Helping you raise happy, healthy, faith-filled homeschool Children and stay the course long-term!
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What Is Homeschooling, Anyway?
If you are thinking about homeschooling, but are not even quite sure what exactly it means to homeschool, you are not alone. This happens to be one of the most frequently asked questions by parents considering if homeschooling is a good fit for their family. So what is Homeschooling?
While there are similarities that are common to every choice to homeschool, homeschooling may look like many different things to different families.
In a Nutshell, however, these 5 things explain what Homeschooling is:
1. Parent Controlled/Directed Education
This means that you as the parent are ultimately responsible for the education of your child/children. While most parents choose to teach their children every subject, this does not mean that you will necessarily be the one teaching your child every subject. As many homeschooling families do, you may choose to utilize the help of other family members, friends or even tutors to teach your child. Alternatively, you may Choose A Curriculum where the subjects are taught by a qualified teacher instead.
2. Freedom to Customize Education
You as a parent have the freedom to customize your child's education to fit your child's learning style and abilities, and you get to customize and schedule your child's learning around the culture of your home and family life.
3.Homeschooling is primarily Home-based
Although most homeschooling may take place at home, this is not a requirement. Essentially, homeschooling can take place practically anywhere - on the road, while travelling, while vising a zoo or museum, while out in nature etc... Any and every place or occasion which affords a learning and educational experience, can be classified and contribute towards the experience of homeschooling.
4. Educational Choice is Left in the Hands of the Parent, however, MUST comply with any and all of your State's Homeschooling Laws.
This is an extremely important point that should not be over-looked or ignored. If you make the choice to Homeschool, then make sure you are complying with your state's homeschooling laws. Every state laws are different, so it is extremely important to get information about homeschool laws from a reputable and reliable source. Over the years, our one stop resource for all things legal when it comes to Homeschooling has always been HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association), which is a United States-based organization that seeks to aid homeschooling families through legal representation across the world.
5.Education beyond the scope of traditional schooling
Homeschooling your child means that you have the freedom and flexibility to use almost every facet of your family's life experience to educate and train up your child. This means that learning can take place outside the scope of a classroom and books and computers.
Is it Legal to Homeschool My Child?
While Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states in America, be aware that not all homeschooling laws are made equal.
States vary in their requirement for homeschooling, and some states are more relaxed and permissive in their homeschooling regulations. In some states, you may need to file paperwork, keep certain records such as attendance records, etc, provide instruction for a prescribed number of hours each day, provide instructions in specific subjects and possibly even do mandatory state testing each year.
On the other hand, there are states that may only require filing the initial paperwork with the state's education and then you’re good until graduation! Or you may be required to file annual paperwork with the state department of education.
This means that if you are deciding on whether or not to homeschool, it will be vitally important that you familiarize yourself with the specific Homeschool law of your state. Visit the HSLDA state homeschooling laws page here to find out more about the requirements for homeschooling in all U.S. states.
How Common Is It To Homeschool?
While Homeschooling has recently gained great popularity in light of the worldwide pandemic, you should find comfort in the fact that your choice to Homeschool is not an isolated one.
You join a long history of parents who have made this choice over the many decades of our country's history. It is important to note that homeschooling and family-based education was the main way of education for the majority of recorded history. In fact, here in the United States, compulsory education laws were only first passed in 1918.
What about Socialization?
Second only to the question of "What is homeschooling?", is the question "Are Homeschooled Children Properly Socialized?" After Homeschooling now for 15 years, I can truly attest to the fact that it is not only possible to raise well socialized Homeschooled children, but that you can raise Strong, Kind, Intelligent, Independent thinking, Self-Secure Homeschool Children.
In my humble opinion, a well socialized child is a child who is confident and secure in who he/she is. A well socialized child is a child who does not question who he/she is or his/her worth, but knows who and whose he/she is and is able to navigate life confidently and securely in his/her own skin, not concerned about pleasing others or living up to the conventional standards laid out by our society.
However, I realize that this may differ from others concept of what it means to be properly socialized, and many of you reading this may have a different thought when you think of the question - Are Homeschooled Children Properly Socialized? So, you should be comforted to know that most studies conducted are overwhelming positive when it comes to the question of whether or not homeschooled children are properly socialized. For example, some research also shows that homeschooled children are more prone to develop leadership skills that far surpasses that of conventionally educated children. But, don't take my word for it. Take a look at these articles in the following resources below, and find out for yourself.
Article by Tandfononline. com: A Systematic Review of the Empirical Research on Selected Aspects of Homeschooling as a School Choice
Do I Need Special Certification To Teach My Child?
As of the writing of this there is no state in the US that requires a special certification in order to homeschool your own children. However, please visit The Home School Legal Defense Association's website HSLDA to find out if this has changed since the writing of this article as state laws are always changing. There are some states that do require a high school diploma or GED. It is vitally important that you check to find out your state’s homeschooling laws to see what is required in your state.
