Hi everyone, I’m Fabian. I was pulled out of in-person school in 3rd grade because it just wasn’t working for me, and I’ve been on the homeschool side of things ever since. I finished high school at 13 through FLVS Flex, earned my associate degree at 15 and my bachelor’s at 17, and I’m now working on a master’s.

I want to be clear about something: I don’t think graduating early is the point. Homeschooling opened a lot more doors for me than that. I had room to work at my own pace, follow ideas I was curious about, learn a lot about myself, and later take things like a legislative internship in Tallahassee. Finishing early was the route I chose. It isn’t the only good one, and it isn’t the right one for every kid.

It wasn’t all easy. My first year of online school was rough: no classroom structure, lots of free time I didn’t know what to do with, and I missed my friends. It took my family about a year to find community. After that, I was involved in local clubs and church groups and had as much social life as anyone.

I’m not a teacher or counselor, just sharing my experience. I’m here to listen and learn from this community too. If you’re thinking about homeschooling, the first year, finding community, or starting college early, feel free to comment, or my DMs are open if you’d rather ask privately.

My son is doing Math With Confidence for 1st grade. We also did it for K. He is going through the material fine, and gets about 90% of the answers right quickly in both the lessons and the worksheets, and can figure out the last 10% very quickly on the second try.

The trouble is, he's often not working through the problems in the way that the curriculum wants him to.

An example is that the curriculum wants you to start adding in an equation by beginning with a number you've already been given. E.g. if the equation is 8+3=, it wants you to start at 8 and think "8, 9-10-11"). He'll get to 11, but he gets there by starting with 1. I only know because sometimes he'll quietly say it under his breath.

Does any of that matter? I want him to have a really solid math foundation, and I know that part of that is by forming automaticity. But since he gets the right answers most of the time, he is very resistant to doing it in a different way. I encourage him to do it how the book recommends, because I know that they're also trying to form automaticity. But since most of the time he's doing it in his head, I don't actually know how he's getting there, and since he usually gets them right, I am not sure how to approach it.

Any thoughts are welcome!

I don’t know if traditional school is right for my adhd 9 year old son. He currently has an IEP, on meds and we still get emails about disruptive behavior and work refusal about 3 times a week. We hate seeing him struggle socially and behaviorally in class and we have done everything on our end to help him succeed. It’s been an uphill climb since kindergarten. Thoughts on pulling from public to homeschool with a tutor and other extracurricular classes during the day? Do any families have success or fails from a situation like ours? We feel the stress we have at home is coming directly from school. Summer break is calm and peaceful with him being home and on our schedule which is more flexible for him. We hate seeing how extremely stressed out and down on himself he gets when he has a bad day at school. I obviously worry about the social aspect of homeschooling, but quite frankly he’s not making a ton of friends currently. Currently the cons outweigh the pros of public school for him.

Hello, hello--

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to help my kiddo with division. She understands the why and how of division (I thought, anyway, but maybe all of this mean she doesn't), but when it comes time for solo practice... every time she sees that little division box, she multiplies and then doesn't understand what I mean when I remind her that the box means division... (So, when she's doing eight divided by two, with the division box, she writes 16 and then we spiral from there.)

Other than practice, practice, practice--is there anything I can do specifically to help her with this? From the outside, it seems like she just forgets what the box means, but maybe there's something more.

Thank you!

ETA: Third grade girl just starting out with division. :) We're supposed to move on to a two-digit dividend, but I don't think that's a good idea until she gets this.

This daily discussion is to chat about anything that doesn't warrant its own post. I am not a mod and make these posts for building the homeschool community.

If you are new, please introduce yourself.

If you've been around here before or have been homeschooling for awhile, please share about your day.

Some ideas of what to share are: your homeschool plans for the day, lesson plans, words of encouragement, methods you are implementing to solve a problem, methods of organization, resource/curriculum you recently came across, curriculum sales, field trip planning, etc.

Although, I usually start with a question of the day to get the discussion going, feel free to ask your own questions. If your question does not get answered because it was posted late in the day, you can post the same question tomorrow to make sure it gets visibility.

Be mindful of the subreddit's rules and follow reddiquette. No ads, market/ thesis research, or self promotion. Thank you!

My 10th grade daughter wants to switch to online school. She is a smart kid: is fairly motivated, gets all A’s, participates in drama, has a job, formed a band with her friends, helps take care of her grandmother, and has a good social life. Her friend group is fairly alternative/LGBQ and many of her friends are already doing online school. The area we live in does not have great schools, and is fairly conservative with a lot of teachers politics bleeding into the school.

Our school district is phasing out their hybrid online program, leaving alternative school (4 hrs of classroom instruction a day) as their only flexible option.

My daughter is not currently interested in college, but that could always change in the future.

