Advice needed

Hello,
I found this site while searching for homeschooling groups.

I am a new homeschooling mother - currently homeschooling my 10yr old (4th grader) and 12 yr old (6th grader). Until this year, they have always attended a public school. For a variety of reasons, we have chosen to homeschool and am very happy with the decision.
I also have a 2yr old and am expecting our 4th baby in Feb.

I am confident in the areas of Math (using MathUsee) and spelling (Spelling Power). I also feel somewhat comfortable in the area of Science (just using a variety of books/experiments that I have found).

But am really clueless as to where to start in other areas, such as history, geography and social studies.

I don't have alot of money to spend, being a SAHM, and that I invested in the math and spelling programs mentioned above.

I know I am getting a much late start, as its almost Nov and we've not done much other than math, spelling and science. But with all we had going on (just moved to a new community 2 months ago), and being new to homeschooling, I wanted to get established in those areas first.

Can anyone give me advice on where to start from here? How do I know what exactly my children need to be learning in those other areas? Is there a cheap way to teach them (I have access to many materials at the library, if only I knew what to look for).

Thanks for any and all advice.
Corina

Hi I'm also a SAHM. I'm in Virginia so I know things might be different with homeschool laws here. I'm very frugal when it comes to using my VERY eclectic methods for homeschooling.

If I'm in need of more materials geared towards books and worktexts, I start by looking on the state's department of education where they have the Standards of Learning for each subject by grade. If you dig deeper maybe in Google, you can find a state or county adopted list of materials for their curriculum ... that 's usually a list of books the state has found to have the acceptable content to meet the standards of learning taught to the public schools. I use these as a gauge if I really need a book to teach out of that kinda lays it all out for me. Then I'll exhaust searching the internet for the lowest price I can come up with for a book I need. Or, if I happen to dig up a course rundown, or scope-and-sequence of that book with a school's usage of that book... I then look for resources online that can give me that lesson.

If you have $10 a month you can spare, Cosmeo.com was a HUGE help. I unsubscribed because we needed every dime we could scrape together for the down payment on the house. I'd like to subscribe again some day. Their site has videos, step-by-step lessons (for math) you can search by subject, keyword, or look at an entire rundown of state standards and they will link to things on the site that teach the lessons. I mean phew! the amount of materials in that site is well worth the $10 I was paying and all five children were able to sign on and search a topic or keyword, turning up large amount of information and/or videos for their needs.

I find extra materials sometimes contained on the website of that publisher. Glencoe.com currently has a lot of sample pages and interactive extra practice on their webiste. I'm currently using Science Interactions but did not find a simple vocabulary book from their curriculum.
Harcourtschool.com is another good place for additional practice online ...
For example:
Harcourtschool.com


There's another one I use that has a huge collection of interactive learning materials coinciding with standards of learning:

Internet4classrooms.com

I could spend hours here. phew!

I've been leaning heavily on books this year due to a recent move and a lot of our materials and computers were packed up until a few months after we moved. I unpacked and set up one computer and used it to buy books from Amazon, Alibris, other miscellaneous second-hand sellers, and Ebay.

I haven't personally had an experience with transitioning from public to home education ... I'm sorry I can't give you more insight there. I can say from my ever-adapting methods of homeschooling, sometimes we do not study as heavily in History or Science as we do Math, Language Arts, or Vocabulary. It really varies and I have to keep in mind my memories of public school consist of repetition and "busy work" because there were 20 other children who had to learn the exact same thing. I compare that to when my children learn according to their individual interests and preferences. I gauge their progress and strengths/weaknesses with online interactive quizzes and available standards of learning tests given freely for download on the department of education website.

I hope it all works smoothly for you eventually even if at first there's more transitioning than structure. Sorry if I'm not much help.



-- Missy

currently with 5 learning at home
12(and a half! don't forget that half or I'm toast!) yrs, 10 yrs, 8 yrs, 7 yrs, and 6 yrs