Home Sweet School:: Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool To Graduation

Home Sweet School:
Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School
Table of Contents
Introduction How to Use This Book Wisely Page 4 Chapter 1 So Youre Thinking About Homeschooling Page 6 Chapter 2 Surviving Your First Year Page 19 Chapter 3 Homeschooling Curriculum and More! Page 29 Chapter 4 Legally Speaking Page 43 Chapter 5 The Early Years: Ages 3 through 8 Page 48 Chapter 6 The Middle years: Ages 9 through 12 Page 55 Chapter 7 The Teen Years: High School Page 61 Conclusion Page 67 Appendix I Curriculum Sources Page 68 Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School
Appendix II Academic Competitions Page 69 Appendix III Miscellaneous Resources Page 71
Home Sweet School
Introduction
Using This eBook Wisely
see the gleam in your eye. Youve got the inclination, but youre not sure yet if you have either the patience or the education . . . or any other perceived attributes you associate with educating your children at home.
After all, taking charge of your childs educational future is not a decision to be taken lightly. And youre not quite sure what is involved. Perhaps youre feeling this way because your son or daughter just isnt rising to the level of potential you feel thats truly possible. Perhaps your child has a learning disability. He really needs extra attention. In fact, youre sure he could do better with some one-on-one teaching. But are you the one to be providing it? It just may be that your son has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that makes it difficult for him to sit still in a conventional classroom for a full day. Hes disrupting the class, but more than that his self-esteem is low because of the teacher is constantly scolding him. Then, perhaps youre just disappointed in the quality of education. You had higher hopes for your child. You know your son or daughter can excel if given a proper, high quality education. Sounds like youve pretty much talked yourself into taking the reins of your childs learning and making it work. But youre still wondering exactly what youre getting yourself into. You worry that you may totally mess up and your daughter learns nothing. Thats where this book comes in! Its here to give you an overview of what homeschooling is all about. Admittedly, several decades ago, it was practically unheard of to homeschool your own children. Today, more children are taken out of the rigors and regimentation of both public and private schools and placed in a more relaxed environment of the home classroom. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School

Not only that, but these home classrooms appear to be producing scholars and upstanding young people by the thousands. With this book, youre better able to make that choice. After reading through it, discovering both the joys and difficulties associated with this activity, youll have a better idea if homeschooling is right not only for you, but for your children as well.
No formal education? Dont worry!

But I dont have a teaching degree, you counter, in the continual discussion you have with yourself. Dont worry! Parents from all walks of life are currently discovering their inner teacher. Simply their desire to nurture their childs academic learning is propelling them to become some of the most successful educators today. So dont discount your abilities. If you have an advanced college degree of any type, you may feel qualified at least academically. But if you only have a high school diploma or if youve never even graduated from high school yourself you still have the potential to be a great teacher. And this book is here to give you some guidance on getting started. It not only covers, what you need to do to prepare yourself, it gives you some idea of what to expect from the entire process. Homeschooling can be one of the most rewarding activities youll ever experience. Once you and your child become accustomed to the process, theres nothing more fulfilling than seeing the gleam in your sons eyes when he finally figures out a difficult algebra problem. You know, as a home educator, that youve made a difference when your daughter writes an amazingly creative short story. But most of all, the quality time you spend with your child is indescribable. Youll bond with your children, learn about their likes and dislikes, their desires for the future and actually discover the very nature of their personalities. It just doesnt get any better than this. Yes you can homeschool! And this book shows you how your desire, determination and dedication can help your children prepare academically and emotionally for the future.
Home Sweet School
Chapter 1
So Youre Thinking about Homeschooling
What is homeschooling? Why do you want to homeschool? How to know if its right for you? Truths and myths of homeschooling
ouve thought about it. Youve discussed it with your close friends. Youve mentioned it to your family. Youve even asked your children what they think about the idea. No doubt, your suggestion has received mixed reviews. Youre planning to do what? Theres no way youre qualified to do that! Good for you! Youre doing the right thing! I wish I would have done that with my children. What are you contemplating? Homeschooling. Its a popular trend in this country, fueled by such newscasts that the National Spelling Bee Champion for 2007, and the National Geography Bee Champion for 2003 were homeschooled. Then there was that fantasy novel. Oh, you know the one. It hit the best sellers list before being turned into a movie Eragon. It was written by a 15year-old homeschooled student. Its enough to make you investigate the reason why an estimated 1.7 million to upwards of 2 million and more -- children are kept home at the start of every school year. Instead of being sent away on that big, yellow bus, they run to the family bookshelves and pull out the books. What homeschooling is and isnt! The official definition homeschooling is simple and straightforward. Its simply providing your childs education at home instead of in a public or privately run school. It usually implies that the parents actually take control of their own childrens education, from performing the actual teaching duties to selecting, planning and carrying out a Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School

curriculum largely of their choice (within the limits set by the state in which they reside, of course!) Other forms of homeschooling exist, of course. Homeschooling may refer to the student staying at home where paid tutors provide all of the education. Homeschooling is not to be confused with another popular option, distance learning. In this type of education, your child doesnt actually go to school. The school comes to your child in the form of a computer and the Internet. Its very popular and its a convenient way for parents of students who are gifted to achieve a level of learning not usually found within the confines of a school year. In many of these settings, the child can learn at his own pace in fact hes encouraged to work this way. Since there are few, if any, classes to attend using this system, a student can go as quickly or as slowly --as he likes through the various subjects and topics. Thats not to say that as a homeschooling parent you may not use the services of a tutor occasionally, or other methods that may involve sharing the burden of actual teaching now and again. I used various methods when I homeschooled my daughter, from a tutor for her French lessons, to a co-op for science classes at times, to hands-on experience for other courses. Dont think for an instant that aside from following the state-mandated achievements that you have to conduct your schooling in a specific way. Most states simply say that you must go to school a certain number of days out of the year. How you split up that school year is totally up to you.
Making a schedule that suits you

I know one homeschool family that never started until October. September represented the traditional vacation month. Once they returned from their vacation at the end of September, they dug into school. They usually completed their required number of days of schooling by the end of May. This gave their children nearly four months off a year. I preferred to start my daughters schooling at the same time the public schools started. Similarly, we ended school at around the same time in the spring. But there was one big difference between our friends and us. My daughter usually accomplished not only an entire school year of work, but a little more as well. When she was in third grade for example, she completed her third grade material by April. We slid seamlessly and effortlessly into her fourth grade curriculum. She enjoyed the feeling of being a grade ahead of where she should have been. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School

Homeschooling rests on several principals. The first is that for whatever personal reasons parents can provide a much better education for their children than a rigidly structured school. Some parents, like myself choose homeschooling not only for the quality of the education, but because of my husbands profession. He traveled frequently for his job, spending literally months on the road at a time. Homeschooling afforded us the luxury of visiting him as often as we wanted we didnt have to wait for the summer. We simply packed my daughters schoolbooks in with our clothes and we made sure we actually did the work (And thats the key to homeschooling!) Homeschooling has many advantages. One of them is that the world is your classroom. Homeschoolers, of any variety, believe that the student can learn not only within the four walls of a classroom, but while youre on a nature walk, or even when youre in a grocery store. As long as your child is walking by your side or sitting next to you on the couch, youve got access to a teachable moment. Many individuals believe homeschooling is a new concept. While more popular than ever before, its hardly a new idea. Some of our countrys most well known leaders and some of our mot brilliant minds were homeschooled. Who? you ask. President Woodrow Wilson, inventor and businessman Thomas Edison, artist Andrew Wyeth, and writer Pearl Buck are only a few of the individuals homeschooled in the twentieth century. Alternative schooling, which falls directly under the supervision of school personnel, by contrast, is not homeschooling. If your child is involved in an independent study program (usually simply referred to as an ISP), or a visiting teacher program, these are not technically homeschool programs. Thats because you the parent do not have control over your childs curriculum. Its still created and executed by the public or private school sponsoring these programs.
Why homeschool?
If youre interested in homeschooling, youve probably already rattled off the answer to the question posed above. Each family has its own reasons for keeping their children out of school and educating them themselves. My reasons were quality and convenience. As I stated earlier, not putting my daughter in a traditional school allowed our family to travel together as my husbands job dictated. This provided us with a wonderful sense of family.
Home Sweet School