The options I see for her next couple years of secondary education would be staying in the current brick and mortar school, a good online school program, a home school program, or a self designed “unschool” program. The biggest issue I see is a high school diploma vs high school equivalency exam(GED).

I have a background as a high school teacher, and focused on alternative education for my master, so I feel like I could guide her through whichever school system we choose. I’m looking to others for their experience with each option.

Has anyone used Lightning Lit for 3rd grade and IEW Structure & Style? My 8 daughter hates writing so we have been alternating and on weeks we do IEW, we have skipped Lightning Lit so we don't get behind on those writing assignments.

But I'm wondering if I can just use everything from Lightning Lit EXCEPT the composition and strictly do IEW for our writing? Has anyone done this? Or can anyone offer insight?

Thanks in advance!

I’m wanting to switch over to Blossom & Root curriculum for kindergarten, but I know a lot of it is nature based/seasonal. Would it still work if I start in November or should I just wait until next year?

This daily discussion is to chat about anything that doesn't warrant its own post. I am not a mod and make these posts for building the homeschool community.

If you are new, please introduce yourself.

If you've been around here before or have been homeschooling for awhile, please share about your day.

Some ideas of what to share are: your homeschool plans for the day, lesson plans, words of encouragement, methods you are implementing to solve a problem, methods of organization, resource/curriculum you recently came across, curriculum sales, field trip planning, etc.

Although, I usually start with a question of the day to get the discussion going, feel free to ask your own questions. If your question does not get answered because it was posted late in the day, you can post the same question tomorrow to make sure it gets visibility.

Be mindful of the subreddit's rules and follow reddiquette. No ads, market/ thesis research, or self promotion. Thank you!

I have a 4 year old boy who I am looking to start homeschooling beginning in January, and I also have a 2 month old daughter. Before my daughter was born we did 15 minutes atleast of lesson time every weekday and my son loved it. Now that my daughter is here it feels like I have lost all structure and ability and feel so lost. I don’t even know where to begin, what to look for, what to do, what to purchase, etc. All I know is I would love it faith based and gospel centered, as well as beneficial to my sons learning style. Someone please help me. I want to get back into lesson time everyday with my son but feel lost even in that.😭

Anyone homeschool their children while traveling, as a lifestyle? No actual home address?

How would one do the paperwork on that? In my current state we file with the public school system a form stating we are withdrawing a student to homeschool.

We do annual reports. How would this work? What state would we report to? Thank you.

Looking for some resources or information on this subject.

I planned to homeschool without using screens for at least elementary school. But then when looking for a better math curriculum I found Beast Academy. I got both the workbooks and online version, but we quickly found that the online version is so much better and more enjoyable than the workbooks. My son is 5, very good at math, and going through it very quickly. He actually understands the concepts so no concerns there.

But since I planned to homeschool screen free I’m feeling some guilt/worry that this might affect him in a bad way. On some days he wants to do math for several hours because he loves it. I can tell he is learning so much and don’t want to hold him back. But I‘m concerned about the downsides of screens especially since he’s so so young.

Hi! I’m new to homeschooling. This is my second year and I‘m struggling to find my groove (preschool-kindergarten). I would love to find a curriculum that is somewhat structured while also being kind of go with the flow if that’s even a thing.

I really love the Waldorf curriculum but I‘d say we are Waldorf inspired/adjacent because I‘m not really on board with the waiting until 7 to learn math and reading thing. I like to keep things free-spirited and nature-centric, but all of my kids had an interest in reading/math starting at around four and I’ve just been trying to lean into their interests and make learning fun.

I feel pulled in two different directions a lot of the time because art and creativity and nature are super important to me, but academics are also very important to me as well and I’m having a hard time finding a middle ground curriculum-wise. Everything seems very either/or. I don’t want to be sitting inside memorizing things all days, but I start to get stressed out when all we’ve done all week is play in the woods and go to music class.

This year I’ve been using The Good and the Beautiful for reading and a mash up of Math-U-See and The Good and the Beautiful math curriculum. I like that they‘re all pretty open and go but I don’t see us using TGATB long term. We also do a PE class, music class, and online art class as well as 4-H meetings once a month. Am I doing too much? Should I take a chill pill? I know this is just kindergarten and pretty low stakes at this point, but I feel so stressed out and worried about making sure I’m doing a good job. I went to a wonderful kindergarten as a child that left me lots of great memories and while I am not interested in sending my kids to school I feel like I’m constantly comparing that experience to what I’m doing at home.

Second to that, I’m having a hard time finding opportunities for socialization outside of the PE and music class. Those are pretty structured with limited social interactions. We do go to the playground fairly often and I’ve taken them to a field day and a couple of fields trips and other kids just…don’t talk? The parents don’t really either and maybe I’m just one of the more outgoing people idk?