While I have heard of teachers turn homeschool educators, I think that from my personal experience this is the exception not the norm. So, if you do not have any type of certification, please be encouraged to know that most of us don't either, and guess what, as of the writing of this that is acceptable with all 50 states in the US.
How Do I choose a Curriculum?
For many homeschooling parents - veterans and newbies alike, choosing a homeschool curriculum can be a daunting process.
When choosing a homeschool curriculum keep in mind these 3 questions:
1. Is It a good fit?
2. Does it serve it’s intended purpose?
3. Does it suit your budget?
Please visit the how our how to pick a curriculum page for a more in depth discussion on how to take these 3 factors into consideration when choosing a curriculum.
When it comes to a homeschool curriculum, it must be the right fit. What does a good fit look like when it comes to a homeschool curriculum? Well, to be a good fit, the Homeschool curriculum you choose has to FIT your child’s personality, it has to FIT your child’s learning style, it has to FIT your family’s personality, and it has to FIT your individual teaching style as a homeschool parent.
My youngest child is a kinetic learner and gets easily distracted and bored with learning if the material presented is too monotonous or extensive. So, it was very important for us to find a curriculum that had a combination of textbook and video-based learning.
A good fitting homeschool curriculum will Fit your family’s culture and personality. For example, if you are a busy, working homeschool parent, who does not have a lot of time to invest in the homeschool process, then you want to make sure you choose a program like Monarch, K-12 or Abeka Academy (for example) that are all-encompassing curriculums, which means that you do not have to invest time in curriculum planning, grading or testing. All this is built into the curriculum.
The second thing to consider when deciding on a curriculum is whether or not it suits its intended purpose. What do I mean? Well, all of us decide to homeschool our children for different reasons. Oftentimes, one of the reasons may be that we are trying to nurture certain ideals in our children that are important to us as a family. For example, one of the reasons, among many that I choose to homeschool my children, was because I wanted to make sure that I nurtured and instilled in them a strong and unshakable foundation of faith. This meant that I wanted to make sure, especially when they were younger, to incorporate a curriculum in their lives that was rooted in the same foundation of faith that we were teaching at home outside of school time. So, when choosing a homeschool curriculum, we want to make sure that the curriculum that we choose, serves its intended purpose, some curriculums are faith based for example, while others are taught from a conventional perspective. Some curriculums are strongly math or science or literary based. So, you will want to take this into consideration when choosing a curriculum.
The 3rd question that we want to ask ourselves when choosing a homeschool curriculum is whether it fits our budget. The great news is that the choice for homeschool curriculum is varied, and you can find great ones to fit any budget.
If you are a family on a very tight budget, you can even find great free curriculumstime4learning such as Easy Peasy by Cathy Duff, or ones costing as little as $29.95 a month (at time of this publication) such as Time4Learning. Other curriculums can cost hundred of dollars a month.
One last important tip when choosing a curriculum - Don’t forget to ask your child’s opinion. Take time to go through some of the choices with them and ask them what they think. If you have a curriculum that you have been using already, ask your child or children how it is working out for them, ask them what they think about it and what they like or don’t like about it and include them in the choosing process. And remember, don’t be afraid to try different curriculums and change them out until you find the right FIT.
Below are a few links which you may find helpful in your journey to find the right curriculum:
https://cathyduffyreviews.com/homeschool-reviews-core-curricula
https://www.homeschool.com/top10/top10reviews-asp/
https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/homeschool-curriculum-reviews/
What Does A Typical Homeschool Day Look Like?
Let me begin to answer this question by first saying that when it comes to homeschooling, there is no such things as a "typical" homeschool day, that will fit across the board for all homeschool families, and that is because each family brings its own family culture and characteristic when it comes to homeschooling. One of the most beautiful things about homeschooling is that we as homeschool parents/families get to shape and create the type of educational experience and atmosphere that we would like to experience with our children. So, while there is no such thing as a "typical" homeschool day, I can share with you what most of our days look like as a homeschool family, with the understanding that this may change and look different on those days when we have an outing, for example.
But in general, we start our day out with a healthy breakfast, and then get ready for the day (and to be honest some days, we stay in our pajamas for most of the day :-). In our household, I do not, as a routine, wake my children up. I allow them to sleep in as their little bodies require. They are usually both up on their own by 7 or 7:30am, or sometimes later if they are going through a growth spurt or had an extra late night. After they get up, I allow them to have an hour or so of independent creative time. They usually use this time to play with their Legos (registered trademark) (my younger child) or reading a book of their choice.