In reality though that just happened to be a serendipitous benefit. My original and most urgent reason for taking the reins of my daughters education was quality. She attended public school from kindergarten to second grade. Having experienced two school systems, I found the level of education less than tolerable and I was told these were among the best public schools. Each family, though, chooses their own reasons for schooling their children in the privacy of their home. A growing number of families homeschool for religious reasons. Their goals include not only providing their children with the fundamentals of an excellent education. They also desire to integrate this academic learning with the core beliefs of their religious values, ideas and beliefs as they desire. Many families choose this method to meet the specific needs of their children. Youll discover that many parents whose children have learning disabilities homeschool. In this way the parents know that the child isnt just being pushed through the system. Each subject is handled at the pace appropriate for their child. This individualization allows the student to work to their true potential. It not only helps the child to learn, but greatly increases the self-esteem of the child as well. Many families in the rural areas of the country are turning to homeschooling to maximize learning time while minimizing commuting time. In many instances, children in the country spend literally hours just traveling back and forth to school. This means the child isnt as tired at the end of the day and the family can spend more quality time together.
Parent Survey
In 1999, the NHES surveyed parents to discover their reasons for home schooling. The question posed to these home educators was simple, if not open ended: Why do you homeschool? Obviously, a long list of answers resulted. But consistently three reasons appeared. Nearly half of the respondents cited the opinion that parents could provide their children with a better education than the local school system. More than one third 38 percent said that they keep their children home for a more fully developed religious education and more than one-quarter 26 percent said that the specific learning environment in their local school system was poor.
The truths and myths of homeschooling

So you think you know what homeschooling is all about? Ask the average person in this country and youre more than likely to receive a standard, stereotypical response. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School

Homeschooling images, to many Americans, usually involve a fundamentalist Christian family (even perhaps one heavily involved in the survivalist movement). Here, you see mom gathering her brood (for homeschool families in our stereotypical vision always have no less than five children and upwards of a dozen or more!) for morning prayer and then a Bible study. After that, youll imagine this mom standing in front of her blackboard looking pretty tired because shes stayed up all night preparing individualized lesson plans for each student --wading through subjects she herself just learned the night before. And the children? Well, obviously, theyre unhappy, lonely and absolutely isolated from children who arent members of the family. They wistfully dream of an exciting social life that includes daily attendance at a public school that is if they even know public schools exist! If youre interested in homeschooling, but fearful or hesitant because of some of the stereotypes youve heard, take heart. A wide variety of families home school from fundamental Christians searching for religious freedom to atheists to freethinking parents who just dont want to be encumbered by the rules and the slow pace of the school system. Additionally, more special needs children are being homeschooled all the time. Those children whose teachers believe they disrupt learning for all are experiencing a truly exciting education once theyre beyond the confining walls of the school system. So just how do you tell what is truth and whats myth when it comes to this growing trend? In the next several pages, I bust some of the more persistent myths that just dont seem to die. Myth Homeschooling is a small subculture with only a small core group of fanatical families participating. Fact Well, this might be right if you consider more than 2 million children as a small core group. Thats the number of children who were learning outside the walls of the traditional school as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2001. Thats probably a conservative estimate, since the number of homeschooling families rise yearly, as more parents hear about this alternative. If you look at the broad brush strokes, its true that the average homeschooling family is large, politically and religiously conservative, is white and have both parents residing Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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at home (usually with either the mom or dad as the stay-at-home parent). And its also true that the average homeschooling parent has not only a moderate to high level of education, but a fairly high income as well. Demographics, moreover, tell us that more than some core groups of fanatical families are busy taking control of their childrens educations. The homeschooling population can be found in every socio-economic group in this country, as well as every religious background. Large families of five or more homeschool, but so do smaller families with only one child. But looking a little closer, youll see an amazing degree of variegation in those brush strokes. The real differences between the two groups those families who homeschool and those who dont arent very large at all. And according to statistics even that gap is narrowing with each passing year. Myth The primary reason parents homeschool is religious freedom. Therefore, the homeschool phenomenon is primarily a religious movement. Fact One third of the homeschooling parents cited religious reasons for their decision when asked by the U.S. Census Bureau why they educate their own children. One third. That means the majority of students fully two thirds of the families do so for other reasons. Far more prevalent in the answers was the idea expressed in a variety of ways that the school system itself was not doing enough to ensure a quality education. Slightly more than half of the parents 50.8 percent said that the quality of education concerned them. Nearly 30 percent 29.8 percent said that the school was not an environment conducive to learning. Another 11.5 percent of the parents explained that the school system failed to challenge their children. Myth Children who are homeschooled are undereducated. Fact We can really take this one and bust it. Nothing can be further from the truth! Not only do the various studies show that homeschooled children perform exceptionally well on standardized tests, many of them consistently outperform children educated through the public schools. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Just read these statistics: the average homeschool student achieves a better score on standardized tests than at least 70 to 80 percent of the conventionally educated students. This goes for every grade level and every subject. But thats not all. Studies reveal that the longer a student is educated at home, the higher his test scores soar. Myth The majority of homeschooled children are taught through the use of a formal curriculum with their parents performing all the teaching. Fact Youd be amazed at the wide variety of methods that homeschooled students are exposed to. While it goes without saying that a portion of an average students curriculum is indeed taught by the parent, its actually a much smaller portion than you may have initially considered. To be a homeschooled students means to become immersed in self-directed projects, a variety of hands-on, real-life activities such as gardening, sports, cooking, volunteer activities and the like and cooperative learning experiences with other families, as well as independent reading groups and other group classes. In fact, the majority of homeschooling families do not purchase entire pre-packaged curriculums. Instead they may purchase a math textbook for example. But the science curriculum for the year may come from other sources, not the least of which could be based on other books combined with various field trips to museums, aquariums and planetariums. Myth Homeschoolers are homebound, stuck in the house, and not experiencing the outside world. Fact Wrong again! The average student whos schooled at home participates in a minimum of five outside activities a week. These are similar to the ones that every conventionally educated student engages in: team sports, music lessons, skating parties, bowling leagues, play dates for the younger kids, group-sponsored choirs . . . the list is endless! Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
Home Sweet School

