NOTE 1: Before hooking up with any individual/organization, be sure to vet them for Anti-MAGA Lefist agenda. AVOID ANYTHING RELATED TO "SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING & "DEI" (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) -- it's coded language for CRT and SEXUAL PERVERSION
NOTE 2: Beware of overly-commercialized homeschool resource purveyors. Some folks are into this just for the money.
NOTE 3: Don't try to do this alone. Find other like-minded parents and join together. Know your state / local law, join a homeschool association and local / SM groups that support your values.
......................
Search for Links to prior posts of this list--the parent comments/suggestions in the threads are pure gold
https://patriots.win/search?params=HOMESCHOOL+%2F+CO-OP&community=TheDonald
https://greatawakening.win/search?params=HOMESCHOOL+%2F+CO-OP&community=GreatAwakening
List of The States Where Government Schools Can’t Kids To Wear A Mask
........................
PUBLIC ENEMIES LIST: 15 LARGEST TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN THE UNITED STATES (Zippia Career Blog)
..................
Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
HSLDA’s leaders, directors, and employees are Christians who seek to honor God by providing the very highest levels of service in defending homeschool freedom and equipping homeschoolers.
How to Get Started (Interactive Explainer): https://hslda.org/get-started
Homeschool Laws by State (interactive map): https://hslda.org/legal
List of other homeschool organizations (each State has them): https://hslda.org/content/orgs/
.......................................
FIND HOMESCHOOL GROUPS NEAR ME -- US, CANADA, PUERTO RICO: https://www.homeschool.com/supportgroups
.......................................
The Homeschool Mom: 20 years of Helping Homeschoolers (includes job resources for homeschool moms)
https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com
Hillsdale College
K-12 at Home: An American Classical Education: https://k12athome.hillsdale.edu
...............
GAB Homeschooling Group
National Home School Association (NHSA, appears to be membership/dues-based)
https://nationalhomeschoolassociation.com
We are a dedicated team of seasoned homeschoolers that are determined to maintain the NHSA's position as the epicenter of the home schooling movement.
Terra Scholar - A Complete Handbook for Today’s Homeschooler E-book
https://nationalhomeschoolassociation.com/terra-scholar-homeschool-ebook.php
What are Homeschool Pods and Co-Ops? (explainer)
https://www.homeschoolingsc.org/resources-page/homeschool-associations/
Other Resources, Activities, and Curriculum available on site.
.....................
Conservative Home School Programs (list/links)
https://www.best-schools.info/conservative-home-school-programs
Christian Homeschooling Association (CHA)
[Not sure about this group. Their website seems a bit thin.]
.................
What is a School Pod ? (How to form and manage)
.................
Duck search results for "homeschool pods and co-ops"
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=homeschool+pods+co-ops
............................
National School Choice Week (NSCW)
About:
National School Choice Week is a not-for-profit effort to raise awareness of effective K–12 education options for children. We focus equally on traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online schools, and homeschools.
By researching and developing comprehensive and unbiased web-based resources, we work year-round to help parents better understand their school choice options and navigate the process of finding schools or learning environments that best meet their children’s needs.
..................
Ed Choice
School choice allows public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs —whether that’s to a public school, private school, charter school, home school or any other learning environment families choose. Watch this video to see how an educational choice system works.
...............
Reddit Homeschool Groups
https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=homeschool
NOTE 1: Vet these very carefully. Lots of lefties.
NOTE 2: Also search Reddit for specific State / Christian / faith-based homeschool subs.
Example -- Arkansas
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArkansasHomeschoolers/
..................
FakeBook Homeschool Groups
https://www.facebook.com/search/groups/?q=homeschool
NOTE 1: Vet these very carefully. Lots of lefties.
NOTE 2: Also search FB for specific State / Christian / faith-based homeschool subs.
