Homeschooling Guide for Busy Moms

With the obvious decline of quality education in school settings, nobody will blame you if you decide on homeschooling.

That initial statement is one of the many reasons that parents consider that option. Other rewards of of homeschooling could be to protect their child from peer pressure, society problems like engaging in drugs, sex, and stealing, and teaching their child more on religious values. Still some more reasons why families venture to homeschooling could be because they have to move a lot and parents do not want their children's education to be compromised with the constant change of schools and teachers.

Along with the reasons why parents choose homeschooling are the rewards of homeschooling. It is already known that children learning at home do better in examinations like that of SAT because the teacher can focus on the topics that a child may find difficult. If you are the teacher, your topics can be adjusted at your child's own pace like you may go fast in grammar but you have to spend more time in math. More than that, if you want your child to better appreciate his lessons, you can go on a field trip like in a museum spontaneously.

Another reward of homeschooling is that you and your child have more time for house chores as you do not have to drive to and from school. This additional time can not only be spent on house chores, it could be for art sessions or biking lessons. The point is, you have more time.

But above your child's achievement and more time to focus on skills, the greatest reward of homeschooling is family bonding. With homeschooling, the bond between you and your child will not be disrupted. You may argue that you are just separated from your child for 8 hours everyday if he goes to school. But you have to remember that a lot of things can happen in that 8 hours. He can be interacting with other people that have negative influences on him and soon, you might find him out of the house more than he stays in. That is more unlikely with homeschooling.

A strong family bond will be highly developed as you and your children spend more time tackling problems and accomplishing things together. If that is established, your child will be secured even if he faces the challenges of the outside world.

You may say family bonding can also be developed if you send your children to a formal school. That is true but family bonding nurtured with homeschooling is definitely more evident.

How ever homeschooling is spelled (home-schooling, home schooling), it is a term that generally refers to the education of a child/children at home usually by their parent/parents. Sometimes also, tutors are the ones teaching the children but the setting is still at home.

Moreover, homeschooling is also used when students learn at home with the assistance of correspondence schools either through snail mail or virtual interaction through the internet.

Homeschooling is already considered as a legal alternative to formal public/private education and even have a variety of curriculum to assist with teaching and learning. Studies on the effects of homeschooling state that children who are taught at home do better in their SAT.

It sure is becoming a hit but there are still those who critic homeschooling saying that parents are not equipped to teach and that education at home is detrimental to the social development of the child. These "anti-homeschooling" will always be around but it was much worse before when not letting the children enroll in public/private schools was a crime. There may be a time when children have to be homeschooled or no education at all, but that changed when compulsory education became a law.

However, John Holt believed that the children's failure in their academics was due to adult's pressure on them and so published How Children Fail in 1964. He may not have proposed an alternative education style but he knew that the traditional school system has to be rethought to make it more child-friendly. By 1976, he published another book, Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Better, which advocated children escaping compulsory education. Closely thereafter, he started publishing a magazine that focuses on homeschooling.

Other than John Holt, Raymond and Dorothy Moore have been researching on early childhood education and found out that enrolling children below 8-12 years of age to formal school is harmful. They say that children are still not ready academically, mentally, and socially thus resulting to juvenile delinquency, etc. They add that the parental bond that is crucial in the emotional development of a child is cut by school enrollment. After publishing their first book, Better Late than Early in 1976, they became homeschooling advocates

These authors have been bombarded with "negative" effects of teaching children at home but they pursued. It is through their arguments that homeschooling was made legal and socially accepted as an alternative form of education.

Homeschooling has come a long way now and it continues to be developed like requiring home school teachers to pass a qualifying examination, submission of records, subjects to learn, and others.

You might like this; Teacher Created Resources has 40 exciting new classroom products featuring Debbie Mumm's wonderful artwork!

You may be planning or thinking of homeschooling but somehow there are many things you are asking yourself if it is for you or if it is for your child.