The bottom line is that the homeschooled children actually have a more flexible schedule than those who attend school. Since they can have class anytime of the day or even evening, these families can schedule a cool afternoon skating party and work their school work around that. They may get up earlier in the day and work an hour more or so to accommodate this. Or they may perform more work in the evening. Or they may even do a lesson or two on a weekend in exchange for this activity. Myth Homeschooled children lack adequate socialization. Fact This myth is one that probably will never die. Of course, there are many children, whether homeschooled or educated by conventional means, who lack proper socialization skills. But for the most part, the average student learning at home is not lacking in the social graces. In fact, the homeschool student has more time than the average conventionally educated student to socialize with his peers. During an average school day, the students in regular classes are hushed from talking in study halls, have only a minute or so at the lockers between classes, or can only provide a passing nod on the way out the doors in the evening. Those students being taught at home though find that they can schedule time to talk just about any time. They have time at various social functions or when they get together casually. And parents of homeschooled students are more sensitive to the needs of their children to get this interaction; theyre far less apt to quell a good conversation once it gets going. Not only can a homeschooled student get along well with children his own age, but he appears to be light years ahead when holding conversations and interacting in general with adults as well. These, by the way, arent just the casual observations of a few home educators. Controlled studies back this statement. As early as 1986, a social researcher by the name of John Wesley Taylor sought to discover if homeschooled students lacked socialization skills due to their unique status. Using the widely accepted Piers-Harris Childrens Self-Concept Scale, he discovered that children kept out of the public educational system rated significantly higher in this area than their publically educated peers. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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More recent studies are only validating that point. A study, conducted by psychotherapist Dr. Larry Shyers, involved the objective observation of the behavior of a group public school students and homeschoolers. Dr. Shyerss study revealed that those students who were homeschooled displayed far fewer behavior problems than those who attended public schools. It even appears that self-reported socialization skills follow these children into adulthood as well. Dr. Brian D. Ray surveyed a group of adults, all of whom had been homeschooled for a minimum of seven years. Of those questions, nearly 60 percent of them responded that they were very happy with their lives. Of those adults who were schooled conventional, little over a quarter of the adults 27.9 percent to be exact were very happy with life. Myth Homeschooled students miss out on important events in a teens life, like prom and sports. Fact The fact of the matter is that more and more homeschooling groups recognize the need for their children to experience a prom. Its not at all unusual for these groups to sponsor a prom that is identical to the ones attended by high school students nationwide with the exception that the majority of the students are not attending high school. Its also not unusual for homeschooled students to interact with high schoolers and get invited and happily attend public school proms. And the participation in sports? In many states, homeschooled students are allowed and encouraged to participate in any extra curricular activities the public school students engage in, including football, basketball, soccer and any other sport. Myth Homeschooled students dont have physical education classes as in public schools. Fact
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Besides the fact that many of the school systems nationwide are now eliminating these courses from their curriculum, homeschooled student have a wealth of opportunities for exercise and other physical activities. Walk into just about any YMCA in the nation, pick up a seasonal program and youll find an ongoing gym and swim class specifically designed for homeschooled students. In addition to this, many homeschool organizations sponsor monthly skating parties, bowling leagues, even soccer leagues. Homeschool parents make great use of YMCA soccer programs as well as community Little League teams as well. And these examples are only the tip of the iceberg.
Is homeschooling right for your family?

Notice if you will, the phrasing of this question. Homeschooling is a family activity even if only one of your children is being homeschooled. Homeschooling needs the cooperation of every single member of the family in order to be the most productive. Only you and your family need to agree that its of benefit to the children involved. Even if only Mom is teaching the kids and even if only one of three of the children is being kept home from school, this task will eventually touch every member of the family in some way. Homeschooling is more a lifestyle than a style of teaching (and a darned great lifestyle, should you discover it suits you!). In discussing this decision with family members, everyone needs to be aware of the benefits offered by keeping one or more of your children out of the public school system and teaching them on your own. 1. You have direct control over the direction of your childrens education and exactly what they learn. 2. Your children are likely to feel more at ease being active participants in a small setting than in a larger classroom. 3. As a parent (this is purely a selfish reason), youll create a much stronger bond between you and your children. 4. Your children will have more free time to pursue their personal interests and to engage in the more creative arts, like writing, photography and art. Theyll also have more time to sit down with a good book. Most homeschooled students love to read. When I homeschooled my daughter, I gave her ample time to read. And she learned so much more in so very many areas.
Home Sweet School

Because of her eagerness to read, we seldom needed to use formal history texts. (As a history major with graduate work in this area, I was hesitant to accept this approach initially.) My daughter learned more than I could ever have pounded in her head by reading historical novels and fictional diaries of various time periods in history. I was total blown away by what she could absorb just by reading age-appropriate good historical fiction! 5. If your child has a special need (ADD/ADHD or dyslexia or another learning problem), or is intellectually gifted, homeschooling can provide an outstanding form of education. In these instances, your child receives nearly one-on-one attention. The learning environment is vastly improved for such students. Im not going to fool you. Home educating your child is no cure-all. It wont solve all your family problems and it wont solve all your childs educational problems if she has any. And quite frankly some parents dont make excellent homeschool educators at least not at first. Just as with any activity, there are pitfalls to educating your children at home. So just what are the disadvantages of keeping your students out of school? 1. Some parents have a tendency to push their students too hard. I read a book once that advised homeschool parents to teach their children nearly 12 hours a day. Once all the academic classes were done for the day, the bookwritten by a veteran home educator and her daughter encouraged home art courses in the evenings. Now thats a bit much, in my opinion. Children need time to unwind. They even need time to absorb and think about what theyve learned. 2. You may find that there are some subjects you just cant teach your child. This usually occurs in high school. And for this reason, many parents abandon homeschooling and send their student to conventional high school. If youre worried about this aspect, keep in mind that good tutors can be found (especially if you live near a college or university. College students are great at this and they appreciate the extra money!) 3. Its difficult at times to separate Mom the teacher from Mom the mother.
Home Sweet School

As you teach your children, you assume an additional role. Not only are you the mom your children love, the mom who cooks, the mom who makes the hurt go away, youre now mom, the teacher. This is a very different role. If your children are frustrated in their coursework with you and resent the restrictions or some of the assignments, this resentment may spill over into other areas of your family life as well. Beyond the advantages and disadvantages of homeschooling, there are just some plain facts of life associated with this situation that cant be ignored. These factors are part and parcel of the stark reality of a home education. Before you take the plunge into homeschooling, think about these 5 very important factors that are involved in teaching your children at home. 1. The time commitment is huge. Homeschooling, in many ways, is more a lifestyle than an activity. It requires a large segment of your time as a parent. You need to factor in the actual time you teach. But more than that youll have to remember that youll need time to plan the lessons as well. And if youre not using a conventional curriculum, you may need to schedule time to create one as well. This may mean hours in the local library looking through appropriate books to use in history class or in science class. Youll need to read these books alone before your children study them. Youll also want to have questions prepared to ask them about what theyve read 2. Paperwork is of extreme importance. Dont forget that youll have to create some form of a grading system that objectively and systematically evaluates your childs progress in school. Chances are that the state in which you live will want some form of progress report. While it doesnt have to follow a strict letter-grade evaluation as in school, it certainly should provide insight into your childs academic progress. 3. Financial burden. The actual act of homeschooling can be achieved without spending a small fortune. However, if youre going to use a complete pre-packaged curriculum itll cost you a minimum of $500 guaranteed.
Home Sweet School

