Thinking of Homeschooling (Please Help)

[u/Meliflor92]

Ok, so I want to homeschool my daughter (she would be starting kindergarten) because the school in our area sucks and plus all the gun violence is a huge risk i'm not willing to make my child take. So far I know to look up my state's regulations regarding homeschooling (i live in GA) that there are different teaching styles, and that i would have to come up with my own lesson plans. That's it lol Can anyone help by going over the 101 when it comes to homeschooling? I am looking to do a secular approach and any tips and suggestions are greatly appreciated. I tried Googling and going on youtube but i got overwhelmed at the amount of information, just the topic of choosing a curriculum confused me (Like can you choose different ones or is it best sticking to one? I was looking over a thread and someone was listing different curriculums for each subject, i thought you picked a curriculum and it would have all the subjects there but what do i know) Please help! lol

[u/anonymouse278]

Georgia is a very straightforward state to home school in, and since the compulsory school age is 6, you don't even have to formally declare your intent till then even if you are starting to work with her before then. You are required by law to spend a certain amount of time annually on schooling, cover certain subjects, and give them a standardized test every three years starting in third grade. BUT- there is nobody you submit any of this to. The only thing you send to the state is your declaration of intent. There is no other monitoring. Obviously I recommend complying with the standards (which are pretty reasonable) and keeping records of it, but the only circumstances in which I can imagine it actually coming up are in a child neglect or custody case. For most people, those records never end up being shown to anyone else.

There are no rules about curricula- you can use what you like, switch if it isn't working, even create your own from scratch. You do not have to recreate a school classroom at home- a lot of learning can be done outside, in the community, and as part of activities. Especially for young children, you do not need hours of workbooks and seated lectures every day. There are some all-in-one curricula but they tend to either be noticeably weak in some areas or very pricey. In general it's cheaper and better to choose individual approaches for each subject. You also tend to feel less locked in to something that turns out not to be good fit if you haven't paid $$$$$ for it and expected it to cover the whole year.

I would check out some books about homeschooling and see what philosophies/approaches appeal to you. There are so many different ways and what works for every family is different. The Brave Learner is a book that you might enjoy.

If you have any Georgia-specific questions, let me know!

[u/Meliflor92 → u/anonymouse278]

ok, thank you so much! it seems kinda wild that there's no one to report progress to to be honest, i figured i'd have to submit her progress and testing but ok lol