The HARDEST CLASSES to TEACH in HOMESCHOOL

You heard it!

There are some classes that I failed at teaching.

My MOST difficult one to Teach

Teaching languages has been an utter failure for me in my homeschool teaching career. My kids have tried EVERYTHING from Mango Languages, to Currclick Live, to Landry Academy, to Abeka Academy and lastly Middlebury Interactive.

None of them - not a one have given them the same level of expertise I found while learning both French and Spanish in the classroom.

Why? Well because No-One-Is-Speaking it to them.

As a last resort, my daughter, Tiger Lilly really wanted to prolong her Japanese lessons so I hired a Japanese tutor to work with her weekly. She won't listen to the Immersion CDs because she'd rather have someone speaking to her. As for my son, he has a 'basic' understanding of the Spanish language but doesn't feel confident speaking or writing in it.

This is the one class I am throwing in the towel on. I had to find outside and IN-PERSON classes to meet this need. 

Teaching Writing was another challenge. Now I love writing. I'm pretty good at it also. However, teaching it, reviewing work, and making the curriculum just wasn't as effective as I thought it would be.

My kids needed someone to help them learn grammar and editing rules while checking their work. I've had to order this curriculum out because they preferred to learn from an 'interactive' tool or teacher.

We've used Time4Writing, Fortuigence, San Diego Scribblers and lastly a private tutor. The combination of all of them worked well.

Teaching Advanced Math, Oh my goodness! Teaching up til Algebra 2 wasn't too difficult. Watching videos, teachers and having a few tutors here and there worked well. Most all of their classes were successful with Abeka Academy, Saxon, CTCMath and Teaching Textbooks (for Geometry).

But when we hit Pre-Calculus and Calculus there was a roadblock, limited teaching materials and difficult problems.

I hired a tutor to work with my daughter through her CTCMath and Saxon Calculus materials.

Physics and Chemistry were very difficult to teach. Especially, since the labs were not easily done at home. Also, I wasn't comfortable with these courses when I was in college 25 yrs ago and still am not.

These subjects we did a 'light' learning of by using Abeka Academy and Study.com videos. In each scenario the kids learned a lot, but didn't get the full experience of doing 'labs.'

I used Landry Academy 'Intensives' camps to expose them to labs.

WHEN TO HIRE OUT A SUBJECT

If I was doing this all over again, I would've hired out the subjects I knew my kids needed a 'great' takeaway or in depth understanding for as far as college was concerned.

Come to find out, my daughter didn't have to take Chemistry or Physics in college. So, I should have done my research earlier and wouldn't have needed to stress out about it so much.

We hired a tutor to work with the kids 2 times a week on the Curriculum we chose for them.

SUBJECTS YOU CAN'T SKIMP ON

Writing, Grammar, Reading! And Math. 

Make sure your student can Read and Comprehend,  WRITE (grammar and reading) well and understands MATH up to Geometry and Algebra 1 at least. All colleges at least want that. Even a job wants that. All entry test have those basic skills on it.

So if you're not confident in assisting your student in learning the above, don't feel guilty about 'hiring' to teacher or tutor.