And if your household has been used two incomes youll have to learn how to live on one! Usually one parent foregoes working outside the home. This may create a financial strain on the family budget. 4. Taking your childs views into consideration. Yes, you really need to think about that. Oh, I know youre the parent and parents rule with an iron hand (or so we like to think), but if your child is adamantly opposed to homeschooling, then youre in for an uphill struggle. Depending on how stubborn your son or daughter is, learning may take a back seat in this case to a generational power struggle. Take this into account when you decide if homeschooling is appropriate for your family. 5. Both parents need to agree. Even though the actual duties of schooling usually fall mostly to one parent (in most cases the mom), the other parent needs to agree to it as well. Family cooperation and respect for the process are paramount for it to be successful. Theres no way around it. The actual decision to remove your children from the public school system in order to homeschool them is a huge step. It takes much thought and quite a bit of planning. You dont pull your children out of school in midyear to homeschool them because you had an argument with a school official. You may want to consider it, however, if their current teachers arent providing an adequate educational environment, are hostile to your child for no apparent reason, or even if your child is falling horribly behind academically. You may also want to start homeschooling if you discover your child is increasingly reluctant to attend school and you just dont know why. This is especially the case if you suspect there may be a fundamental problem with the school system or with a particular teacher. Its best to wait until the first of a school year to homeschool your children. But that means the summer before you start you need to get your homeschooling ducks in a row. Well talk more about whats involved in that in the next chapter.
Chapter 2
Home Sweet School
Chapter 2
Surviving
Your First Year
Facing Fears Troubleshooting Problems Socialization Issues Finding Support Balancing Home and School Management A Typical Homeschool Schedule
certainly hope I havent painted a picture of homeschooling as a process that eliminates all of your familys problems, because it doesnt. Homeschooling takes time effort and what may seem like endless energy on your part.
While you may say that you love your flexible schedule, you may find you have to work hard at ensuring that your children do have some type of schedule. Many parents find that its far too easy to get involved in the extra-curriculum activities of homeschooling only to discover that . . . oops! . . . weve kind of neglected the academics this month. Dont be embarrassed if this happens to you. Making a flexible schedule work for you is part of the first year (or more!) of homeschooling. It takes time, trust me! But you can minimize some of these problems. Youre not the first family to homeschool. So you can learn from what other families did that worked and what they did that well . . . didnt work out so well! One of the first items youll have to deal with is an effective internal organization. While you may consider yourself the queen of organization, youre about to discover that organizing your homeschooling is quite the challenge. Searching for that math textbook at 9:30 a.m. is not effective teaching. Despite your best attempts, this will happen. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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The first thing you must understand is that your childs school work is being done in the midst of your house among your books, the TV Guide, recipe books, the dog, the cat, younger brothers or sisters. Depending on the number of children you have and your duties, you may be grading that math paper while youre trying to feed your toddler! Organization is definitely a challenge under these circumstances. Its best to line up all your supplies and textbooks the night before, just as if you were sending your child off to public school. Let your child search for that misplaced math text on his time not school time. Its amazing how quickly its found then!
Listen to your childs suggestions

One of the beauties of homeschooling is that you can devote more time to subjects your son or daughter finds enjoyable. As a responsible teacher, youll have to cover all the subjects. But if your child has an abiding love in science, then you can spend more time on this subject (even certain topics within this subject). Indulge the passions of your child. My daughter loved science. But I discovered she didnt love it when it was pulled from a science book. She loved it when she could go to the library to read about it. She loved science when it was hands on, when we visited aquariums and museums. Sharks fascinated her. Dinosaurs amazed her. And I fed her all the information on these subjects I could find. She also loved ancient Egypt. For a child of six or seven, she became a budding Egyptologist. I allowed her to take every single book on the subject out of the library. Once a librarian scolded me. What was my daughter doing taking an adult book out of the library? Her reading level and interests allowed her to use it as a homeschool resource. Dont under schedule; dont over schedule. Theres danger in both of these. And youll only learn how to deal with this by . . . well, dealing with it. With a little bit of experience on your part, youll have a good feel for the amount of work your child can handle academically in a day. Dont feel as if every minute of the day has to be an academic challenge event. Dont worry. Your child is learning even when youre not fully aware of it. For those of us who grew up in public schools this may sound strange.
Home Sweet School

Before I started homeschooling, I certainly didnt buy that line of what I thought was just an excuse to not teach. I believed that saying that was an easy out for parents too lazy to really teach. I discovered though that children naturally want to learn. You dont need to schedule too much for them. Dont set unrealistic expectations for your child. Again, let me emphasize the beauty of homeschooling allows your child to work at his own pace. Today that pace may be a little slower than tomorrow. And dont forget that this is a whole new experience for your child as well especially if shes been in public school for any length of time! Your child may not know how to react to the freedom of this method of learning. She may struggle with the concept of actually enjoying a learning environment. Its almost a badge of coolness with kids to hate school. You have a chance to show her that real coolness involves liking to learn. But allow her to learn at her own speed.
Mom needs hobbies too!

You may find it difficult even at social events to participate with the other parents. I know it did for a while. I would take my daughter to the monthly roller skating party. And Id sit alone while she mingled with other kids. I ensured she got socialized with children but I didnt realize how important it was for me to do the same thing. Eventually a group of us got together at these functions and just talked about homeschooling and a host of other topics as well. Wed talk about our cars that were in need of repair (we all were single income families, so money at times was scarce!) as well as our husbands, in-laws and just anything else that crossed our minds. Soon, I was looking forward to her events as much as she was.
Socialization: To Worry or Not To Worry

That is the question! (Sorry Shakespeare!) Once you make the decision to homeschool, the first question people ask you will be what about socialization? Before I homeschooled, I really had never heard of this phrase. I didnt worry about my daughters socialization skills. Suddenly, it was everybodys prime concern.
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So lets get this term defined right at the beginning of this discussion. Socialization is nothing more than the process of introducing initiated members of society to the norms and habits of the society he is to part of. If you were to go to a foreign country, for example, you would undoubtedly need to be socialized in order to be a part of society without accidentally offending anyone. When referring to a child, socialization means how to interact with not only children his own age, but adults as well. Basically, were saying that socialization is the process of teaching your son or daughter how to act in the society based on the social norms already established. This concern of others appears to stem from a stereotypical view of homeschool students secluded in one room in the house, huddled around books, not being allowed to look up. The truth of the matter is that the homeschooled student has more freedom and opportunities to socialize with a wide range of people. Not only will your child participate in a host of activities with children his own age, but youll discover that hell accompany you on many more trips to the grocery store, errand running and the like. Hell become an expert at interacting with adults as well. We cited studies at the beginning of this book that showed that homeschooled students actually had better socialization skills than public school students of the same age and grade! And if those studies dont convince you, heres another opinion from Richard G. Medlin, who has written extensively on the subject, including the article entitled, Homeschooling and the Question of Socialization.
Homeschooled children are taking part in the daily routines of their communities. They are certainly not isolated; in fact, they associate with and feel close to all sorts of people.
Medlin though goes several steps beyond just socialization, commenting that homeschooled students have better leadership skills than other children as well. And they appear to be functioning effectively as members of adult society. Ask any homeschool family about socialization and youre likely to get an earful! And much of that will be how the public schools are producing students who are far too compliant. This can be a dangerous habit to adopt, for it can follow a child throughout life. Michael Brady conducted research about this issue and published his findings in an article called Social Development in Traditionally Schooled and Homeschooled Children: Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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A Case for Increased Parental Monitoring and Decreased Peer Interaction (now theres a mouthful!). He viewed the differences in the levels of socialization between the two groups. The homeschool group excelled. Children who were exposed to a peerdominant environment what we would call school are at a higher risk for developing social maladjustment issues than those [who] are socialized in a parentmonitored environment.
Socialization: Practical terms In practical terms, socialization is merely making sure your child participates in a wide range of activities especially those in which he expresses an interest. Keep in mind that once you homeschool, you dont need to place your child in an activity that he isnt interested in. While you certainly want your child to have a wealth of diverse interests and knowledge youll discover that his preferences will be for the most part well-rounded enough to make him a well-adjusted member of society. Consult with him before you place him in that soccer league. Maybe hed really rather learn fencing? What about swimming? Does he really need to play baseball? After all hes already participating in basketball. If your daughter wants dance lessons hip hop to be specific and you think she needs a grounding in ballet, well . . . shes not going to attend willingly. Think twice before you try to force an unwanted activity on her. Opportunities to socialize with other homeschool students abound. Here are just a few ways you can connect or network with other families.
Getting and staying connected with other homeschoolers

