on your planner and just re-adjust according to whether your child understand or not. ^.^