There is help and support available for those who are on a homeschooling journey. Most of us homeschoolers find it helpful to join a homeschool support group. There is so much help available there, including likeminded parents who are homeschooling their children (for the same or different reasons), children for our kids to play with, organized field trips and outings, and lots of advice and wisdom from veteran homeschoolers.

When I began homeschooling, I couldn’t find a support group in Chicago, Illinois that met my needs. Most of the ones that would have been a good fit were far away in the suburbs and here sat I in the city with no transportation to get to the ‘burbs.

I wanted to join a Christian homeschool support group, because I felt as thought it would be a good fit and that it would meet my needs. However, I couldn’t find one no matter how hard or long I searched, so I joined a secular support group. The people were nice and helpful, and there were many veteran homeschoolers in the group; yet, it still wasn’t a good fit, because most of the children who attended the group regularly were older, and my son was only 7 years old then.

Since I couldn’t find a physical group that met my needs; I started one of the many online homeschool groups. It now has more than 80 members and is more of a resource list than a support group. Finding a good online homeschool groups is as simple as doing a search on the web; here’s a link to a site where you’ll find a group for your state:  http://time4learning.net/groups/

I later joined several other online groups that have proved to be a great support resource. Eventually, I joined a physical secular support group too. Online homeschool groups in Illinois really helped me to understand Illinois homeschooling laws and to network with other Illinois homeschoolers.

Even if you are a member of a support group that has meetings, you’ll probably find belonging to one or more online homeschool groups very helpful; you may have a question or concern, and if your online group is an active one–when you post, you’ll get an answer quickly. More than likely, it will be just what you need, exactly when you need it.

Illinois doesn’t require you to initiate notification with your school district when you decide to homeschool, and it’s easy to follow Illinois homeschooling laws. There’s no specific home school statute in Illinois, but you can legally homeschool via an alternative home school statute. Check out the Home School Legal Defense Associations’s (HSLDA) website for credible information on homeschooling. There you’ll find lots of state homeschool resources; Illinois law states the following:

“If a child is ‘attending a private or a parochial school where children are taught the branches of education taught to children of corresponding age and grade in public schools, and where the instruction of the child in the branches of education is in the English language’ the child shall not be required to attend public school and the child is in compliance with Illinois compulsory attendance law.” Home schools that met these two requirements are considered legal private schools (Illinois law: 105 ILCS § 5/26-1).

Although both the HSLDA and Homeschool Legal Advantage (HLA) have summaries of homeschooling laws on their site, you should ask your librarian to help you find a copy of the Illinois homeschooling law. Yes, the HSLDA and HLA have summarized the law for you, but it’s their interpretation of the law–not the actual law. Do your research and after you read your state’s homeschooling statute/provision, then read the HSLDA’s or HLA’s interpretation of the laws. If you find the homeschooling laws on the internet, make sure it’s the actual law and that the site is a credible one.

If your child is in school, and you decide to homeschool, you should write a letter to the school principal, so no one will think he’s a truant. But if your child has never attended school, you don’t have to inform any one that you’re homeschooling him.

What you need to know has been outlined here. There are no heavy duty rules or regulations, and no standardized tests or teacher certifications are required. Now that you know the law, decide what curriculum you’re going to use, and go for it!

OK I’ve been meaning to write this little story but we’ve been so busy lately and still battleling colds and allergies and sleepless nights. C’est La Vie!

Recently Natalie completed the first series of lessons in her science module which cover earth science topics such as weather maps, thunderstorms and water cycle. I sat down with her to do the one about the water cycle. It is refreshing to see that even I can learn a thing or two. I mean most of this stuff we know but when you hear it put into words for a child her age it just seems so simple and easy to understand. At the end of the lessons I showed her how we (adults) know the daily temperature and what the weather will be on a given day by going on the weather channel and online at weather.com. and things really clicked for her when I explained the different colors they use to represent rain or snow, etc. Later that day when her dad came home she wanted to show him what she learned so she told him to put on the Weather Channel so she could tell him what the weather would be tonight and tomorrow. He was pretty impressed at how much she retained. We don’t get excited about watching the weather channel but it was exciting to see her trying to read the weather on the map on TV.

We had some rain since that lesson took place and Natalie sat by the window and explained to me that the water will “evaporate into the air and then it will rain again when the clouds get all filled up.” Yes, we all sing praises to T4L and it is well deserved. As parents we try to take advantage of every opportunity to teach our kids lessons that are best learned hands on, but honestly, it can be difficult sometimes. However, when they have an incentive to ask and we (parents) have a little feedback to help us answer questions at their level it is a lot easier to reinforce what they learn and we learn right along with them.

Everyone once in a while Natalie will say “see mom, even you learn on time4learning.” She’s right.

This is science week for us. I chose this week mainly because fall has finally arrived and Natalie has been asking many questions about the leaves falling, the animals, the plants that die and the ones that live during this time of year. I remembered a while back that there is a section in the Science curriculum that focused on the world around us and recognizing the changes that occur as we enter each season, etc.

We just started this section and Natalie loves it. It also happens to be the same thing they are doing in class so that’s a huge plus. She only got as far as Spring yesterday with huge plans to finish that section today. However, it’s late and she might be a little tired tonight. She usually logs in after breakfast and before he bus comes in the morning.

The plan is to incorporate the lessons with real life activities outside. We live in Virginia, the souther part, and the weather is still somewhat mild around here. Side note here —>It’s really strange, however, that sometimes we play in the fall leaves and it’s 75 degrees outside, other days you have to wear gloves and a hat. Anyway, we went for a walk in our yard to find the flowers that grew in the spring and to talk about the changing colors now that fall is here.

I’m learning and enjoying this particular lesson as much as she is. Autumn and spring are my favorite seasons of the year, but I do look forward to snow and the crisp winter air– what better way to enjoy a hot cup of cocoa with marshmallows–yum!

I hope everyone is enjoying this colorful time of year as much as we are!

Terie

This week is focused on Math for Natalie. Since she did so well over the last few weeks on her Language Arts, we decided to take a brief brake to focus on numbers. Natalie is making some progress on recognizing coins and their value; time and the value of each number on an analog clock as well as counting by fives and tens – both of which are important when learning to tell time.

Today Natalie came home from school with “two good news.” “#1 there’s no school tomorrow; #2 I counted by fives all the way to 100.” OK now that’s good news. I told her that this means she should be able to read the clock on the kitchen wall. Now she makes it a point of going to that clock to read the time. She looks at the clock and once she figures out where the “little chubby hand” is then she counts by fives until she reaches the “long skinny hand” to figure out the minutes. Pretty smart huh? OK so I’m biased. Anyway, I’m very proud of her accomplishments with numbers.

Another exciting thing that happened this weekend was her showing off her lessons to my dad. My dad does not speak English nor does he even understand computers. But he sat next to her and watched her work and then figured out what she was doing and even joined her in some of the sorting and counting lessons. It was very sweet. You have to understand, we don’t see Abuelo often enough and we all miss him very much. My kids don’t speak spanish and that’s my fault, sort of. English has become more second nature to me because I don’t really have a community of spanish speaking friends to speak with on a regular basis so I got a bit lazy and failed at teaching a second language. I am working on that because I do want them to talk to my dad next time we see him. It would be cool if we had a program like T4L to help them learn while having fun. Any recommendations?

Well, that’s all for now. Hope everyone is getting over the cold, flu, and any other issues going around.

Good Night.

Terie