Getting the Ball Rolling...

So let me give you a little bit of background on the entire story...

One day this past April my daughter had to take the new Common Core test in New York. And after just one day of it she said that nothing we studied the entire year was on the test mommy. She said it was like reading something fromm outter space! 

Now I should also say that I was not too keen on this new standardized test to begin with and then when she came home in tears that day just sent up all sorts or alarms buzzers and bright flashing lights that I needed to step in. But how? That was my main issue. How do I make sure my children get a good education?

Here is the thought process that I went through.

1. HOMESCHOOL

2.TUTOR

3.ONLINE

4. CALL THE TEACHER AND RIP HIM A NEW ONE

So I sat down and did a list of research and pros and cons of each and this was what i came up with.

1. Homeschool. I Need to learn the laws and how to do it for just about no money at all.

Now while all this common core testing was going on we were also in the process of moving from NY to CO. But that is an entire other story for a different time. So once we got unpacked and settled it was time to check out schools. And I was not a true fan of the local free public schools so homeschool research started.

2. Tutor... Yea money I dont have to spend right now. And for my son he needed to be more enriched. The poor child was bored to tears because he already knew what was being taught. So that was a no go. 2 tutors and supplies thanks but no thanks.

Now I am not going to sit here and dog on the Colorado school system because that would be wrong of me. We have never been in it. But one red flag that did pop up is that the district we live in is so small that all the kids from k-12 are bused. And in my personal opinion I do not think that little first graders should be with the highschoolers because well some kids are just mean and prey on the younger and weaker. So I was not even going to go down that route.

So I checked out the CO state laws for homeschooling and the are really lax in my opinion. But I am also coming from NY where things are not as easy. And there are a ton more hoops to jump through. Then I started to research how to set up a homeschool and the different types of homeschooling there is as to style of teaching. Then how to go about setting up my own curriculum for free or next to nothing. And i was having a hell of a time trying to just find an outline for free of what each grade needs to know and so on. 

3. Online there there are a plethora of online k-12 school but public and private both free to OMG you want home much money? But really other then the common core math, I do not have a problem with the curriculum of a public school. So I put that in the "lets do some more research" pile. 

4. I really do not think it was the teacher who was to blame in NY. Both my kids loved their teachers and so did I. So screaming at a poor teacher for just doing his job was so uncalled for.

So after gathering as much information as I could I came to the conclusion that it was either homeschool by the seat of my pants and try to stay above water or check out the free online public schools. 

I tried the homeschool without any real curriculum and used just goals I set up for the summer setting everything up everyday, and grading after they went to bed for me there was just too much prep with no real outline to follow. So I went to a bunch of online public schools and did research looked over the curriculum and really did my homework the best I could. And I learned a ton in the process. 

And this is what we are now doing.

K12 online public school. I have seen a ton of good reviews from teachers student and parent. I fell in love with their curriculum and my favorite part was being that my kids are in the grades 2 and 5. I will be doing most of the teaching. Yes they will still have an online part. But everything is set up for me. I no longer have to make the lesson plans, but at the same time the kids do not have to follow the 9 to 330 set up they did in NY for 5 days a week. We can do school in the evening one day is things are a bit crazy here. So there is that flexibility that I wanted. 

The next post will be on how I went about getting them set up in the enrollment process thus far.

Until next time this is the unpublic school adventure mom saying toodles!