Links to Duck search results pages for various Homeschool topics (offered temporarily for lack of fully-vetted resources)
State Homeschool Associations
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=state+homeschool+association
How to Homeschool
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22how+to+homeschool%22
Homeschool Basics
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22homeschool+basics%22
Homeschool Resources
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=homeschool+resources&t=h_&ia=web
..................
Indiana Association of Home Educators https://iahe.net/
"I highly recommend researching the classical model, which I will gladly make a post on if there's an interest. Currently working on a Master's in such."
"My family utilizes a curriculum which provides the opportunity to meet weekly with other families in community. There's accountability, the chance for kids to interact with friends, cohorts of students, like-minded parents who offer encouragement, and amazing support from the curriculum company itself."
..................
This was my first stepping stone: Texas Home School Coalition
Info on how to withdraw from public school. In Texas, it’s pretty easy.
https://thsc.org/sending-a-withdrawal-email/
How to choose the right curriculum for your child: https://thsc.org/homeschool-curriculum/
..................
Homeschool Buyers Co-Op for curriculum choices. Free to join, lots of great deals!
https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org
.................
https://www.rainbowresource.com/
Has every curriculum under the sun and then some more! It was a great place to buy homeschool books. Good luck I homeschooled both my kids and they are happy and successful today without going to college by the way! One is a self-taught gaming coding engineer and the other runs her own full time home based bakery business at the age of 19. Don't give up and persevere with the help of God!
......................
BetterWorldBooks
Great source for older / out of print Textbooks.
https://www.betterworldbooks.com
Khan Academy
NOTE: The Math and Science resources are untainted, but check other materials for CRT and other SJW propaganda just in case.
.....................
Ron Paul Curriculum
https://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com
"Absolutely the best CONTENT I have seen anywhere for subjects of Literature and History. My 4th grader loves it and is learning things I didn't know about until college and beyond. PhD level professors teaching in prerecorded course (180 lessons per subject per semester). Also have courses in science, math, etc and adult courses. By 4th grade students can work almost entirely independently with the curriculum (but you'll want to learn it too!) which is a big help especially for families with multiple kids."
.................
ABEKA (Christian Homeschooling Program)
https://www.abeka.com/homeschool
About:
In 1954, Dr. Arlin Horton and his wife, Beka, started a Christian school in Pensacola, Florida. But they soon discovered a problem. Textbooks and curriculum based on biblical educational philosophy were starting to disappear. Burdened to give their students the best education possible, they stood in the gap and began producing their own materials.
.......................
Catholic Homeschool Community
https://www.catholichomeschoolcommunity.com
Join with over 7300+ fellow Catholic homeschoolers, from around the globe. We are better together as we confidently learn to homeschool with JOY, as we prepare to launch our children with their unique mission to serve Him in this world. This community is for you, the homeschool parent. A place to thrive. while educating at home and balancing a beautiful home life!
Seton Home Study School (Catholic)
Seton Home Study School is a nationally accredited, faithfully Catholic private PreK-12 distance school located in the state of Virginia. We serve an enrollment of approximately 20,000 homeschooled students, and several thousand more families through book sales and by furnishing materials to small Catholic schools.
"Seton Catholic homeschooling is excellent. The program handles all the paperwork for the state or country of residence. They send a box of real books, computer use is minimal. We set up a fast pace with provided math course, so we can add Singapore US edition afterwards."
................................
Bob Jones University Press (Christian; homeschool resources and books)
https://www.bjupresshomeschool.com/content/home
Saxon Math (subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
https://www.hmhco.com/programs/saxon-math
WallBuilders (history resources)
"BJU is a great curriculum if you’re looking for one with a biblical worldview. It’s quite rigorous. Saxon math is great also. Teaching textbooks is also great for math. Also check out Wallbuilders. They have tons of true history content."
........................
Alpha Omega Publications
Switched on Schoolhouse
https://www.aop.com/curriculum/switched-on-schoolhouse
"If your kids like computer-based learning (as mine did and do), Alpha Omega Publications has a great curriculum called Switched On Schoolhouse. It starts in 3rd grade, and goes through high school. Covers all the core subjects plus Bible studies and electives."
