Fifth-grader Morgan Lomax, 10, goes to class at 8 a.m. each day.

She sits at a desk with her name tag on it, ready to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, science and history. Sometimes she writes letters to pen-pals to practice her penmanship; other days she practices typing on computer software.

She enjoys art class, painting mountain landscapes, beach scenes and pictures of her kitten, Springs.

Her favorite excursions include field trips to Publix and the Mayfield Dairy, and her extracurricular schedule is full of ballet, tap and piano lessons as well as church programs.

Morgan, in other words, is just like most fifth-graders in Hall County — with one exception.

Her classroom is a converted sun room at the back of the Lomax family's home in Gainesville.

"She did attend a private Christian school when she was 3, 4 and 5. After that point we had to make a decision as to what we wanted to try," said Sheila Lomax, Morgan's mother. "I'm a stay-at-home parent anyway, so we thought, ‘Let's try home schooling.'"

Neither Sheila nor her husband had any experience in home schooling before they decided to try it with Morgan. Sheila, a Brenau University graduate, did teach for a year at Morgan's Christian school.

"The favorite things I like about home schooling is we incorporate the Bible," Sheila said. "It helps us to focus on what God wants us to do versus what society wants us to do. It helps her and us as a family to remember that's what we're here for."

Sheila said many families she knows are home schooling because of religious reasons, but the rationale behind it varies by children and their needs.

"When the youngest of our three children came along, I had already done the public school life with our two oldest: room mother, fundraisers, bus schedules ... I couldn't fathom doing it all over again," said Melissa Tingle, a Chestnut Mountain resident who serves as secretary for the Hall County Home Educators home school group.

"Besides, we had become long-distance caregivers for my husband's elderly mother. We needed the ability to leave at a moment's notice. Although flexibility was our initial reason for home schooling, the close relationship we gained with the youngest was an unexpected blessing, thus becoming the primary reason."

The home-school curriculum is as varied as the reasons behind it, Tingle said.

She said curricula may be based on religion, traditional classroom learning or essentially anything parents felt their children should learn.

"Confident parents may choose to use everyday life experiences to teach their children rather than use any textbooks at all. Less confident parents may enroll their students in classes or co-op style programs in which the students attend two or three days a week, then study at home the rest of the week under the supervision of the parents," Tingle wrote in an email to The Times.

"In all cases, the parents are directly responsible for the education of their children. The parents set the standards, the parents choose the methods, the parents decide if their goals are achieved."

The method chosen by former teacher Reeva Forrester of Hoschton was to enroll her daughter, 10-year-old Faith, in the Georgia Cyber Academy.

"I can work at my own pace and there's not a whole lot of people and noise," Faith said. "We do it on the computer. We do math and science and stuff like that."

Georgia Cyber Academy uses live online sessions with teachers so students can interact with them as if they are in a regular classroom setting.

Reeva said one of the things she likes most about Georgia Cyber Academy is that there are no failing grades. If students do not understand a lesson, they can redo it and retake the test.

She said when Faith transferred schools last year, she became more easily distracted and was not performing to her potential. Faith was withdrawn from public school in December so her parents could find a more suitable learning style.

"I started to do traditional home schooling, but I had to come up with the lessons," she said. "I'm amazed at the time it takes us to complete assignments online. They shipped us science experiments and all of our books. The only things we might have to get is outside novels."

The Lomax family also uses outside materials for home schooling. Sheila purchases DVDs and materials through A Beka Academy, an accredited distance-learning program based out of Pensacola, Fla.

In order to home-school, parents must file a declaration of intent with the local school board and turn in monthly attendance reports.

It's a practice Tingle said is becoming more and more common.

"A decade or so ago we were compelled to have our children carry copies of our completed ‘Declaration of Intent to Utilize a Home Study Program' forms, just in case truant officers questioned them," she said. "Not any longer."

Still, home schooling can be met with disdain.

Reeva said many people she talks to fear home schooling limits a child's ability to socialize.

She counters that with Faith's involvement in the North Georgia Star Twirlers.

"There are people who don't understand home school and they're just not aware of what we do," Sheila said. "They have comments sometimes that just, if they could only see what we do and how we do it, those comments wouldn't be made."

Sheila stressed Morgan had the opportunities to do extracurricular activities with other home-school groups, such as the Hall County Home Educators and families in Hoschton they meet with monthly.

Essentially, she said, home-schooled students have a public school experience — they just each have their own classroom.