Even before you officially choose homeschooling, you may want to ask if you can shadow a family on a field trip or other activity. Youll obviously get to see what its like to provide your children with their education. But more than that, youll begin making contacts networking, if you will to help ease the transition for you and your children when you jump into it. Finding others who are also homeschool, you see, is one of the best ways to ensure your success. Your children wont feel as if theyre alone in a world of public school students. You wont walk into a meeting not knowing a soul and doubting your decision.
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Check with friends who homeschool, or if youre new to the area, check online to see if theres a homeschool organization near you. This is a great source of advice, activities and resources. Usually these organizations produce a monthly newsletter listing activities and field trips. They also hold meetings at regular intervals. These meetings allow you to meet other parents.
Getting to know you: Online

Youll discover that you can connect with other homeschool families not only in your area, but world wide thanks to the technology of the internet. Start by doing a general search for homeschooling groups. Youll be surprised at what youll find and who youll find as well. Every day there are more blogs, chat rooms, web sites, message board, e-newsletters and other resources that can connect you with like-minded people. Currently, the only state which requires that you be a certified teacher in order to homeschool your children is Michigan, although several other states are investigating this possibility. The homeschooling movement is increasingly going international. Its legal in every province in Canada and Australia, as well as New Zealand. Its also a legitimate alternative in the United Kingdom, South African and Japan.
Join a homeschooling support group.

Homeschool.com carries a complete list of local homeschooling support groups. Just go to http://www.homeschool.com/supportgroups. Take part in homeschool family activities. These are some of the best sources for cooperative classes and field trips that may not be publicized through the normal channels. Dont neglect community resources. The local YMCA may have sports teams. Many YMCAs also carry something called gym and swim. This is usually a two-hour class that involves not only swimming, but an hour gym class created especially for homeschooled students. The local community theatre may have childrens theatre groups (or even childrens roles in adult performances). Look into your local community college or university. Your high school aged child would enjoy this. Many colleges have classes for high school students in general and some create special course specifically aimed at homeschooled students. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Volunteer! This is a great way for students to socialize and give back to the community as well. My daughter not only indulged her passion for horses (at the tender age of nine) by helping to care for a stable of Egyptian Arabian horses, but developed a great sense of self-esteem as well. She also volunteered at a local nursing home. We began by bowling with the residents (it was a wonderful activity, using plastic bowling balls and pins, designed especially for those in wheelchairs and individuals with limited mobility!), she ended up spending time singing songs of the 1940s with them and playing bingo as well. Im not sure who enjoyed the time more she or the residents. Camps. Why not? You dont have to look much farther than your local parents magazines to discover some great specialized camp settings. From history to church camp, your son or daughter can have a week to a month, to an entire summer with other kids.
Find a mentor
In fact, if you can find a parent who is an experienced home educator, you should ask this person to be your mentor. She (Yes, its typically the moms who home educate their children!) can help guide you through at the least the first year. In this way youll have a person to go to for routine questions. Youll also have a shoulder to cry on when you believe the situation is getting unbearable. (And trust me at times even with the best of children, itll feel like it!) Not only that you can actually see and feel the homeschool process in progress. Its easy to explain that certain paperwork needs to be filled out to stay legal with the state. Its a whole different story when youre faced with these forms. With a mentor, shes only a phone call or an email away. She can help explain all the forms step by step. When youre choosing a mentor, dont base your selection merely on the fact that the individual is already your friend. You may decide you want person with whom you have no connections to guide you through your first year. By doing this, you know that your friendship wont get in the way of the mentoring relationship and the mentoring relationship wont destroy the friendship! When selecting a mentor, you want a parent who has already been successful in the process. This would just go without saying that this person would have more experience teaching her children than you have.
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Some experts say that a mentor should have at least one child who is three or more years ahead of your oldest child. In this way they can relate to the problems unique not only to homeschooling, but to the age of the child as well. Dont make the mistake, though, of just assuming this woman will mentor you. Its actually a big responsibility on her part, if its done correctly. So formally approach her with the request. You probably will have many questions . . . youll want to consult her before some of your more important decisions . . . and youll want to bounce some ideas off of her.
The immense value of a homeschool association

Seriously consider joining the nearest homeschool association to you geographically. These organizations are, indeed, valuable sources of information, tips, and the latest news on field trips, monthly skating parties and more! The homeschool association I joined was regional. It provided me with a good core group of other homeschool moms who helped guide me. Not only was I new to homeschooling, I was new to the state I was living in as well. But more than that, itll provide your children with a large group of children that have a wide array of interests. Thanks to our homeschool association we not only went skating, but we dug for fossils, visited the state parks to learn about apple cider and clouds and a whole lot more! Above this though, the association represents the voice of the homeschooler to the state government. It attempts to influence the legislative process in order to protect the rights of homeschooling. Homeschool associations typically help sponsor and at the very least help publicize yearly state homeschooling conventions. If you ever have a chance to attend one of these, you should. Not only are they filled with wonderfully informative seminars and lectures, but the convention hall is brimming with vendors trying to sell various curricula, books and other aids to homeschooling. At a convention youre exposed to others with your interests and you discover resources you never knew even existed.
The Typical Schedule of a Homeschool Family

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Gotacha! There is no typical day in the life of a homeschooling family. Oh, I could lie to you and say that everyday, we got up at 7:30 a.m. ate breakfast, made the bed and started school precisely at 8:30 a.m.
Then we would hit the books, each subjected divided evenly into half hour to forty-five minute blocks. Lunch would be eaten precisely at noon. And then wed go back to learning. By 3:30 p.m. wed be done with our learning. The children would have their homework assignments and youd be busy making supper for the family. Thats what people expect. I just cant tell you thats the case. Because thats not how homeschooling works. Homeschooling is all about flexibility. First, most states typically dictate how many days out of the year you must teach your children. But they dont require a minimum amount of hours in that day. Youll be surprised the amount of learning that can go on in a short couple of hours in a household. Even public school teachers tell you that much of the six or seven hours in school, really isnt spent on learning, but on administrative activities, discipline, bathroom breaks for a group of almost 30, as well as lunch, taking attendance, passing out papers, and a host of other activities. Our school day usually began between 9:30 and 10 a.m. We usually broke for lunch by noon and then worked another hour to an hour and a half tops. And I was able to cover nearly a year and a half of schoolwork! But there were days that we began school earlier in the day. There were also days when we had daylong excursions to aquariums or to museums scheduled. On these days, the routine of classroom work didnt even occur. On the days we had bowling leagues or skating parties, the actual school work was pared down to only the bare essentials. There were days when we werent even home. We spent an entire month visiting my husband in North Carolina one year where he was working. Schoolwork consisted of waking up early and doing it before we hit the motel swimming pool for the afternoon. Some days multiplication tables were memorized at poolside!
Experimentation is the key

The key to successfully including all the subjects you want to cover in a school year in the time you want to means that you may want to experiment with your schedule.
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I know one family who only worked on history two days a week. Another family took one day a week to attend cooperative classes with several other families. Still, some home educators took all their courses with a coop group. And then in some instances, homeschool families worked together to reproduce a school of sorts, which emphasized the elements of learning they felt important. The students would attend classes twice or perhaps three times a week. During the off days, they would have homework and other assignments to occupy them. You see, homeschooling really is as different as the family who is experiencing it. And since each family has its own reasons for engaging in this activity, youll find a multitude of schedules. One month, we spent in Orlando, Florida. While less academic work got accomplished, my daughter got to swim with and pet a dolphin what a way to emphasize what we had already learned about these animals. And the rides at Sea World, the swimming at Discovery Cove and the whole experience of Disney World was just icing on the cake for her. More than anything, that experience taught me that children can learn anywhere and I was capable of throwing in a teachable moment into any situation! A typical day of homeschooling is notable because it is so atypical. You may decide to let your child sleep in a little longer one day than another, depending on what had occurred the day before.
Flexibility: The key to homeschooling