Once we are ready for the day, we usually start our homeschool instruction around 9am or 10am by praying and speaking out our affirmations, which are positive declarations that we speak over our lives. Once this is finished, I begin instruction. I usually start out by presenting on my dry erase board the lesson at hand for the day or without it if not needed. This usually takes about 30 minutes or more depending on the complexity of the subject being presented. Once I have had some time to present the lesson to the children, I get them set up to work independently, during which time I may do some work of my own. I check in with the children to see how they are doing after about 30 minutes to ensure that they are on track and will rejoin them to go over their work or present another lesson. We go about in this manner for about 4 hours and usually end the "instruction" period of our homeschool day around 1pm or 2pm, at which time I usually require that the children go outside to get fresh air to ride their bikes or play on the trampoline or do some other outdoor activity to count as their "PE" time. When they were younger this usually meant walking down to the park in our neighborhood or driving to the open range near our home. They're now 15 and 2 years old as I write this.
There are many other things that may come into play - such as the boys playing piano, or writing, working on studio, but I share here just a very basic outline of what one of our "regular" homeschool days may look like. Again, a day in your life of homeschooling may look like this or may look very different and that is totally okay, because that is one of the joys of homeschooling - the flexibility and freedom that we have as parents to shape and create the correct homeschool experience for our children.
How Expensive Is Homeschooling?
Homeschooling can truly be as inexpensive or expensive as you choose for it to be. There is no set cost for homeschooling, however it is important to keep in mind that the cost of homeschooling usually always falls upon the shoulders of the homeschool family. However, as I stated above, homeschooling can cost as much or as little as you choose as the cost of homeschooling is as varied as the multitude of homeschool curriculums that are available out there. As I mentioned elsewhere, homeschool curriculums can cost nothing at all, or cost you several thousands of dollars.
For example, Cathy Duffy offers a completely free homeschool Curriculum called Easy Peasy. I cannot attest for against the quality of this curriculum as this has never been a curriculum used by our family, however, here is a review from a parent that has used it - Easy Peasy Review.
Other homeschool curriculums can cost less than $30 or up to several $100's per month. For example, as of the writing of this article, Time4Learning an all inclusive video based curriculum cost $24.95 per month for students k-8th grade and $34.95 for students 9th -12th grades.
K12 is another excellent video based all inclusive curriculum cost on average about $40 per subject course, while an excellent book based curriculum such as Sonlight, cost several hundreds of dollars for a complete grade based yearly curriculum. Please note that prices are subject to change and the prices reflected there were accurate at the time this articles was written.
So, as you can see from just these few examples, the cost to homeschool varies and how much you spend on your homeschooling all depends on your personal budget and your personal choices.
Of course, you can also invest in specific furniture and additional tools to enhance your homeschool experience, however, I have found that more is not necessarily better when it comes to homeschooling.
At the most, you may need to invest in the purchase of a small working desk or table with chairs and a bookshelf to house all of your reading materials and school supplies. However, if even this sounds like too much for you, don't despair, I know families, myself included, who have used just what they have to make things work. For example, a coffee table or the dining room or kitchen table can double up as the school desk, and/or even a rug on the floor of the corner of one of your rooms can double up as a learning space.
What Does a Typical Homeschool Space Set-Up Look Like?
My answer to this question is similar to my answer to the question - Whay Does a Typical Homeschool Day Look Like. My answer - there is no such thing as a "Typical" homeschool set-up. This is because all of us, and our children are unique and different and have different personalities, so I think that this will and should reflect our homeschool set-up. You can peruse the web and see some of the most beautiful homeschool set-up and try and recreate that for yourself. But what if you have a child who is a kinetic learner and instead of sitting stoically at a desk, he/she prefers and learns better on the floor where they have more wiggle room as they learn. So again, there is no such thing as a "typical" homeschool set-up.
That being said, If you can and choose to invest in special furniture to set-up your homeschool space, following are my suggestions for the 5 items that I think would be best invested in, as I found these items to be useful and enhanced our homeschool experience as I look back on my 16 years of homeschooling.
1)Desk or table
While it is not completely necessary to have a separate desk or table for homeschooling, I found, especially in the younger years, that it was helpful to have a school desk to perform certain homeschool activities - art time etc. Of course, a dining room table already in the house or a coffee table could serve the same purpose if budget is an issue.
2) Child appropriate chairs
To accompany your homeschool desk or table, I would recommend investing in child-sized appropriate chairs. There is no need to break the budget on these. When the boys were younger I found a desk and chair set such as this one for about $25 at the time, that they absolutely adored and was a wonderful addition to our homeschool setup. This inexpensive desk and chair set is only currently $39.99.
3) Easel or chalk board
I found an easel or a chalk board to be extremely useful, especially handy when teaching math. Again, not necessary, however, I found it to be one of those tools that was extremely useful and worth mentioning for anyone serious about homeschooling. You should be happy to know that we did not break the budget on any of these items. A simple easel such as this one can be purchased inexpensively.
4) Sturdy Bookshelf/Bookcase
A sturdy bookshelf such as this one to house all our schoolbooks and supplies has always been a necessity in our family since we are big readers and often chose curriculums that were partially or completely book based.
5) Baskets
Storage baskets such as these to store extra school materials and to keep the space orderly.
6) See through Plastic Storage Containers
Plastic see though plastic storage bins to house art and school supplies.