Anyway as you can probably tell I’m an overthinker and Ive realized typing this out that I’m being obsessive and worrying too much haha but I’d still love recs on curriculum or any sage advice anyone would like to offer 😅 TIA

Transitioning this month!

Thank you in advance ❤️

Wrapping up the Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding this year with my 1st grader. In some ways it's been wonderful - I like that it tackles multiple science domains, doesn't dumb down anything, and revisits concepts to build on them. What I don't like is that it feels like some weeks are great and others aren't, it feels very hit or miss for me. This may entirely be user error but it's come up enough that I'm feeling unsure if I want to continue to the next volume or not.

We love doing experiments, deep diving on specific topics, and reading lots of books. I haven't been super impressed by most of the experiments or activities in this curriculum and most of the cool ones we've done have been ones I found elsewhere.

I've considered getting a good high school or college science textbook and just rolling through it myself, grabbing relevant resources that are age-appropriate. Quite frankly that's sort-of what it's felt like I've been doing but without having a textbook with full detail.

Does anyone have a recommendation for either:

1. A really good and comprehensive high school/college science textbook (or a set to cover the major domains) or
2. A elementary science curriculum that is really experiment/activity heavy (that shows the principles it's trying to teach*)?

*I've found a lot of cool activities/experiments are often....not easily explained or correlate well to what they're actually supposed to be demonstrating.

Thanks in advance!

Hi!

I just started homeschooling my son for health reasons. It’s going pretty well so far but I’m feeling uncertain about how much work to be giving him. Some days I feel like I’m asking for too much and some days I feel like I’m failing his education.
I’m trying to use a sort of classical model (minus the Latin). His studies are heavy on history and literature with some online math and and science as he’s naturally very good at those two.
I work so he’s been doing his readings, vocab, and comprehension question alone and the more in depth questions and writings with me.
What would be considered an appropriate amount of work for a fifth grader to be doing? Not just in time but in actual product.

Thank you!

This daily discussion is to chat about anything that doesn't warrant its own post. I am not a mod and make these posts for building the homeschool community.

If you are new, please introduce yourself.

If you've been around here before or have been homeschooling for awhile, please share about your day.

Some ideas of what to share are: your homeschool plans for the day, lesson plans, words of encouragement, methods you are implementing to solve a problem, methods of organization, resource/curriculum you recently came across, curriculum sales, field trip planning, etc.

Although, I usually start with a question of the day to get the discussion going, feel free to ask your own questions. If your question does not get answered because it was posted late in the day, you can post the same question tomorrow to make sure it gets visibility.

Be mindful of the subreddit's rules and follow reddiquette. No ads, market/ thesis research, or self promotion. Thank you!

I have a 3 year old, only child. He will probably always be an only child, so I really have been against homeschooling because I want him to be social, and there's not a lot of homeschooling resources in my area.
I want to start by saying, homeschooling is such a privilege that not everyone has. Whenever a gun violence situation happens, I think about homeschooling. The school I am zoned for is safe and has been around for a long time. We have an SRO officer. I just still see all the things that aren't as safe as they could be. And for reasons I will never understand, because I'm not an evil person, elementary schools have become targets more and more.
I've thought about just homeschooling for some of the elementary years, because I truly want him to be older when he goes to school and can protect himself better. I don't want to live out of fear either though. It's such a horrible, gutteral feeling when I see this happening. Why it has seemed to increase, I'll never understand. Now I have other reasons for debating homeschooling as well.

What are your reasonings? Overall education is a concern for me too, as I grew up going to the school he would go to, and there were way too many things I didn't learn, and a lot of kids that I felt were left behind educationally. I struggled so much as an adult trying to figure out how to do adult things. How did you keep your kids social if you are someone with not alot of homeschooling resources in your area? I hate how a lot of curriculum isn't developmentally appropriate for kids. I don't understand why kindergartners are being pressured to perform so heavily, with no play. What does your weekly schedule look like? What hardships have you faced with this decision?

I’m really looking into homeschooling my kids. What advice and resources can you give to someone like me who needs to just start somewhere? I have looked into my states laws about homeschool but I’m looking for more information on the actual educational programs/curriculums to use for my kids.

Any books to read or websites to research. Please give me everything!!

Any feedback to TVAH for high school? I have a sophomore who we unenrolled from public school a couple weeks ago in favor of a private micro school. She’s absolutely hating it worse than public. I should have gone with Texas Connections at the time when we could but they are no longer enrolling for this semester. It looks like TVAH is still an option. I don’t know if I should do it or wait for next semester Connections to open again. Feeling so insanely lost and she’s feeling stuck.

My son loves history, would it be possible to take a heavy reading based history curriculum and turn it into LA as well? What are some things I would need to consider? What else could i do to use history text to branch into other curriculums?

