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How to Homeschool Your Children
Homeschooling is a wonderful way to stay close to your children and raise them into well-rounded adults. Without giving them too much of a sheltered life, homeschooling can protect them from peer pressure, foster a desire to learn, and allow them one-on-one teaching in the comfort of their own home. Through homeschool you can make the world your child's classroom where they can learn better than they would in a more structured school system.
Steps
Prepare Yourself. Realize that this means being able to devote yourself to your children and their needs every day, morning to night. As their parent or legal guardian, you (and your spouse) will now be legally and solely responsible for the direction, depth, and breadth of their education. This is an enormous responsibility and should not be stepped into lightly.
Determine Your Homeschool Teaching/Learning Style. Examine your own intentions and motivations. Why do you want to homeschool? What do you want to do differently from other educational systems that you have seen or experienced? What do you want to teach? What do you want to learn with your children? How do your children react to different approaches to teaching and learning? By probing these questions, you can determine what approach you want to take to homeschooling, and create a learning environment that will be unique and best for you and your children.
Plan Your Curriculum. The enormous volume of material that can be learned in this world can be very overwhelming for a parent facing the prospect of homeschooling their children. Turn to books at your local library or bookstore for experiences of other parents and proven homeschool plans. The internet offers a never-ending source of information for homeschoolers - from basic information that can be researched by a student, to complete lesson plans and online schools or curricula that parents can use to structure their homeschool environment. You can find the curriculum and requirements used for public schools, as well as what colleges and universities require of incoming students to help determine what your children should be learning. Research, read, and plan what you want to teach and how.
Look for local support. You can find local support groups that meet regularly, organizations that put on periodic seminars or conventions, or even online groups that swap ideas and resources. If you start to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or all alone in your family's educational pursuits, a support group can offer advice or just a reassuring acknowledgement from other parents that you are not alone.
Establish Your Homeschool Legally. Learn what is required to homeschool legally where you live, then do what is necessary to work within that structure. The legal requirements for homeschoolers vary from state to state and country to country, and it is important to follow the law where you live. HSLDA provides a useful guide to what it means to have a legal homeschool (see external links.)
Prepare Your Children. Explain to them what is going to happen in the months to come. Tell them what is going to be expected of them. To older children, make clear that though they may be leaving their school, it doesn't mean they are leaving their education. Ask them what they would be interested in studying (for example, if one loves star gazing, get a telescope and study astronomy). Make sure to get them excited. Homeschooling is fun!
Inform Extended Family. Others in your family who care about you and your children can be helpful and give great support to your homeschooling efforts - or they can be heartbreaking critics. Plan how you will tell them what you are planning to do, listen to their responses, and answer questions and concerns they may have. Help them understand that you are both prepared and determined, and don't let any negative attitudes get you down. They care, and over time as your children show success in homeschool, they very well may come around and be your greatest supporters.
Allow time to adjust to change with older children. Often children who leave the standard educational system for homeschool need some time to adjust. Instead of immediately jumping into "school at home" you may want to do unstructured activities together and slowly work into a more structured routine. Determine how much "recovery time" is needed for your particular child, then work with them to create a different and more enjoyable learning environment.
Gather Supplies. You can order textbooks online, or go to curriculum sales. Make a checklist of all the things your pupils need (pencils, crayons, markers, glue, paper, notebooks, folders, etc.). A back-to-school-sale at a discount store or office supply store is the perfect place to get these.
Plan Your Day. Gather your lesson plans, materials, and textbooks into a clean environment. Have everything scheduled and ready.
Look for hands-on activities to supplement the usual textbook study. For example, do a gardening project. Whether it's growing a full course vegetable garden in your backyard or growing some marigolds in your window, gardening is the perfect way to study plant growth (remember to take pictures of that too). Your children will learn different things depending on their ages, but everyone will come away better-educated than if they had simply read a book about the process.