...................
Calvert Education
https://www.calverteducation.com
"Calvert invented modern homeschooling 110 years ago, and we’ve been perfecting it ever since. We have helped parents educate more than 600,000 students in all 50 states and in more than 90 countries around the world."
American Education FM Podcast
https://americaneducationfm.com
..................
The Good and the Beautiful ("Making homeschool beautiful and easy")
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com
"I LOVE this curriculum! Christian based and has amazing resources!"
......................
This is what we used last year and loved it. It is a non faith based, literature based program that is a lot of fun. https://www.movingbeyondthepage.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwos-HBhB3EiwAe4xM9yKOk1mVxbUPu6zr34gw4WJyo5NzY_eOOobZLJ27AeVCTA0IcjVaZxoCaiwQAvD_BwE
In addition we used Right Start Math which is a great program but requires a little re learning to understand their program. I think it would be best if starting from kinder. https://rightstartmath.com/
I've also heard great things about Math U See https://www.mathusee.com/
And we added on Lexia for families for additional Language Arts. I used this mostly for my kindergartner who was learning to read but my 4th grader loved it too. https://www.lexiaforhome.com/
..........................
The 74 Million
ABOUT: The 74 is a non-profit, non-partisan news site covering education in America. Our public education system is in crisis. Our mission is to lead an honest, fact-based conversation about how to give America’s 74 million children the education they deserve.
...............................
Textbooks (and other books) available in pdf format for download at these sites:
I use Calvert, which is the oldest homeschool curriculum in the country. We are very happy with the curriculum. They recently changed from paper books to online. The software s a little buggy, but they are working the bugs out, and you learn to work around the bugs. The software bugs are a tiny inconvenience compared with how much we like the curriculum.
Edit to add: If you had a bad experience with distance learning, please know that homeschooling is the opposite of distance learning. Your kid(s) will flourish in real homeschool. Distance learning was a nightmare deliberately intended ruin the education process.
Came here to see if anyone mentioned Calvert and how bad it was.
My child had to use Calvert during the so-called "pandemic" crisis and it was so bad to the point where a lot of stuff were not organized properly, links were broken and we couldn't find content where the teacher told us to go to and it would be missing.
Not only that but when we are actually working on the content itself, it was clearly Common Core based, not traditional based. How did I know this? When we were working on a worksheet, there would be something like "CCSS1.213" on the top or bottom page (It will be "CCSS" but the numbers vary as it would adhere to the section and page method). The worksheet is just questions and my child had to fill in the answers but there was one question I had no idea what they were asking.
Had to look it up online because the teacher wasn't usually available to us as well as to everyone else because they were busy attending to every student in the whole school, I guess? Anyways, when I looked it up, the first hit I got was "Common Core Standards" and behold, all of the answers to the exact worksheet we were working on.
"CCSS" is Common Core State Standards so I looked ahead and found pretty much everything we were doing is Common Core. I immediately got upset because my child was getting confused and frustrated when they weren't understanding anything that was asked for them to answer, but it made sense to me when I was reading some of the stuff and I was like, WTF?! Plus the amount of work is way too much for a student. Even my wife and I don't remember doing this much work when we were in school, Even my father too and he was making comments on how crazy it was that my child had to do like 2x or 3x more work than we did back then.
Don't know if Calvert by itself is any different than Calvert when working in partnership with the school but the Calvert we went through that was provided by the school, was horrible.
This sounds nothing like what we have experienced. My son went to a private school before homeschool, so I am not too familiar with common core curriculum, but it looks like pretty standard math to me.
Our complaint about the workload is sometimes the assignments are too short and sometimes they are too long. Like one day, he'll do the whole day's worth of work in less than an hour and another day, it'll take 4 hours to complete all the work. So now we just do 1.5 hours per day and it all seems to even out in the wash.