I have a 3rd grader who has been homeschooled from the start. The first three years was mostly play and interest based. We had some bookwork and spelling last year, and this year I bought some awesome curriculum to help keep us on track.

The thing is, I enjoy it, but then I also don’t. I think I’m getting burned out and keep wondering if my child needs to experience more beyond what we’re giving him.

We moved from out of state two years ago so we have no close family nearby. It’s my husband and our son. He is wrapping up his third season of soccer and soon we plan to involve him in the Y, and we have a local homeschool meetup that should be happening soon. I’m excited about that and so is he. His friend across the street moved away this summer. He had never hold me he’s lonely, but I know he could benefit from being around more kids and not his parents all day.

I started a remote contract position this summer, and I work 20-30 hours a week. The schedule is flexible, which is great. But balancing that on top of homeschooling has been a bit of a challenge.

My husband is going to college and is not working, so he is able to take on some teaching responsibilities. This year we have a groove we’re getting into that is working - he does morning block while I work and I do afternoon block with spelling writing etc while he does school work.

But I’m still feeling burned out and like my kid may be missing something. That I may be missing time to myself - we are all home most of the time. My kid and husband both like to talk, lol.

I brought it up to my husband the other day after just exploding inside I guess. That maybe I can’t do this after this year. At first he was like we gotta move if so, and I’m like why? The ratings aren’t good, etc. You see this at the beginning of the year I realized I didn’t know our true why of homeschooling, and it sounds like it’s fear based. I don’t want that. I don’t want my son to think school is bad and he shouldn’t ever go there. I had my son right before my final internship in elementary education and I realized I didn’t want to work at a school (admin, testing, I get overstimulated easily and really everything is so much work; mad respect to teacher always) so I decdiddd to finish my degree and I got online teaching jobs instead.

Fast forward to kindergarten through now and we’ve just kept homeschooling. But now I realize that maybe I am just not cut out for this any longer.
I want to work, and I’m lucky I can, but it’s hard to shake the feeling sometimes when I’m at the table with him. I don’t want him to feel like his mom is begrudgingly doing this. Or that I’m annoyed with him because I signed myself and him up to do this. He used to tell me he didn’t like school, but this year since using structured curriculum he does (beast academy math and science, history quest, and simplified writing are what I use 👍🏻)

We get to soccer and I can’t help but think how these kids have friends and they can run like normal kids. I know every kid is different; but it’s like you can tell mine doesn’t have that kid-movement about them if that makes sense! I know comparison is the thief of joy, but I just feel like I’m falling short and he needs more. At his age I already had several best friends (I moved around a lot). Again, I know it’s not fair to compare, especially because the world is so different than how it was.

I told my husband how nice it might be to drop him off and we work , can go for a walk ourselves, I get to miss him, etc. He is more invested this year and I know he’s excited to be doing this, especially as before we moved he was working 40-50 hour weeks and on weekends.

I feel like an asshole writing this all out, and I know I am so lucky to be in my position. But like, I feel tired being the manager of everything I want weekends back I think to not think about next weeks homeschooling schedule. Etc. To be fair, since starting my contract position my husband has stepped it up and taken on most of the household chores, cooking, getting groceries, everything. He really is awesome.

Okay, last thing. I told my husband how do we know we can continue to sustain this? What about when he graduates and gets a job? What if my contract work runs out and I have to find a replacement? We are digging ourselves out of debt, as last year we fell behind. I am the sole provider right now, and I make good money, but it’s like I feel I need to bank as much as I can too.

It’s so layered. I also am worried if I were to send him back, would he be behind? Ahead? Etc.

Thank you for reading. I’ve kept a lot of this inside til recently. This year we started eating meat again after 8 years. I took the plunge after having deep cravings and nostalgia, and I was burnt out from having to make all the vegan meats and cheese and stuff from scratch. I told my husband “remember how good we felt when we started eating meat again?”

I want to finish up this year, but I don’t know if I could make it til twelfth grade. Or sixth. Or next year. I was perusing on the homeschooling recovery group, but that did not make me feel better at all. I still think homeschooling rocks, but maybe this just isn’t the right fit for our family in this season.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated. ❤️

So we've homeschooled since kindergarten and had no real issues. Always did her work and most had fun with it. No complaints.

Now we hit 4th grade and this last 2 weeks have turned into a nightmare. Idk if its a spurt or what, but she is being so defiant about finishing any work. She keeps complaining it's boring and she doesn't want to do it.

So since she was complaining-- we tried doing a hybrid of sorts. Half work on Khan Academy and then half in workbook/hands on.

Worked for a few days and now back to refusing.

Tried all computer, tried all hands on. Tried having more breaks, more outdoor time, more social time to balance the work.

Nothing is working and im feeling very defeated right now. Not sure if it's the age/phase, if there is some other parents who went through a similar thing that can relate? Any constructive advice or input appreciated.