When you begin homeschooling in earnest, dont even pretend youre going to be Mommy Precision with a schedule, a clipboard and a whistle (to replace the school bells). If one day you see your children are having a great time learning science through some hands on project, let it go on longer than you originally planned. You can do that English tomorrow! If your children are really discovering the joy of writing through a creative writing project dont stop it just because of some preconceived notion that spelling has to be performed precisely at 12:30 p.m. Relax! Learning the joy of learning is a far more important lesson, then packing that fun up. The same words will be waiting for your children the following day!
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Chapter 3
Homeschooling Curriculum And More!
The Pre-Designed Curriculum Creating Your Own Curriculum The whole world is your classroom Finding learning resources Teaching life skills Building on your childs natural gifts Instilling a lifelong love of learning
o youre still convinced homeschooling is the route for your family? Great! But now youre faced with the logistics of actual teaching. Just where do you find your curriculum? You dont exactly have a magic homeschool wand to make this material appear. Literally thousands of homeschool educators buy pre-packaged curriculum every year to use either as their sole source of instruction or as a part of a originally designed course of study for their children. Obtaining these curriculums is as easy as logging into your favourite web site. Youll discover that many universities and publishing houses now offer curriculum especially designed for your needs. The advantages of buying your curriculum ready made are great. It saves you the time and energy of having to create daily, weekly and monthly compilation of resources.
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Using material designed by professional educators also gives you peace of mind that youre covering the appropriate topics at the right time in your childrens development. Theres always a danger especially in the first year of homeschooling that youll teach either above your childrens grade levels or abilities, or below them. In either case, you raise the possibility that youll either lose your children by totally baffling them with material theyre not ready for . . . or bore them to tears repeating instruction that they already know. In either case, its not a great start to the school year. But by using curriculum already tailor made for your childs grade, youre assured that youre at least operating on the right grade level. After you discover how she reacts to this, you simply adjust your methods from there. If youre homeschooling because your child has a learning disability and not working at his grade level, you may need to give strong thought to the grade level of the curriculum you purchase. If, for example, you child is in fourth grade, but working at a second grade level in math, you know you dont want to buy a fourth grade math book. Whatever you do, dont make the same mistake the public schools did with him: making him work at a pace that is beyond him. Homeschool works only when you analyze your childs needs and individualize your teaching strategy to this. Packaged curriculum can be purchased through a wide variety of publishing houses today, thanks to the growing interest in homeschooling and the increasing demand for these materials. To give you just a taste of the diversity of programs available, Ive listed several here to give you a start in your research. By listing these, Im not automatically recommending any of them. This list only jump starts your quest! A Beka (www. Abeka.org) This firm provides Christian based curriculum starting with kindergarten and extending into the 12th grade. In addition to offering textbooks and curriculum, it also provides the home educator with record keeping resources as well. These resources are highly structured. When you purchase this program, you also receive weekly test offerings, and an approach that uses drills and repetition to facilitate learning. Should you desire to purchase an entire curriculum for any one grade from first through sixth, expect to spend approximately $650. If your needs are in the middle school to Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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high school range, books for a complete curriculum costs approximately $800 per grade. Calvert School (www.calvertschool.org) If youre looking for a nondenominational approach to homeschooling, but still would like to keep the Christian tone, consider Calvert School. This firm also offers curriculum from kindergarten through eighth, providing textbooks, curriculum and record-keeping resources for the home educator. And like A Beka, they design a highly structured curriculum. This companys materials are aimed at parents who intend to be hands-on teachers in the lower grades, participating fully in their childrens education and making use of learning through doing instead of just reading from a book. As you progress towards the upper grades, the material is purposely designed as self-instructional. The cost is comparable to A Beka. Clontara School Home Based Education Program (www.clonltara.org) This is a secular or non religious based curriculum for grades kindergarten through high school. A more relaxed approach to homeschool, the firm offers individuals programs that attempt to reduce the pressure that is sometimes present in the learning process. The cost is about the same as the previous two firms for the lower grades, but slightly less expensive for the higher grades. Oak Meadow School (www.oakmeadow.com) Like Clontara, this curriculum is secular. This is more a distance learning school than just a boxed, bought curriculum. Available for the kindergartener through the high school student, this course is like the Cadillac of homeschooling, with full support (with a capital F). Not only do you receive the texts, but every student also has a class teacher available for consultation either by phone or email. The inclusion of this service doesnt come cheap though. The cost is almost $1,000 for elementary and middle school resources and $2,000 for the high school version. Seton Home Study School (www.setonhom.org) This is a Catholic program, specifically geared for the student who believes he want to enter college following high school. The program includes resources starting with kindergarten and continues through high school. It provides complete record keeping material for the homeschool educator, in addition to the appropriate texts for each grade. The cost is about $500 for every grade. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd. (www.sonlight.com) This curriculum is not only literature based, but Christian oriented as well. Sonlight is unique among curriculum providers because it offers an eight-week money-back guarantee with its materials. If youre not satisfied you can return the curriculum within the first two months of purchase and receive a full refund. The Sonlight basic package costs abut $600, but many families find they like this material and purchase additional resources as well. You can easily contact these suppliers simply by going to their web site and requesting a catalog. Once you get on their mailing lists, theyll continue to send you catalogs every year. In fact, through out the school year, youll also receive periodic updates as well. For a more comprehensive listing of curriculum suppliers, read the book The Big Book of Home Schooling (Vol. 1) by Mary Pride. You can either purchase it online, through your local bookstore, or borrow it from your library.
So just what are the advantages of a packaged curriculum?

First, if youre a first-year home educator, a full curriculum provides you with the foundations and guidance that you might need. Sometimes, its not only difficult to visualize what a years worth of materials look like, its overwhelming even to think about. Using a package created by professionals also ensures that your children are receiving age-appropriate material. It eliminates much of the guesswork thats often involved in the first year of home schooling. This is especially true if your children have been in public school for several years. It may be difficult to gauge their true abilities from the grade theyre working in! If you desire a religious and especially Christian based education, then purchasing a full curriculum makes sense. You receive all the benefits of the academic material, but a grounding in Bible-based aspects of education as well. This route is also a great choice for the family who needs its education to be structured. In this way, you know exactly what subjects to cover and when. And with some of these firms, especially the two that are schools, theyll handle all the legal requirements of reporting your children as homeschoolers. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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The biggest problem faced by many homeschoolers with these packages is the cost. Its expensive enough if youre only teaching one child, but if you have several children you may find the costs growing by leaps and bounds! Youre also counting on the fact after you spend all this money that your children will like this particular curriculum. If they resist it or perform poorly using it then you may feel as if youve wasted your money . . . as well as several months of the school year fighting with them over using it.
Now, lets create a hybrid curriculum

A middle road exists between buying a full curriculum from one company and designing your own from scratch. Your first choice is to simple choose the materials you like best from a variety of vendors. You may choose the math book from A Beka and the social studies text from Sonlight. That is one of the pleasures . . . and luxuries . . . of being in charge of your childs education. The web is also filled with companies that specialize in selling various texts and homeschool resources singly. These are independent books written especially for the homeschool family. In fact, many of them are written by home educators themselves, after using packaged curriculum. In many ways the packaged curriculum replicates a mini-school environment in your home. Indeed, many Christian schools use the A Beka materials for all of its needs. If your decision to homeschool was to break away from such an environment, then youll probably be very receptive to mixing and matching books and resources from a variety of sources. You may have to search for these a bit, but its a wonderful way to put together an individualized course of study. As you research the curriculum choices, you may notice that many of them are Christian-based. In addition to receiving a fully formed academic lesson, these books are sprinkled liberally with references to God. Many of the science texts dont make use of the theory of evolution either. If this is the direction in which you want your curriculum to go, these are perfectly designed for you. If however, you want your curriculum free from references to God, or you want your child to learn about evolution, then youll need to dig a little deeper to find solid curriculum in this case.
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If this is the case, then constructing your own school schedule complete with resources may be the route for you.
Designing your own curriculum, Part I