When you see a worksheet or maybe an activity that seems to have come out of a textbook, look for "CCSSX.XXX" on one of the corners, usually as a part of a header or a footer. (Where "X" would be a set of numbers like "2.212")
Calvert had a lot of "CCSS" plastered across all of the work my child has done. Common Core is not limited to Math, it can span across all subjects.
Your son's workload seems less than mine as we would be up til like 10 p.m. working on all of the homework that was assigned that day and it's like 1 homework would take 2 hours to complete, then the next again 2 hours or so. My child would get like 4 homework assignments per day, M-F and it's like 8 hours worth AFTER school to do them with little breaks in between.
It was awful and my child had a hard time understanding half of the material. As far as math goes, my child understands math but that's only if I did the traditional way first then the "Common Core" way and my child kept saying they prefer the traditional way because it's so easy and faster.
Maybe it's because Calvert had to adjust to coincide with my child's school's curriculum because before the "pandemic", we felt that the school wasn't doing a good job teaching. For the class of 2020, at the time of graduation, the whole class of 2020's proficiency in math was 10%...
10%?!
That's really embarrassing and how could the school system allow them to graduate with little to no knowledge of math and I don't even know what subject they taught for seniors like Calculus, Geometry, Trigonometry or even Algebra? If it was Algebra and they struggled with that, then it's most likely due to Common Core not doing its job right.
Just know one thing about Common Core: it is a huge waste of time because it is very confusing and there are extra steps to do one simple problem. It's like they're encouraging you to THINK outside of the box a.k.a. disregard the Occam's Razor in a sense.
Another thing is that they are replacing fiction books with non-fiction books for "Literature", or rather, "ELA" because they felt fiction books are not helping children think and understand the situation better. That part was true with Calvert, where my kid had to do non-fiction books and do research and many more... This is for elementary education... Scary to think maybe on the high school education level, my child probably will have to do a thesis/dissertation for their ELA class senior project...
Sorry, one more thing to add... there are a lot of creative writing prompts, so Calvert is encouraging creative (fiction) writing. Every week there is a list of 10 spelling/vocabulary words where they have to work the words into a story of some sort.
I think that your school put their curriculum on Calvert's platform, which is unfortunate because their platform is buggy.
The work that you are describing sounds nothing at all like what my son is doing. First of all, there is only schoolwork, no homework beyond the schoolwork. There are no worksheets. I wish I could upload some photos to show you what the assignments look like, but they are either multiple choice questions or writing assignments. I just looked at quite a few assignments again from both the student side and the parent/teacher side to make sure that I hadn't missed numbers, and the only numbers I see are: Science 500, Language Arts 500, etc. (He's in 5th grade. In 4th grade, they were all subject 400).
My son's math assignments are taught much the same way it was taught to me in school... and I am wayyy before common core!
The only things that sounds similar with your curriculum and ours are the research reports. Most of them have been reports where he could gather the information from any source, including online. He had to do a book report on a fiction book of his choice and a book report on a non-fiction book. The parameters are loose to start with, and since parents are the teachers, we can loosen them even more if we want to. He's working on a biography now about any prominent person not born in the USA. Personally, I think the research reports are great assignments to teach him to do research, sort information, put the information together in an understandable way, etc. But, if he had to do them IN ADDITION to other schoolwork instead of AS HIS SCHOOLWORK, I would be mad about too much work, too.
I also wanted to add some more things I forgot in the last post.
While Calvert only assigned one full fiction book (of his choosing)so far this year, they do have a lot of excerpts from popular fiction books where they have to analyze the chapter(s) and are quizzed on whether they understand the concepts. They do the same with non-fiction excerpts, too.
Math... sigh... Last year in California, they tried to take calculus out of high schools because it is "racist." There was a ton of push back from parents, so the CA board of education gave up on that. However, San Diego Unified hired a guy that started this fall that has promised to get rid of calculus.
The poor math education is part of a bigger agenda... and your school seems to be all-in on that agenda.