The obvious thing when teaching children at home is that it requires a lot of work. It requires you to do things legally like pass certifications, register that you are doing homeschooling, teach your children, and of course, you having to carrying yourself as a profession educator.

That sure did not come as a shock but you might still be overwhelmed by the number of things you have to accomplish with the deadlines if only to make your homeschooling legal and formal so that universities will recognize you and your child's efforts.

With the stress established, time is also a factor. Sometimes you think that there will be too much to do in so little time but that is something you just have to deal with. Another is that, when you start homeschooling, remember that you will be at home most of the time (with the lessons you have to prepare, teaching your kid, and house chores). You might feel you do not have time for yourself already.

Also, if your desire to teach your child everything you think he needs to learn drives you that much, this just might be your call. Having the motivation and the perseverance to go with the decision will be highly needed.

Homeschooling is not about just watching your child learn. It is encouraging, supporting and teaching him. The lessons might require you to read a lot but that is just how things will go if you want to teach your child lessons with bulk and not just touching the surface.

You may also think that you will be saving money with homeschooling but there is a good chance that you might not? Unless you will be balancing a job at home or keeping an outside job and teaching your child, then there will still be two financial providers in the family. Having another work while teaching would be hard that is why some resign on their old jobs and teach full time.

Of course, you also have to be ready with the many negative comments you will receive as you start but just do the job. The performance of your child may amaze them in time.

Effort, time, money, and words of criticisms are the major problems one encounters with homeschooling. But, you are not going to go through the process alone. You have a lot of resources such as the internet, books, journals and joining a support group will really be helpful. Just surrounding yourself with positive people and focusing on your goal why you chose to teach your children is a good start to get you through this.

If you think you can handle this, then go ahead and proceed with homeschooling.

Homeschooling, a term referring to children learning at home with either or both parents and/or a tutor as teacher/teachers, is an interesting idea. It is also about enrolling the child to a correspondence school while he stays most of the time at home. In this world where formal education is foretold to be declining, homeschooling offers an alternative that may combat this issue.

Apparently, home schooled children are generally better equipped when faced with examinations like SAT and CAT. For one thing, the teacher at home can focus on the individual needs of the child. Unlike in public/private schools, a class has to move to another topic even if five of the students have no idea what the past lesson was all about.

The advantages of homeschooling are numerous but the question is how to start it. If you are planning, the idea of reading about the topic from definition of terms, to laws governing it in your area, to curriculum's, to pros and cons, to the good time of starting it, and so on and so forth. But the first step is to know as much as you can so you should go and research in the library, surf the net, and interact with those who are already practicing it.

How to Get Started in Homeschooling

First find out if your state requires you to pass a qualifying exam, be sure that you and your spouse agreed to go with homeschooling and that your child should like it, too before going on. If those things are settled, check out the law (rules and regulations) as you may be required to register and submit some forms for monitoring.

If the legalities are handled, plan now. You might be overwhelmed with the number of questions you have to answer as you plan. Such of these are: What curriculum or combination of curricula are you going to use? What are the subjects and the topics that you are going to discuss? Where are you going to conduct the class? What will be the schedule? And more as you go through.

Getting started in homeschooling will be tough for sure. Add the pressure that society will keep on questioning your qualification as a home school teacher and the alleged "negative" effects of homeschooling to your child's development.

But all the questions and humps you will encounter have been answered and successfully handled by those who have gone through the road before you and are still on it. This is the reason you have to keep on reading not just about the lessons you will be teaching but also about homeschooling management. Attending conferences will also be nice. And of course, it is important to keep in contact with a homeschooling support group for the obvious reasons.

You might like this; Teacher Created Resources has 40 exciting new classroom products featuring Debbie Mumm's wonderful artwork!

Build a Free blog just like this, at Squidoo.

Homeschooling, while it affords you certain freedoms when educating your child, is not always easy. But there are things that you can do to make homeschooling easier for yourself as a parent. The following tips may help make your job as a homeschooling parent a little easier.

