Can you help me learn more about materials for homeschooling?

Question

I'm working on a group project for a Management class in Library Science, and our task is to spend 5% of our hypothetical budget on materials and resources for homeschooling kids. However none of us know anything about homeschooling, besides that many people do it because they don't want their kids to learn about evolution, so we have no idea where to start.

Do you homeschool your kids? If you do, do you use your local library? What for? What do you wish your library had or could do for you? Do you want books, electronic resources, or just meeting space? Do people homeschooling for religious reasons have different needs then those homeschooled for other reasons (lousey schools, etc).? We're open to any suggestions or any resources that could help us out.

Answer 1

First, meeting space is WONDERFUL. There are so many co-ops and activity groups, and seemingly never enough space.

Since you can't please everyone, go w/ some basics. You can really do homeschoolers a service by giving them the foundational tools. It's unreasonable to expect a library to carry an entire curicullum, and even if it did, it would be checked out by 1 person!

Get the fundamental tools and train your staff to point people in the right direction, that would be the most valuable.

You may already have these, but the E. D. Hirsch series "What Your nth Grader Needs to Know" is excellent. It's not religious so everyone can use them. It's a great place to point someone who comes in and asks, "Where do I start for home schooling?"

http://www.amazon.com/What-Second-Grader-Needs-Know/dp/038531843X

This book is a solid resource, and by the name it makes sense to have it on your shelf, "Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling"

http://www.home-school.com/catalog/pages/mpguide.php3

Videos: My wife uses tons of these to augment various subjects, history and science in particular. Most come from our public library.

"The Way Things Work" video series is pretty good, while fairly inoffensive.

You'll also find the Moody Science Videos to be excellent in content, although they have an overt religious tone
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find?Ntk=keywords&Ntt=MOODY+SCIENCE&action=Search&N=0&Ne=0&event=ESRCN&nav_search=1&cms=1&p=1018818

I'll have to get back to you on the history videos.

Another thing, there are historical fiction novels by G.A. Henty, which are very popular w/ home schoolers. They are well written and draw students (especially boys) into reading and they teach much history. It would be good to have those on your shelves, regardless of where the budget is earmarked.

Just thought of something else: Does your state require forms to be sent for homeschooling? A binder w/ current forms that can be photocopied would also be invaluable. Having the statutes and mailing addresses available would be good too.
And, since folks here provided you w/ some great web-sites, make sure those are bookmarked somewhere at a reference computer, and have photocopiable printout of those bookmarks available in the binder.

If you're talking periodicals, you can look below as well.

Answer 2

I homeschool my children because I feel the public school is letting trash be taught. No one should be able to push their agenda on anyone else. California did a dis-service to the country. But I first started to homeschool my children because there was more focus on English as a Second Language children than the advanced children. In fact there was no advance Kindergarten available. My son was reading at the age of 4.
What can the library do for homeschoolers? Have a meeting place available for large groups, look into some of the literature based programs we use (IE Sonlight, Five in a Row) and carry the books, offer book club for children with a weekly book discussions. That is just off the top of my head. I am using Five in a Row and my library has hardly any of the books I need.

Answer 3

Hi.
I think you should evaluate the grade level needs of the homeschoolers. At the elementary level, readers and basic workbooks are the greatest need. ABEKA is an excellent curriculum. For middle school, Electronic access is needed, along with a selection of neutral subjects, ie: mathematics, foreign language. For high school, the same needs and additionally, test prep matierials for SAT,ACT, etc. It should be noted that homeschoolers DO teach evolution, but it is properly presented as a THEORY. Apologia science has Chemistry, Physics and Biology that present a creationist view on natural sciences. Our children were homeschooled their entire lives, and the local library was a tremendously helpful resource. Some people do practice un-schooling, or free style learning, so I am not sure how their needs would be different. Check HSLDA.ORG, or google homeschool resources, you may be surprised how much is out there. You could see if the local area has a support group, and contact them for some type of needs analysis.

Answer 4

First of all, let me begin by saying that most homeschoolers do not hide their children from evolutionary teaching, but rather, desire to have them interpret our world from a Biblical worldview. Let me give an example. Suppose we observe the fact that all vertebrates have similar skeletal structure. The evolutionary viewpoint would assume that these vertebrates are all interelated and evolved from oneanother because of these similarities. In contrast, the Biblical worldview would ascribe to the fact that the similarities in nature attest to the fact that we have one Creator.

Sorry, I am rather off topic. To answer your question, most homeschoolers would use a lot of material that would be used in any other public or private school. So a portion of the budget could be spent just as you would spend money for other educational material. However, materials dealing with methods of teaching, learning science at home, etc. might be useful.
Additionally, having a homeschoolers day in which various speakers in literature, science, and history come to the library could prove to be a valuable resource to the homeschooling community. Electronic material such as foreign languages for children and mathematical programs that encourage children to learn while playing a game might also be useful.

Textbooks with a Christian perspective might also prove useful. There are thousands of textbooks available today that teach from a biblical worldview (example Answers in Genesis Books, material on the Founding Fathers from a Christian perspective---David Barton, etc.). For more information on homeschooling textbooks, I suggest you go to www.visionforum.org or abekabook.com. Also, consider looking at Timberdoodle.com or Rainbow Resource Center.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

My children *homeschool* themselves!

They do sometimes use the local library for resource material. The home-school section was recently "reduced" by those that objected to any christian content. It would be good to see a better selection of books: classics from the early 1900's, historical fiction by G.A.Henty -- the entire set would be nice to see, autobiographies of prominent people in history.

The library already has electronic resources --- but we use our home computer for most of our needs on the Internet. Many groups in our area do use the library for co-op meetings, and for support group meetings.

