Homeschooling has always been on the horizon for us. Alan has ADHD and is bright, David has ADD and is bright. The ADD part makes it difficult for them to excel in a standard classroom setting. Alan would love to do chemistry but that won't happen until grade 6 or 7. David devours books and just turned down participation in a reading comprehension program geared towards grades 3 through 5 that his older brother worked through. In his words, "I saw Alan do it and it's too easy." Well, okay, I can see that. On the other hand, Alan's spelling isn't so great and while David is a lot better, he's not A-material, either. So they would both benefit from a tailored program that encourages their strengths while working on some basics. Not something your common garden variety school can offer.
Now we have this new job (well, Doug has this new job) in Moldova. I will probably write a blog post about the intricacies of working for the US government as a contractor but for the sake of brevity let's just say that we probably won't get paid for our kids' schooling. International schools are usually expensive, and QSI is no exception. Schooling for the boys for the last three months of this school year would be around $17,000. Is QSI Moldova good enough for us to spend this kind of money out of our own pockets? I don't know.
I would prefer the boys to go to school for one very important reason: social integration. Is this worth this kind of money? I also don't know.
The project runs out on September, 30. That's six weeks of school in the new school year. Doug and I had decided to homeschool that stretch - it seemed like the right thing to do. The kids would have friends already in place, and since one has to pay entire terms, this time the school would cost $17,000 for only six weeks. We thought we couldn't justify that to the average tax payer (who ultimately would have to pay for this).
Now that the tax payer might be completely off the hook, we may have to homeschool a bit earlier than that.
Let's put away the reasons and talk about curricula. This is what I think will work for us:
I quite like The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. It makes a lot of sense to me but like so many other approaches, it is rather restricted in its assumptions. "We are the only ones who do it right" seems, um, rather exclusive. We are not going to do the Latin (many may disagree but I don't know Latin and Doug thinks it's silly to do). I love the concept of memorizing poems, though, and the Writing with Ease program seems great. So, those combined for Language Arts, I think.
All About Spelling is a program that received rave reviews and we ordered it and will try it. My bad spellers might just benefit from that.
Handwriting without Tears may be good for my boys who hate handwriting.
History and Literature. Doug's a history nerd and we are both avid readers, so we agree that this is an important part of an education. We both like Sonlight's literature-based approach. Now, we aren't Christians, so we are going to pick and choose carefully but basically we'll do the Core 3/4 for David and Alan (American History) and the K program for Jacob (World Cultures).
Jacob is learning to read with Headsprout just like the older boys. He's already at lesson 18 and can read simple words.
Next, science. Sonlight has a science program for 3/4 that is intriguing at first glance but it does have a distinct religious slant upon further investigation. No small wonder when I discovered it is by Apologia Press. Among other things it includes a DVD titled "Incredible creatures that defy evolution" - giraffes and platypuses, for instance. Um, no, rather not. The science program for K is very fast-paced and challenging, though. I am considering it. There is a three-week instructor's guide download and it includes the worksheets.
For Alan and David, I looked around quite a bit and found the R.E.A.L. science odyssey. I like the approach with worksheets and hands-on activities, and Pandia Press offers an e-book which would be great for us. No shipping costs! They also offer a trial version which includes 9 lessons and 7 labs which we will try this week.
Language? Not sure about that one. We will continue German reading with the boys (and the girl, of course). I'd like to add Spanish to the mix but maybe that's overly ambitious.
And piano lessons. Only, we don't have a piano. Should we buy an e-piano? Depends on what happens with the move. Which is a whole 'nother story.
I know nothing about homeschooling, but agree that it probably makes sense in this set of circumstances. Will the boys have any problems getting back into a German school when you return, esp with the official German attitude towards homeschooling?
Posted by: Christine | February 28, 2011 at 01:54 PM
Christine, we don't plan to put them back into German school. Otherwise, I'd use the long-distance course that is standard for all Germans overseas. We have some leads, some possibilities, some ideas.
Posted by: claudia | February 28, 2011 at 02:27 PM
Ah I understand. Can you do that if you return to Germany? I thought that homeschooling was not allowed there?
Posted by: Christine | February 28, 2011 at 10:23 PM