* If in doubt, look on the Internet. If you are in doubt about your method of homeschooling, use the internet to seek another method. In fact, you can use the internet to help you in regard to nearly everything homeschool related. Do you need something to keep your little one busy while you're working with an older child? The internet has coloring sheets galore, as well as worksheets, mazes, and puzzles.

* Choose a complete curriculum. Complete curriculums will also make homeschooling easier on you as a parent. Instead of having to search through multiple catalogs to find just the right curriculum, choose a complete curriculum. Not only will it save you time, it may even save you money, in the long run.

* Cut yourself some slack. Don't expect yourself to be the perfect teacher. Unless you have an education degree, you most likely will make mistakes along the way. Don't beat yourself up about them. Learn from the mistakes and try not to repeat them again.

* Allow your children to help themselves. You can't be expected to know everything, so if your child wants to learn something you don't know, give them the freedom to follow their interests. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that they learn more on their own than they did while you were more involved.

* Seek the help from others. When in doubt about anything dealing with homeschooling, seek the advice from those who have been homeschooling for longer than you. Even though they may not have dealt with exactly what you're dealing with, chances are they will be able to give you advice or point you in the right direction. Take advantage of your homeschooling peers' offers of help, there might be a time where you'll be able to return the favor.

* Online communities are available. If you don't know people that homeschool in your local area, there are literally hundreds of homeschooling communities on the Internet. Search online for homeschooling groups or forums. They can be found in every state, and even some outside of the United States. You may have to register to join a homeschool group or forum, but you can be as active as you like and remain anonymous if you like.

Homeschooling doesn't have to be hard. In fact, one of the reasons most people choose to homeschool is the ease and freedom associated with it. When you have difficulty, however, you may feel as if you need help. The above tips, when followed, can help make homeschooling a little bit easier.

You are wrong when you think of homeschooling as an entirely unstructured way of educating a child. The common notion is that parents will teach whatever they know without a pattern whatsoever. But that is not really how it is done.

In homeschooling, the teacher will gauge the ability of the child and teach from there. There are a lot of methods of homeschooling and these may be approved in your state. Children taught at home also have subjects, performance evaluation, field trips and others much like the other children who are sitting in a classroom.

Here are some teaching methods you can use when you are homeschooling:

All-in-one. This is a curriculum that is recommended for those who live in rural areas where access to a library is hard. This is a package that has everything you will need (mostly for a year) such as books and even pencils. Using this style is like having a classroom at home but your children are the only students. Obviously, this is good if you are starting with homeschooling

Student-paced. Maybe the reason you want your child to be homeschooled is because you want to ensure that he really is learning and is being assisted in achieving his own potential. This student paced is much like an all-in-one curricula but the lessons are taught depending on the child's pace.

Unit studies. This method of homeschooling means that all the subjects your child will have in your homeschooling will be related on one topic. This is good if your child is a "multi-grader" because lessons can be easily adjusted from simple to comprehensive. That means that if your child may be grade 3 in math, grade 2 in science and grade 5 in English, centralizing the lessons in a topic helps him relate the information taught to him.

Online education. This is a method of homeschooling is where the Internet is very much involved. It means enrolling your child to an online school for tutoring, playing educational games in the internet, taking examinations and others. This is a nice alternative for children who have limitations to travel to a school.

Unschooling. This is a homeschooling method of teaching where the interests of the child are the guide in learning. Children who are "unschooled" explore the world with the parent as a teacher assisting him on his side. This is not leaving the children to learn on their own but instead allowing your child to dictate what he wants to learn thereby ensuring his cooperation.

There are many more methods of teaching that can be used in homeschooling but those will be mentioned at another time. You only have to remember is that it is okay to go from one method to another or use them in combination. Observe your child what is best suited for him for you to be able to use the appropriate method.

The Unschooling Handbook

Unschooling:
A Lifestyle of Learning

The Unschooling Unmanual

Radical Unschooling
A Revolution Has Begun

Top of Page