Keep a portfolio of each child's work. Thick, three-ringed binders with tab separators for each student are an excellent way to keep track of school work. Label each tab with whatever subjects you are studying (for example: Math, Spelling, Language Arts, History, Biology, Spanish). After your child has completed a page under that subject, punch holes (using a three-ring hole punch) and snap the page into the proper section of their book. Remember to date each page or it will be a big jigsaw puzzle to figure out later.
Periodically evaluate your child's progress. Progress evaluation happens naturally through the one-on-one process of homeschooling. Testing and formal evaluation can be useful tools to help determine the direction and focus of your homeschool studies, but are not necessary unless required by law. If you want someone else to review your child's progress, you could ask a certified teacher to look through your child's portfolio of work at the end of the year. There are also standardized progress tests (such as Fcat) that your child can take and then have the scores mailed to you, and you can find many other tests to order or take online.
Go With Your Gut. Trust your knowledge and instincts regarding your own children. You are not only the one ultimately responsible for guiding your children's education, but you are often the one person best able to recognize what they do or do not need. Turn to evaluations and insights from others to help guide you, but trust your own instincts about what your children need to learn and do in their educational progress.
Tips
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Be aware of your time-use habits. Homeschool isn't an invitation to laziness, but a door to creating a learning style that better serves your family. "Early to bed and early to rise" is always good advice, but you can adjust your habits to serve your needs. Just make sure that if you're going to bed late and getting up later that it's part of the plan and not just a bad habit. Both you and your children need to be well-rested and to use your time purposefully.
* Address the "socialization" concern. Involve your children in sports, 4H, drama/music classes, youth groups, scout groups, and so on. These are much better opportunities for social interaction than a school classroom, anyway. With homeschool you can improve your child's education while also improving their socialization skills by teaching them how to interact with many different people in different situations, not just same-age students in a classroom or on a playground. As a result, homeschooled students are often better at integrating into society than their socially-dependent peers.
* Be a cheerful teacher. Homeschool will become miserable for both you and your children if you become angry and frustrated from the daily stresses. Take care of yourself, allowing daily time to rejuvenate and be prepared for the many responsibilities of homeschool and parenting combined.
* Be flexible. If you and your family start feeling burned out from being in your house and working through seemingly never-ending lessons, take a field trip! Go do something fun as a family, such as visiting a museum (which will be educational at the same time), going on a picnic, or going fishing. Every day will not go exactly as you have planned, and illness or emergencies can interrupt homeschool as well. Be open to changes and enjoy the ride!
* Seek outside help when necessary. If there is a subject you do not have enough knowledge about to teach to your children, you can consider hiring a certified tutor, or have a friend with in-depth knowledge of a subject come over and explain about it.
* Get each of your children their own library card. Weekly trips to the library are a great way to spark an interest in reading and learning. There are a lot of great books for kids out there, and the library is an excellent source of additional materials to supplement your various courses of study at home.
* Take pictures! Don't forget to record homeschool activities - even those that may seem to be daily drudgery. By logging your homeschool life you show that you are active and pressing forward with learning experiences. Make a scrapbook at the end of the year, or start a family website - both for memories and for a creative way to tell other people about your homeschool. Warnings
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* Be careful not to overdo it! The opportunities for both educational activities and for fun social interaction are so many that you may find yourself and your children overwhelmed if you try to do everything. Determine what you think is most important as well as what your children enjoy most, then stick to that.
* Don't give up on all structure - even if you choose to use create more relaxed homeschool environment. Some structure is a very useful thing.
* Do not neglect to follow the laws regarding homeschool where you live. Find out what is legally required of homeschoolers and do not fail to follow-though. Even neglecting what may seem to be a technicality could result in tragedy for you and your children.
* Don't overspend on curriculum and supplies. Homeschool does not have to be expensive! Utilize free and low-cost resources both in your community and on the internet, and don't waste your money on unseen or unproven curriculum.