Flick and I are considering homeschooling our 12 year old, slighty disabled daughter. We will not be starting until Jan next year and at this stahe have not even applied for the exemption.

We think we have found a suitable programme, but feel it lacks a little in some areas, so will need to be supplemented a bit.
I was wondering if others who homeschool could give us some links to sites that may help.

Hi, there are huge amounts of resources available out there, I have a lot of links but mainly aimed at younger children since my oldest is only 5. I will search through and get back posting what I can though.

A good book I read is The First Year of Homeschooling your Child which talks about different methods and reasons for homeschooling in a really nice easy way.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Homes...mp;s=books&qid=1241694239&sr=8-1

Are you looking more for sites that you can use with her to learn or sites for you to find ideas/resources/support?

Hi Lil,

Homeschooling has been an awesome journey for our family. We have homeschooled since our oldest was school age. He is now 19 and has almost 3 years of college behind him.

My other children are now ages 8, 10, almost 13, and 15. I love teaching "out of the box" and focusing on creating an environment where learning is always happening...when we cook, when we shop, when we read, when we play.

I've tried many of the different approaches (classical, eclectic, unit studies, etc.) Here's a link that will explain the different approaches:


Homeschool Approaches


I suggest you make a list of your goals. For example, some of our goals we wrote down years ago included:

• Love and fear the Lord
• Grow in character pleasing to God
• Learn and understand truth and reject false teachings
• Love learning and desire wisdom (create an environment where the kids would love the learning process)

Then I thought about HOW to achieve those goals. Then I looked for materials that would aid me in achieving those goals.

I would start there and get an understanding of all the great options you have in approaching this endeavor. Think about what fits you as much as what fits your DD. Then look for curriculum that will match up with that.

Read through that link, and then post your thoughts and questions back to me.

I can help you best if I know what direction you would like to take. The great thing about homeschooling is how freeing it is to learning. The environment created in a school is not the most conducive to learning. But you can create a home where learning abounds.

Also, what learning challenges does your DD have?

Another site I suggest you visit is HSLDA Homeschool Legal Defense Association has a vast amount of information about homeschooling around the world.

Did I mention that I am passionate about helping moms get started with homeschooling?

Or maybe you could tell that already.

Here's a link to Cathy Duffy's reviews of curriculum. She has been around a long time and her reviews are well-respected by homeschoolers.

Cathy Duffy Reviews

Does your DD read well and enjoy it?

Does she like to do hands-on projects?

Do you know her learning style? If not, check this Learning Styles out. They even have an online test, which can at least give you some direction.


There are programs that are literature focused (study several subjects using great literature). Some programs are heavy in hands-on projects. Some are video based, and others are computer based. There is so much to choose from. However, I'm not sure what all would be available to your location.

Here's a link to an awesome magazine:

The Old Schoolhouse


Their website has some great information, too. They also have an online store.

I just found this website and looked over it briefly. It looks like it has some useful articles there.

Home School Curriculum Advisor

Thanks guys, sorry its taken me a bit to come back to this, busy few days.

I have found a programme (ACE) Christian based. It seems ok, simple enough, but a little heavy on God and a bit light on Academics. I am Christian, and DD12 is pretty much the only person I believe has a pass straight to heaven in our house

She was doing very well at school until a couple of years ago. She has slipped in all subjects, even in reading which previously she excelled at. She is totally crap at math (as am I)but we are fortunate that my strength lays in English, and Flicks strength lays in Mathmatics so we believe we can both help her.

We think we will focus more in gaining her 'real world' skills as her mental agility essentially will prevent her from a career requiring a high education, but we do want her to read, write, add and subtract which currently she is not all that great at. She is also somewhat physically limited in outdoor activities, but can swim sort of. We plan on doing several bushwalks/tramping camping events.

I know she is not going to become a doctor or a lawyer, and even her current desire of becoming a librarian may be not for her. I just want her to stop getting picked on at school, and to develop confidence in what she does know, and her ability to learn more.

I am entitled to some teacher aid, and specal services are looking at how they can help. I think it should be ok, its just a very new step for Flick and I , and since we are starting her at secondary school level, we are a bit concerned that we will provide 'enought' KWIM??

A bit of both? Just want to supplement the programme a bit.
For example, we asked them to send a few of the workbooks so we could ahve a look at them. The astronomy booklet talked ALOT about how God is the creator (which we agree with), but apeart from stating the planet names and and a few exercises using the information for spelling words, the rest of the booklet seemed to be about memory verses. No info on planet statistics, who discovered them or anything I felt should be relevant to a 13 year old student. It seemed 'dumbed down'

So our thought is to use the ACE booklets to fill the requirements the govt need, and then add to them with the info she would learn if she was at public school.

I think a combination of unit, relaxed, unschooling is going to be best. Hopefully ACE will provide the unit, and we can provide the rest

It is hard to describe DD12 as she has no diagnosis. We know what she isnt after 12 years of testing, but that is not so helpful. To summerise it, she is what we called 'slow' when we were at school. She is disabled enough that her peers torment her, and not disabled enough to not notice its happening. She fixates on things. when she was little everything, and I do mean everything had to be teletubbies. Since then we have progressed to blues clues, wriggles, fairy house, harry potter, wishing chair, and now are stuck in a Twilight/Robert Patternson loop.

