General Requirements For Homeschooling Your Children

I often hear, "I've thought about homeschooling my children, but"

• I'm not a teacher. I don't know how to educate children.
• I don't know what to teach my child. What if I miss something and my kid has a gaping hole in knowledge?
• I'm really good with English and History, but I can't imagine teaching Algebra.
• I don't know what the laws are regarding homeschooling.

While all these concerns are valid, you can easily overcome them with a little research.

Homeschooling laws

The laws regarding homeschooling differ from state to state, and you need to follow the rules of the state you are in physically. Some states have easier rules than other states. In Colorado, where I live, the rules boil down to schooling for a certain amount of hours and keeping records of that, sending a letter to your school district notifying them you are homeschooling, and having your child take a nationally recognized standardized test at the end of the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grades and the child must pass the test at or above the 13th percentile.

Look for your state's specific laws regarding homeschooling. I like about.com's resources for this, because it has a link for each state to the full text of the law if available, a summary of the law by the Home School Legal Defense Association, and other useful links.

What should you teach your child?

As a rule of thumb, you should teach your child at least reading, writing, math, science, history, civics, art, and music. Few people are adept at all these topics, but that's okay. You can buy fully developed curricula that walk you and your child through the educational process. If you don't want to buy a curriculum, you can design your own. You can make sure you don't forget any major topic by following standards, which pretty much state everything you need to teach.

How do you teach a child?

You don't need to be a certified teacher to teach a child. What you need to be is patient, kind, and understanding. That doesn't mean you need to be perfect. You just need to be aware. Learn to deal with your frustrations yourself and not let your child experience them, because your child will have his own frustration.

Most people don't have any problems teaching the early grades. Some people start to have problems when their kids hit advanced math and science. Remember that you don't have to teach your children everything. You do need to facilitate ate their education though. So, if you need help with a topic, consider these options:

• A local community college
• Ask for the help of someone in that field. Offer a trade.
• Homeschooling cooperatives
• Tutoring

By Gwen Nicodemus
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6177279

What A Kid Wants From School

A kid’s world is a different world all together. A world where homework doesn’t exist, games and toys are abundant, colours are rampant and there is no end to the imaginations right from blue foxes to yellow elephants. A make believe world that keeps these kids so glued to the TV set and Play stations. A school recently conducted an opinion poll on what children wanted from school and discovered some startling responses from children randomly selected from different age groups.

The children felt happy to be a part of the opinion poll and felt happy to be questioned. Infact some even wrote out their answers and memorized them to answer when their turn came. One child didn’t feel like going to school everyday and felt school shouldn’t be everyday. A 12 year old said should display work well done by a student open for comments. Yesufu,in senior school was part of the school parliament in his school and enjoyed being a part of it.

He felt every school should have a system to voice student concerns. Benjamin liked the fact that his school encouraged his projects than look at his academic scores. This had even made his mother happy with him. Meira felt uniforms were such a waste. Pursuing a specialization in class ten, Meira wants to be a designer and feels uniforms could be given a more modern look, retaining the colour combination but introducing with customized changes to suit a student’s style. Michael added to say uniforms shouldn’t be made compulsory if a student didn’t want to. Shyla in class 5 said, children should choose the subjects that will make them what they want to be from start.

Mohan in class 8 felt the canteen food was lousy and schools must change with the taste of the generation. A diverse range of opinions, the school opinion poll was an eye-opener for the management who thought their students were happy with the way things were. As providing education to all has become the priority over the recent years, OSA is India’s leading portal for school admissions to schools in the city of your choice. We provide accurate information about all the schools in Mumbai. You could also check from our List Of Schools In Chennai on our portal that would help you to take an informed decision while choosing a school in India.


by: Deepak kumar - http://www.onlineschooladmissions.com

How Taking Online Education Courses Can Assist Your Career Search

If you are doing a career search on the Internet, you will come across thousands of websites that can help you select a good career. Before you look at a career, you need to first get the training and skills for the job that you are looking for. If you are looking at education at a campus, you will have to go personally to the college or university to get the application forms.

After enrolling for the specific course or courses, you will have to attend classes and then give examinations to qualify for degrees or diplomas. The traditional way of learning is still preferred these days; however, non availability of qualified trainers, lack of infrastructure, and other factors makes the classroom training a bit difficult.

Traditional Learning Vs Online Learning

To counter the problems of traditional classroom training, e-learning was introduced. Most online courses these days are going the e-learning way. You can now stay at home and still attend classes and get your doubts cleared. Online education has taken a giant leap—thanks to the Internet. Online e-learning courses have a definite syllabus and they are similar to the traditional courses.

Online e-learning courses can be taken by working professionals as well. Working professionals can take the online e-learning courses and study from anywhere. When you have enrolled for an online e-learning course, you will see that you can set your own hours. In other words, the online e-learning courses are self paced. Online e-learning courses are designed to fit around your schedule. If you are working from home and you have a kid to take care of, you can explore the various online e-learning courses and gain a cutting edge over competition.

One thing that you need to be aware of online e-learning courses is that there is no face-to-face interaction with the instructor. You will be using the internet for all your communications. So, before you enroll for any online e-learning course, you need to make arrangements for a broadband Internet connection. The faster the speed of the internet, the better will be the learning experience. If you have some doubts during the online learning courses, you will have to send an e-mail to the instructor and then wait for the instructor to reply to your e-mail.

When you make a job search, you will see that there are companies that are accepting online education degrees or diplomas. So, if you are doing a career search on the Internet, you can also check out options for online e-learning courses. You need to make the best of the opportunities that are available these days.

Technology is being used to improve the quality of education and it has taken learning to a higher level. Both online degree programs and traditional university degrees have their pros and cons. It is important that you understand the advantages and disadvantages of each learning program categories and then opt for the one that suits your requirement.

By and large, it is seen that online e-learning programs are very convenient and you can find them easily. There are many colleges and universities that are offering traditional university degrees along with online courses—keep this in mind when doing a career search.


by: Amy Puryear -- http://www.searchbydegree.com.