Our daughter will be in 8th grade next year. She absolutely loved her elementary school, which went through 5th grade. She made straight A's and thrived there. Starting last year, 6th grade in the middle school, she began disliking school, and struggling to keep her grades up. She is making mostly low B's/high C's now. She says there is just an overall atmosphere of "trying to get you in trouble", and "teachers against the kids", in sort of a defensive effort to keep trouble nipped in the bud before it starts; which I understand in a way. However, for those children who have never been in trouble but are now being treated as potential discipline problems, it is not an environment conducive to the best learning. It is more of an adversarial relationship between teacher and student instead of one of caring, and individual help/support. So, before she heads across town to the junior high for 2 more years of the same, my husband and I are considering homeschooling her for 8th grade. I have never homeschooled before, because I am not good at explaining things to where my children can understand them. I am not a "teacher type". I am a very laid-back mom who likes to get out and go during the day. Being very structured is not something I have any experience with. Also, I have stayed home with my 3 children for the past 9 years and am wanting to get a job sometime in the next 2 years. I have a bachelor's degree, and my parents were both educators, and I always believed in the public school system, and still do, in our grade school; but the middle school has been disappointing so far. I don't want our daughter to continue in the course of struggling with grades, hating school, feeling unsafe there. She loves the social aspect of school, so that is another issue. I know nothing about curriculum - how to choose it, how to get it, follow it, explain it etc. Does anyone have any advice while we're still early in the consideration phase? Thanks so much.