Many of the homeschoolers at The Dollar Stretcher are not new to home education. If you were starting out fresh this year, what would you do? How is it different than your first real year of homeschooling?

making sure there is supplies and bookies material to cover the very subjects to letters to phonics to not getting my butt in trouble with the law.

I would relax and enjoy my children a little more. I was crazy about making sure that I was not creating any "gaps" in their learning. Had to fit it all in!

 My children have both grown and gone now. We home educated them for fourteen years, and then they grew up and went to college. My oldest daughter is out of college, married with a responsible job, a hubby, their first house, and their first child. My younger daughter is in her senior year of college. Both of them have consistently been honors students. Both of them have very high moral values. Both of them are people that any mother would be proud to call her own. In college, they attracted a lot of attention from their professors because they were very creative, intelligent, and hard-working. They got faculty selected scholarship opportunities out of the blue. My youngest one just picked up another one last week, that she did not even apply for.

I tried lots of different curriculums. My personal favorites were Saxon Math and Sonlight Books. The first because of an easy to use format, the second because of the rich, literature based instruction.

Enjoy them while you have them. They are grown and gone way too soon. I am so glad that we homeschooled. We were knit together as a family and the ties are still strong.

If I could start over again, I would approach homeschooling as I do with my youngest. We do not have a conventional classroom approach. We take a life of learning one where we use real books and gentle methods to inspire a love for it while laying the foundations.

With my oldest, I believed in the school at home method and we used it. It did not work out well. I have revised methods and used different resources over the years to get where we are.

they are your children teach them  and home schooling isnt the norm

People will question your decesion .. but it will be the best for you kids .

pray alot you cry , your laugh but what joy when your child gets it

it the hardest job you ever do . 

I like it when starting out the child is doing a state test year to year this Im not sure of I hear they do very well I am for it always have been I also was homeschooled at home most of the tiime we were moving trying to play catch up with one grade to the next when coming to the states I was to far ahead they had to slow me down and that bammmm start over again when living in the south like mississippi and florida and texas and then to this state no wonder we all were confused.

I, too, would become more relaxed, which I am now. I fretted too much in the beginning--mostly because people around me told me I wouldn't be able to do it. I did. Older ds was accepted to a college next fall. I had to send them a transcript, which meant I had to make up grades, which I based on how hard he worked in each subject and how well I knew he did. I also kept a record during each year of high school home schooling because some colleges require a list of the curricula you used, books they read, etc. Didn't need it, but only because of the particular requirements of the college he applied to. I'm eclectic, but find myself using Alpha Omega more and more because the kids work well with the format. That means planning ahead to save money, because they have a 20 percent off sale every April. So, planning ahead is one thing I do differently now. July and August is too late to save money.

I've learned that the goal now should be to teach them value education and to study and work independently, and then they can teach themselves. I won't always be around to tell them to study, i.e., in another 10 months when my older one goes to college. Their educations are truly up to them. I don't require them to do subjects by a schedule. They know what is expected of them, and as long as they can get it done that day, that's OK. Older son does like to have a list printed out for each day of the week so he can look at it. He likes some structure.

I agree wholeheartedly with this writer.....I too have homeschooled for over 17 years.  I have two in college who are currently honors students and have received scholarships based on merit(and need).   Relax...enjoy...don't be so uptight!!!  I see so many with young children who are pushing the envelope with curriculum.  Until 7th grade....I used Saxon math and FIAR and Beyond FIAR..which focuses on literature...these are typically considered unit studies...you incorporate math...science...history...etc into the lesson of the literature.  My girls each have their favorite book and memory from this time when we all snuggled on the couch and learned together.  I did add math to it...but that's it..didn't even keep grades back then.  It got a little more structured in 7-8th grade with grades....then we hit high school and I used a mix of things...Notgrass history, smarr literature, chalkdust math, etc.  I made sure that my girls gave back too....they were active in church, volunteered at the local elementary school, etc.  Enjoy your kids...because they'll be gone so quickly....my kid have always said that they wouldn't have it any other way...they are best friends and we are a very close family.  

One other thing...I use a program called homeschool tracker to keep up with all of my "stuff"......it's less than 50.00 and was well worth it to me...I bought it in 2003 for 39.00 when that was more I could afford...but it has been well worth it..