Yes, its possible! And no, its not nearly as difficult as it may sound. And this may indeed be the best option if your child has learning difficulties. You can design your curriculum to address any problems he may have in specific topics. You can also design the work to highlight his strengths as well. An originally designed curriculum may be the best approach to maximizing his learning abilities. Similarly, if your child is gifted and has been bored with traditional schooling, you may consider creating a curriculum around his individual needs as well. Certainly if hes a fifth grader, but reads at an eighth grade level, you dont want to spend money on a packaged curriculum that is far below his abilities. Discover what level he feels comfortable at and go from there. Several hurdles may slow you down in your decision to design your own courses, however. The biggest, if youre new to the experience, is knowing the proper material to teach for each grade level. This is where a curriculum guide is invaluable (even for those who have experience in this area!) These guides inform you of the curricular goals not only on the national level, but on the state levels as well. But more than this, they very often offer you with suggestions on how to carry out these goals, in addition to hints on organizing yourself for the year. Theyre available starting with the per-kindergarten level and cover all four years of high school. The prices for these books range from $15 to for the primary grades up to $25 for the high school versions. If youre interested, one supplier of this is Unschoolers Network 2 Smith St., Farmingdale, NJ 07727. You can email the founder of this network, Nancy Plent, at UnNet@aol.com. If your goal is to reproduce a classroom environment then the absolute best book to consult is The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. This book explains in great detail the resources youll need. It also provides you with a curriculum to follow. Actually the curriculum is the same one that the co-author Jessie Wise used to home educate her daughter and now coHomeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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author Susan. If you follow her recommendations which include teaching your child such classic subjects as Latin your child will be well prepared for college. If youre looking for a method that is a little less rigid, then you should consult, Rebecca Rupps book, Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool through High School. The author recommends designing your curriculum around well-chosen quality books just about all of which can be borrowed from most libraries to a wide variety of games and even web sites.
Looking for a completely non-traditional approach?

If you really want to attack educating your child from a different perspective, then perhaps the unschool technique is for you. If youve never heard of this approach dont worry. I hadnt either before I homeschooled my daughter. The book you should consult is Linda Dobsons, The Homeschooling Book of Answers. She approaches homeschooling not by asking how to homeschool? but Why should you homeschool? Instead of focusing on curriculum, the parents, according to Dobson, should be focusing on the needs, interests and capabilities of their child. Instead of developing a guideline for your child to follow, with the unschooling method you basic follow your childs interests and actions and develop the curriculum from his lead. Critics of this method explain that its more difficult to achieve the state mandates goals for your childs academic work. More than that, many parents are at a loss when it comes to record keeping using this concept. However, the curriculum guides that I mentioned earlier are great ways to recognize that teaching and learning are still being accomplished and how to phrase it in a way that the state requirements are fulfilled.ng covered. This method is advantageous because a parent can pay less attention to those areas that have little or no relevance to their childs innate interests. Simultaneously, youre emphasizing those exact areas in which your child has the greatest interest. And when that happens, then you unlock that innate love of learning that resides in all of us. Dont overlook the seemingly unlimited resources waiting for you on the web. The book, Homeschool Your Children for Free, by Laura Mary Gold and Joan M. Zielinski, offers a section some 40 pages long of curricula recommendations and various other tips in their book. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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On these pages, the authors direct you to free online resources for everything from lesson plans to placement tests, unit studies and field trips. This book is an amazing collection of practical resources. If you choose the unschooling approach is what I unwittingly choose youll discover that youll be pulling resources from literally everywhere, putting them together and creating a lesson for your child based on several books, workbooks, activities . . . . and anything else around the house. If you think this is the most effective way to teach your child, its best to do this during the summer (or whatever time of year you decide to take time off from teaching). Designing your own curriculum isnt nearly as intimidating as you might think. The most effective way in which to do this is to design it around the specific interests of your children. Theres a wonderful type of resource homeschooling makes good use of and one that I really loved. Its called the unit study. In this approach, you take one topic, lets say horses, and design lessons for every subject around it My daughter volunteered at a horse farm. That was the impetus for creating this particular unit study. I created a small newsletter using desktop publishing software. The newsletter had articles covering various subjects, science, math, history, even geography all of which talked about the horse. I created grade appropriate word problems that had my daughter calculating the amount of grain a stable of horses would eat in a day, week and a month. I used the evolution of the horse as a partial geography and history lesson. And science lessons came naturally to this topic, the skeleton and other physical attributes of the horse were discussed. We were even able to work some English language skills into the unit study by using creative writing. And spelling words for the period we studied this were all horse related in some form. I used this concept for creating some history lessons as well. She learned about the Great Depression and the New Deal. She wrote a fictional account of Pres. Hoovers diary (he drowned his sorrows by the way through indulging in Oreo cookies and milk. And yes, we discovered Oreo cookies really were around in the 1930s.) We had plenty of opportunity for math lessons, from learning the prices of consumer goods at this time, adding up trips to the stores, the paychecks of typical workers and other number-based historical information.
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U.S. geography lessons were easy to create as well! We talked about what cities or states were the hardest hit economically and found them on maps. And these types of lessons can easily be adjusted depending on the grade of your child and his abilities. Even if you decide to purchase a prepared lesson plan, you may still want to add some personalization to the school lessons. After all whats the point of educating your child at home if youre going to stick to the curriculum day after day! As you get into this, youll learn how to shake it up a bit for your children. Add some personal touches, novels to history lessons (Scholastic makes a wonderful series of historical fiction based on diaries of various figures known and fictional that accurately portray the times!), math workbooks to the math curriculum, geography workbooks to social studies . . . you get the idea.
Wait! Are you headed out the door right now to buy them? Do you know where youre going? Here, before you rush out with your charge card in hand, let me give you some ideas about the best place to look for additional resources to supplement or even create curriculums.
Hit the bookstores!

My number one choice is the nearest bookstore. Actually, Id drive miles to find a good bookstore. Dont laugh, I have. Ive driven as much as an hour or more to shop at this delightful used bookstore near Pittsburgh, PA. I gave my daughter an upper limit for her personal purchases, then I sought out school-related books for class. If youre using a packaged curriculum these books make great supplemental reading. If youre designing your own curriculum, make several books the core of the lessons, and add appropriate exercises to your lessons. Pick up homeschooling magazines. You can find these in libraries and many of the larger bookstores. You can also find online versions of these from the Internet. These magazines have plenty of advertisers who have a wide variety of curricula you can buy. Youll also find advertisements for other resources as well. As a homeschool parent, youll be in heaven looking through all these resources. Youll get so many ideas, youll be amazed.
Use your local library.

This is probably the least expensive method. Homeschool families are notorious users of the library. We check out literally dozens of books at one time. One family I know used to return their books in a blue plastic store bin, refill it to take more books home againand she was only homeschooling two children! Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Dont be afraid of using computer software to augment your childs learning experience. Educational computer software has improved tremendously in the last several years. Math programs abound; language programs help teach your children even with correct pronunciation! geography and more! If youre teaching it, theres a program to supplement your curriculum, guaranteed! Rustle through the bookshelves of another homeschool family. Guaranteed youll strike gold. Of course, you dont want to smuggle them out of the house, but write down the name of the books as well as the authors. And while youve got the home educator there, ask for a review of the book. If the book helped them, use it yourself. If it didnt, dont toss it aside right away. It still may work for you. Give it some thought.
Dont over look the teacher supply stores!

