we start our home ed journey with DS8 after Christmas, all tips and advice welcome

[foxy6]

so we have taken DS8 out of school and will be starting our journey of home education after Christmas.
DS was in a welsh medium school ( they teach them in the welsh language), and he's been there since nursery. he struggles and the welsh is still a big problem after 5 years there so we have decided its time we took it out of the equation, with regards to his education.
we applied to a local school but the class for yr 4 is full and we didn't get in on the appeal, the only other school near, I wouldn't send him to if you paid me, so we are now home educators.
I am nervous about this as I have tried and failed in the past to home educate one of my older children, but there were very different circumstances behind the decision to remove him from school when he was 13 and their personalities, so I'm hoping things will turn out better this time.
All hints and tips are welcome x

Here's my tips:

1. network get in touch with local home educators. Search on facebook for Home Education plus your county, region, nearest city, nearest big town - you'll get it narrowed down to begin to get a sense of who else there is nearby and what meet ups there are that might be fun to get involved in

1. de-school Allow a month for every year in school recovery time before you impose anything that looks like school. Obviously, don't stop him reading/writing/finding things out, but don't enforce it, don't make him keep going once he's started. He's had five years of experience telling him that learning is really really hard. Let him re-find his toddler confidence. You might like to keep a little private learning journal of things that he does which make you think "wow, that was an interesting conversation" or "I never knew he knew that" or "hmmm. That conversation was all about him working out something about grammar" or "woah, he's doing maths informally!, just to reassure yourself that education is happening around the edges of play, but it should be almost exclusively play to start with.

1. Don't spend money Rookie error. Almost everyone spends lots of money on resources that look splendid but the child doesn't actually need them. What you really need is pens, paper and internet connection. And other people who are willing to answer questions and help find things out. When your child is interested in something, then help them pursue it, but it's often worth doing that through charity shops, car boot sales, ebay, and there are several Home Ed buy/sell/swap facebook groups too. No need to spend £££££ on stuff that doesn't get used (hence people selling stuff on those facebook groups all the time...)

thanks
he came to me this morning asking about god, who made god? how did he make the world? who made the person that made god?and how did the universe start? and because i couldn't answer these on the spot he said 2 how are you going to teach me things if you don't know the answers?" lol
i told him we will find them out together
talk about starting easy lol

ROFLMAO.

Not typical.

Home educated children never ask such questions in the morning. They ask them at 10pm. Never mind. Give him time and he will get the hang of it.

Two thumbs up to everything ommmward said.

For that sort of question can I recommend 'Sophie's World'. He obviously needs a philosophical education.

My DD (who is 6) has a tendency to ask that sort of question at the dinner table. Normally when we have guests.

Yes, Sophie's World is great. Some parents might consider parts of it unsuitable for a preteen, however. I'm no prude, but I was a little taken aback when I reached the orgy scene while reading it to my 12yo!

Good luck foxy we started our HE journey officially at the end of September. We have settled into it very nicely and have met some lovely people.

I would recommend facebook for local groups, there seems to be lots going on

My Dd had stopped asking tricky questions when she was at school and was completely turned off learning! The tricky questions were one of the first thing to return!

We google if we dont know the answer

Have fun!

thanks will have a look at Sophie's world, for now he is happy with his older brothers answer that god made himself lol