heartofdakota.com

I used HOD (lhth) last year with my youngest and I found it to be great we loved it. This year I am pulling my oldest from public school in order to home school them both. Now I find more questions and input than answers. I live in south Texas and have been told that I need to keep up with the Teks (Texas essential knowledge and skills) for kindergarten and grade 4. I have looked over everything until my eyes pop and am more confused than every. Is there anyone that can help answer my questions?

I live in Texas. I have been homeschooling for eight. years. In Texas homeschools are considered private schools.
We are like any other private schools. We do not have to go by what the public schools do. The Texas Homeschool Coilition has a lot of information. Their website is www.thsc.com I hope this helps.

Thank you for the advice. I have looked at the web page for the thsc and that was the thing that got me hopeful. But I've had other people tell me no you have to go by the ones that Texas recommends otherwise if something happened and they had to go back to public they wouldn't be able to. Or that I have to be a teacher myself to teach. But thank you again so much and I will look further into the thsc.

HODs suggestions for math and reading/literature definitely will be enough to prepare a child for public school. The grammar and writing starting in middle school are definitely enough too. Because HOD delays grammar and writing some, following CM ideas, if you were to put your kids back in school in 2-4th grade they might be slightly behind there. But it would be very easy to catch up if needed. Do, don't worry about it. HOD is definitely enough come the middle school and high school years - probably exceeding what is taught in AP and honors classes.

You do not have to teach whatever the schools are teaching in Texas!! You do not have to be a teacher! Texas is one of the freest states for home schooling--it is awesome. You don't have to test or anything. There are no worries about having them go back into the school system at any time if needed--they will be fine unless you have them sit at home and play video games and don't really school. Heart of Dakota is fantastic and will be better than what the schools teach.

Thank you all so much for all your advice and help. It is comforting to know there are other moms that have been where Iam and don't mind helping.

Gwenny is right. I put my two older boys back in public school at the high school level, because of a situation beyond my control, and did not have any problems. The school even asked me if they had any subjects/credits from homeschool that could be applied to public school. Also the boys told me that HOD was ahead of their school. We don't even have any attendance laws here. We have a suggested list of high school requirements for graduation, but because we are considered private schools, we can use our own requirements for graduation, depending on what the college requires for entry into their school.

I love Texas! haha for many reasons...

I live in Texas and have never heard of a Texas school requiring you teach TEKS skills. We are considered a private school, and the public school has no say in what you do, regardless of what they try to tell you. That being said... I WOULD make sure that their skills continue to be up to par. I know some homeschoolers who truly do not do enough and it is a sad situation.

As for HOD being enough... YES, it absolutely is. I agree with the above post about writing though. I know that in 3rd grade, they do teach the different types of writing.. persuasive, compare and contrast, ect.. but that is easy to add in, just so your child has a knowledge of it. My 10ydd spent one year in public last year and she covered all of the types of writing, but if I asked her to sit down and write me a persuasive paper, I think she would be somewhat clueless. They covered each of them very quickly and my dd did not master it at all:) I honestly think that the CM method is so much better! I think a lot of "skills" are pushed WAY to soon in school, and the students are not getting it anyway.