Schooling Part 2

Upon deciding to home school, we went about researching Colorado Law regarding the issue. The law in not so many words states that every child that home schools is required to register as a home school student with their local school district and receive standardized tests at grades 3,5,7,9 and 11. Students are also required to have 172 days of school 4 hours each day. We are simply following our local school districts calender. I personally think these requirements are great, they prevent kids from falling through the gaps. As long as your child scores higher than the lowest 13% the state says you can continue to home school, considering state CTAP scores show roughly 40% of kids are not even at grade level, as long as your kid performs at grade level your fine.

We have decided to focus primarily on Math, Reading/Writing and English for his 1st grade year. We will also study Science, History and Piano, but not daily, most likely every other day.  I spent a ton of time on Amazon and CBD researching curriculum looking for what would suit our needs and teach my son best using his hands on learning style. There are home school curriculum fairs you can go to and see things hands on, however I myself was home schooled so I am very familiar with certain brands, because I or my friends used them.

Home schooling is the best choice for our family because of our personal beliefs and parenting styles. The reasons why this is the best choice for our family are as follows: (1) Cost, private schools usually run about $500 a month per student not including registration fees, class fees etc... (2) Higher standers, we hold higher standards for our children regarding their performance. We strive to teach our children to be the best they can be at whatever they are doing. (3) Family, we are not morning people and trying to get out the door by 7 am has cut into family time greatly. My husband works a great deal of overtime and in trying to get my kids to bed early enough they were never seeing their dad or for only brief periods.(4) Personal beliefs, we are choosing to not teach certain things to our kids that we personally feel are not morally right and are choosing to include things that we feel are important. (I will elaborate later on this point) (5) Finally, we are able to be flexible to our children's needs and adjust the curriculum according to their interests and or learning styles.

The Cons:
  I personally feel their are very few cons, but society and many people I know keep addressing what they consider concerns so I will identify these concerns here and then elaborate in further posts.

(1) How will you know what to teach him?
(2) What if he doesn't want to learn?
        And the biggest concern
(3) Socializing- How will he make friends, solve problems, react to other adults etc...

If there are concerns or questions you would like to see addressed please comment and I will include them in the next post.