Homeschooling

How do I legally and intelligently homeschool my daughter?

My daughter is 7, and does well in school. However, because of life circumstances, I would like to homeschool her for at least a semester, possibly a year. I don't think this is going to be a long term thing, so whatever I do must be recognized by a school district when it's time to enroll her again. Obviously, I want to give her a quality education. I am not Christian and would not like to use a Christian program, just a legitimate secular Curriculum. I am, however, open to a curriculum that has a rather general "spiritual" theme of sorts, although I've never heard of such a thing. I don't have a fortune to spend on this, so I need something realistically priced. I am familiar with Homeschooling, as I was actually Homeschooled nearly all my life, but "rules" were really different then. What are my best options?

The first thing you will need to do is check out the laws in your state. Click on your state to determine how to legally withdraw your daughter from the public school district and what your are required to teach, report, test by law where you live (http://www.Hslda.org/laws/default.asp)

Calvert is an accredited secular program and is well recognized for more than 100 years. (http://www.calvertschool.org/calvert-school)

Sonlight may meet your "spiritual" theme without being "Christian" stipulation. (http://www.sonlight.com/) Sonlight is a literature based program using books you can find in your local library. It is very hands on. Science uses Usborne and Magic Schoolbus books in rhe younger grades until 8-12 grades, when it uses Apologia, You can eliminate the Christian component by eliminating the Bible (sold separately) component and the missionary stories. The catalog clearly labels these so it is easy to eliminate. Sonlight can be quite pricey if you purchase the entire curriculum from them. However you can pick up their core 1 teacher manual quire reasonable from their "for sale" forum and just borrow the books from the library.
There are a number of other places that you can get secular materials. I have included a list below for your convenience:

http://www.homeschoolcurriculumshop.com/store.html

http://www.curriculumservices.com/

http://www.successful-homeschooling.com/secular-homeschool-curriculum.html

http://www.homeschool.com/OnlineCourses/

If you don't choose a correspondence or on-lin school, I'd advise you to invest in record keeping program. This will help verify attendace and grades. YOu will be able to print out report cards, and other reports to present to the public school upon re-enrollment. Since you are not homeschooling through high school you should do just fine using the free version of Homeschool Tracker (http://www.homeschooltracker.com/).

Your daughter will probably be tested when she reenters the public school for them to determine placement, whether you choose an Accredited Homeschool Curriculum or not. So I would choose what you are most comfortable teaching and feel will best meet her needs.