Needs depend largely on wants. Home-schooling in my house consists of the basics. Math, writing and reading is the foundation of all learning.

Be sure and go to Brian Ray's website: http://www.nheri.org
He is a prominent research specialist. The site is the National Home Education Research Institute. The statistics and truth about home-schooling is phenomenal!

My original reasons for home-schooling have changed with the years. At first it was due to the poor quality of material in our schools, and the shabby state of moral behavior. There were many reasons --- one being the "dumbing down" of material that I learned while I was a public school student. In the years that have passed (18+) during our home-school process I have learned that I home-school my kids just because it is the right thing to do for them. I do it because I have seen them learn at an awesome rate.

I do it because it works.

They have always been successful with tests --- they score at least 2 grade levels above the one they have studied at the time.

My children have been their own best teachers for the past 8+ years. They use a self-teaching program called the Robinson Curriculum.

My 2 graduates are doing very well. One has a great job and supports his wife and 3 chidlren. The other is in college and is an 'A' student. My 2 home students are in 10th and 12th grade. They know how to think. They are good writers, excellent readers and mathematicians. Their math scores are never below 95% accuracy and often at 100% every day. They teach themselves through Algebra with very minimal help.

You will find great information at:
http://www.hslda.org
http://www.oceanetwork.org
http://www.home-school.org
http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com

Let us know how your project turns out!!!

Answer 6

Our reason for homeschooling is not so much "lousy" public schools as it is that we can tailor our kids education to their needs and interests (my older son is gifted). The fact that we can include religion in our homeschooling is an added bonus, as we were already covering it before we started homeschooling.

Our library has fairly decent resources, as far as homeschooling is concerned. We can find books about most of the major players/events in history and science at kids' levels. What I'd like to see more of is the minors (lesser known people/events) written at children's levels. Fortunately, my older son is able to read adult level books on most anything, but they are not always written in such a way as to interest an 11 yo.

The other thing I'd like to see is more recent homeschooling "guides" - the reference works our library has are at least 10 years old and, with the expansive growth of homeschooling in the last several years, are completely useless. I'm talking about things like curriculum reviews and guides.

One of the best resources for homeschooling materials (both about hs'ing and for hs'ing) is Rainbow Resource Center (their website is listed in sources). They have a 1000+ page catalog with just about everything a homeschooler could need.

If you need more specifics or have further questions, please feel free to email me.

Answer 7

Check out the abeca curriculum. It is the best one out there that home schoolers use. Well for christian based homeschooling. I was going to homeschool when we couldn't afford to spend $12,000 a year for our 3 children to go to a christian school anymore. But, I prayed about it and had to have faith that I was the one to teach my children right from wrong. Now that being said, we have encountered some horrible things in public schools so far. I am now thinking of a way to afford private again. But my problem is I will not send my children to catholic school which is very affordable. Bible believing christian schools are far more expensive and the cirriculum is far more advanced. My twin 9 year olds were reading at a high 2nd grade level and writing in cursive and very polite and mature when they came out of kindergarten from a christian school. Now they are like every other child in public school. I shouldn't say that, they are advanced readers and are still very polite, but not how they were. Public schools are like the dumbing down of america and also allow such activities to go on that is unacceptable. My one daughters teacher put on very innapproriate music in class the other day. Music not meant for childrens ears, rap. My children go to a very good public school in the suburbs, and still they are subject to this nonsense. That is why people choose to homeschool mainly. We want our little ones to have the best. I hope you put this informatio to work for you in your project. Goodluck.

Answer 8

No i get my mom homeschools me, but i can still help answer your questions. Yes we use are local library to borrow movies, and sometimes borrow books to get more information on are reports. i wish it had like days where we could just go in and have like art classes and stuff... meeting space is fine for me.. My parents don't homeschool me for religous resons, it's because my parents don't want to send us to a public school, and theprivate schools are sooo excpensive, so we went with homeschooling. It is free, and i love it!

Answer 9

While our family is Catholic, we teach evolution in our science classes, as our faith does not believe that the Bible precludes the possibility of evolution. :)

We do not use the local library, simply because I do not drive, so getting there would be a pain. Instead, we go to thrift stores when my husband can drive me, and used book stores. Garage sales, Wal-Mart, etc. Also, being avid readers we have hundreds of books in the house as it is, including two encyclopediae.

We make a lot of our own art supplies, like clay-dough, paints, etc, and purchase construction paper, crayons, markers and suchlike at the dollar store. Another respondent mentioned Rainbow Resources, and they're great. Also http://www.oriental.com for inexpensive craft kits/supplies. We adore our microscope and telescope, both of which came from the Discovery store and are extremely useful and fun tools.

We use the computer a LOT, both software programs and website research. The internet is one tool we absolutely could not live without, there are many excellent sites for literature, science, history and so forth out there. I build about 75% of my curriculum around things that I find on the web. The other 25% is workbooks from Barnes and Noble and reading in regular books.

Our reason for homeschooling is that our three boys all have severe ADHD and mild to moderate Asperger's Syndrome, and they were doing very badly in school from a social/emotional standpoint. They were tortured by the other kids and invariable came home crying or beaten up. They are thriving at home and finally have friends who accept them for who they are.

Answer 10

We homeschool. We use our library for books and DVDs. I wish our library would allow us to advertise for a homeschoolers meeting group. Our library is plentiful in everything we have needed so far. If my local one doesn't have it, another one is likely to, and they transfer them back and forth. I love that.

We don't homeschool for religious reasons, and I have no qualms about my kids learning evolution. In fact, I WANT them to learn a balanced view of evolution AND creationism.

That's the problem with many schools. A student doesn't get a balanced view, they only get one side of the story and only if it's PC.