On occasion she will fixate on something else. Right now that is germany and all things german. It is a nice change from 8 months of the sound of music.
By fixate, read obsession. It will make up 80% of her conversation. Conversation is her top EN. Even her class mates have asked her if she ever shuts up.

So, right now we have all the twilight books, the movie, some books on Robert patterson, requests for the lyrics of songs from the movie, requests for the sound track, posters, script dialog, today was apparently RP birthday so we have to watch the movie to celebrate it....
Combined with the diary of anne frank, a book on germany, a german/english dictionary, constant chats about hitler, WW2, web searches, sound of music soundtrack (although it is slowly going away ) and a bit more Hitler
and yes, we say no, or please change the sugject, it only works a short time. She has a strong obsessive/compulsive streak.

Sorry it took me a while to reply too, I was away on holiday for 10 days.

I haven't really used any of these with my daughter yet as she's too young although we do read the kidsknowit site together sometimes. I'll keep looking through my links.

http://www.mathplayground.com/

http://www.mathletics.com/

http://www.kidsknowit.com/

http://www.aquila.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_6th_original.htm

Thanks Rosy,
I have looked at some of them, just waiting for Flick to come sit with me too look at the rest

Lil,

I googled "homeschooling special needs" and got a lot of links. Here is one I thought might help, and it has other links:

10 tips-- special needs

Hyperfocus

Thats it exactly! Thanks Chyrs

You are welcome....

Lil, it sounds like your DD would really enjoy a unit study approach. In fact, it appears she's been doing them on her own already from what you've described. LOL!

You might want to read a bit about them and see what you think.

We've tried several different approaches, but unit studies are our favorite. We did lighthouses this past winter. We studied the science of light, history of lighthouse technology, lighthouse architecture, lighthouses in North America, reasons for lighthouses, etc. We read and studied literature and poetry about lighthouses, and looked up and memorized Bible verses about light. Each of the boys designed and built their own functional lighthouse from a battery, wire, lightbulb, PVC or styrofoam, black or red electrical tape, baby food jar, and whatever else they could think of. We are considering taking a trip to visit a lighthouse sometime soon, too.

We just started a bird unit last week; and wouldn't you know, a hawk decided to build her nest in our yard. So everyday we go out with the binoculars and watch baby and mama.

With the hyperfocus you are talking about, she could get a great deal out of a few unit studies a year.

As we progress through a unit, we design either a scrapbook/notebook or a lapbook to record our work. Then the kids end up with a portfolio/study tool that then enjoy looking through often. If you do a search for lapbooks, you'll find all kinds of pictures. They are awesome!

This is the group we are going to use ACE It covers all the NZ govt requirements and seems simple enough for us. The idea is the 3 of us will spend the first year or so doing ACE so as to get used to the concept of homeschooling, and then revisit it.
Alot of the parents we have talked to said it took a few months for their kids to settle into homeschooling if they had been publically school, and the older they were the harder it was. DD12 will be 13 when we start this.

Because of the simplistic style of ACE we think that once DD12 has worked through each booklet, we can do the 'other stuff' which will essentially give her the more in depth stuff she needs. After a year we will review it and decide whether to carry on with ACE or just go entirely 'other stuff'.

One woman I spoke to said she did ACE for a year and ended up dropping it because she felt she wasnt as involved in the schooling as she wanted to be and like us, wanted more life skills as part of the curriculum for her son who really didnt like the book work at all. She just kept the math and english componant.
Another friend did ACE for 6 months, then bought another package entirely, american based (can't remember what its called) Yet another friend has used ACE for 5 years and it suits her family.

We think we will be ok, a little trepidatious LOL. The main issues we have identified that might be of concern is:
we already get respite care for DD12, and she spends several hours a day at school, will we cope with the addtional time with her?
Impact on our UA time
Impact of ability to spur of the moment going out decisions
Impact on work commitments
and believe it or not, impact on SF, we do not want this decision to stop/hinder our marital recovery

We have made contact with special services and someone is going to come out and talk to us about what assistance is available to us, and what extra resorces there are. There may even be additional respite care thru them. They will also (hopefully) be able to put us in touch with other local parents of special needs kids. We havent bothered so much about it in the past but because of this and a couple of other things we want to talk to others who have 'gone before us' and find out what they did.

Despite all of that we do think we should manage

<---- well there wasn't a fingers crossed icon

Ok, I am starting the exemption process and its a bit more effort than i thought LOL. I was wondering if those who homeschool could give me some pointers for an essay I have to write. I need to convince the powers that be that Flick and I can and will provide social contact for DD13. so far I have mentioned sunday school, youth group, holiday camps, and the fact that my BFF homeschools her 4 kids and DD13 has alot to do with them. I am just a bit lost at what else I could say.