These are normally set up with the professional teacher in mind, but are regular retail stores that the general public can shop at. They are also a wealth of books, educational toys, general supplies and wonderful ideas. I encourage you to find one in your area and visit it even before you make the commitment to homeschool. Just walking into one of these stores inspires you. Similarly, if you have a Discovery Channel store in your area, visit these. There are plenty of toys that are educational that can easily be incorporated in your lesson plans. Many of these will be science based, but with a little bit of imagination you can be creating unit studies for a wide range of topics. Consider the subject matter of volcanoes. On the surface that appears to be a science lesson, but if you talk about Pompeii one day, youve got a great lesson in ancient history.
Homeschooling.com
Thats right! A simple web site. Not only does it have plenty of resources, you may be eligible to receive free resources. Yes, I said free. Creators of products are always looking for families to try their products. They gladly ship you the product, if your child writes the review of it. And yes, again, I said your child. So not only does your child receives a resource (and your pocketbook thanks you!) but then she gains the experience in writing. Overall, homeschooling.com is a great site it could indeed be the home educators best friend. Check it out.
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The world: One gigantic classroom

One of the very first realizations that hit you the first several weeks of homeschooling is the fact that the world is your classroom in a very literal sense. I spoke of the fact that after a while we traveled and homeschooled at the same time. Some parents who use the strict approach to school may believe that we didnt get enough academic time in. And perhaps we didnt. But what we lacked in academic studies, we more than made up in other ways. We explored science museums sometimes returning to the same museum in a city several times before we left it. My daughter has been through several aquariums on the East Coast, including the national Aquarium in Baltimore. We rummaged through bookstores and library book sales in various cities, purchasing both new and used books that she would read. Later we discovered that the world is her classroom through the use of community theatre. By participating in youth theatre in our area, she learned not only acting and theatre, but English literature as well. She exposed at an early age to a performance of Shakespeares Taming of the Shrew, and voluntarily read Mid Summers Night Dream! Even before she reached high school. When you choose the untraditional approach, you discover that your child probably not only meets the state minimum standards for education, but far surpasses these standards as well.
Teachable moments
Not only did we find what homeschoolers love to call teachable moments along our travels, but this method of learning has instilled in her a life long love of learning. To this day, if theres a question she cant answer, she knows where to turn to get the proper answer. More than that, implicit in this statement is that she asks questions, which is the only way any individual learns regardless of his age! You dont have to be traveling fools to enjoy the benefits of what the entire world has to offer. Youll soon discover as you homeschool, that field trips are one of the best ways to facilitate and encourage learning. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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The first advantage of a field trip is that the excursion crosses all age groups. For the most part, you can take children of all ages with you. Each child takes away what he can, given his age and development. This means that you can take the entire family from toddler to high school senior! And that means additionally that your children are sure to be exposed to many other students with interests that are different from theirs. Talk about a built-in opportunity for socialization! A field trip, additionally, is sometimes welcome relief for the students themselves. Its an opportunity to toss the books aside for at least one day and to enjoy some time out. Lets face it, few students approach the field trip for the possible teachable moments inherent in the activity. We parents sneak the learning aspect into these treks. A field trip, by the way, taken by a homeschool group is always more rewarding than those that the public school system sponsors (didnt meant to offend anyone here, sorry!). Its true. The group youre taking is undoubtedly smaller. Even the shyest of children may feel more comfortable asking questions. And because you dont have to worry about returning the students back to the classroom at 2:30 p.m. precisely so no one misses the bus ride back home, you can spend a longer time on your trip if its running smoothly and the children are learning.
So what types of trips make good field trips?

After youve homeschooled for a while, youll see that just about any location can become a great field trip. Listed below though are some of the more popular places for these trips: Zoos Aquariums Parks Historical sites Theatres Museums Musical performances Government offices local and state Airports Television stations Radio stations Newspaper offices Grocery stores (for the younger set) Historic sites
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One pizza restaurant encourages home school students to tour their restaurant. They allow each student to create their own individual pizza placing their own special toppings on the pizza. The only catch is that the students have to eat their creation. This always makes for a fun time! Ideally, the field trip ties to your current lesson plans in some way. This is where a little advanced planning comes into play. Usually you need to set up field trips in advance to start. If youre teaching about the Underground Railroad (a topic, by the way, which fascinates most students), try to find an old Underground Railroad stop in your area. Take one day to visit it. This makes what your children have been learning come to life! And once youre home, do not let the learning stop! Why not, the following day, have your children write about their trip. Allow them to use their imaginations. Instead of just writing a narrative about the trip, they could create a short story using the location they just visited as their backdrop! Continuing with the Underground Railroad theme, have them imagine what it would be like to either be a slave in danger of being captured, or an individual who enabled the slaves to escape to freedom. What types of danger were these individuals exposed to should they be discovered?
How to record your trip

Field trips are legitimate learning tools. In this sense, you need to document these excursions for your record keeping purposes. But, this is much easier than it sounds. Many of the suggestions Im providing for documentation purposes, youll already be doing, Im betting. After all, in addition to a teacher, youre also a very proud and loving parent. We try to document our childrens achievements every chance we get! The simplest way is through photography. And boy thanks to the digital camera this is becoming easier than ever. In addition to the photos you take though, why not give each child his own disposable camera. In this way he can photograph what he considers important and interesting. Once you put the childrens photos with yours, youll have a wide-ranging and fascinating view of the trip. By the way, older students who are interested in art, can also take a more expensive single lens reflex camera or a good digital one along. This is the perfect opportunity for them to continue to expand their art portfolio. If, for example, you visit an Underground Railroad stop, these students not only fulfill a history lesson (from your administrative point of view) but participate in a valuable art lesson as well.
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Technology has also brought us the video recorder. This is yet another great form of documentation. You may want to assign one of the older children to be in charge of this (and again, recording this trip can also be viewed as an art lesson for him as well!). Remember those short stories we talked about earlier? They make wonderful documentation for the trip. (And did I mention you have a creative writing lesson included in this activity as well?!) Pamphlets, maps, programs and any other printed material that the establishment provides are relevant as well (especially when theyre free!). You can include these in a scrapbook that you may build about the trip or just place them in with your other methods of documentation to fulfill your requirements for record keeping.
Building on your childs natural gifts

Once I discovered what my daughter truly loved doing, then I funnelled her interests towards these areas. Oh, dont get me wrong; we didnt neglect any one subject. But we certainly emphasized those areas she excelled in and enjoyed as well. She learned that she had certain talents and gifts. She enjoyed certain areas of learning more than others. And I learned to ask her what she enjoyed most about schooling. Math bored her. But it was a necessity and even though it wasnt her favorite subject, she did well in it. She enjoyed science and especially astronomy. As she got older, the interest in the stars, fuelled by a purchase of a telescope, led to an interest in astrophysics (who knew?). Her pursuit of theatre led directly to her writing more fiction, which in turn created a budding author!
Teaching life skills

When you think of homeschooling, the first image you have if youre like me is of the academic coursework required to fulfill your childrens requirements. But, a large part of homeschooling is also teaching your children the skills theyll need to get through life. Life skills include the daily chores of life that many of us take for granted like cooking and cleaning. The purpose of raising children after all is for them to be able to leave home one day and take care of themselves . . . and eventually have a family of their own.
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With this in mind, you may want to schedule time into your homeschooling day to teach the older children about smart shopping in hard economic times. Show them how to compare prices, plan meals for the week, anything you think theyll need when they go off to college or have a family of their own. The younger children can help around the house with making their own beds, or preparing salad for supper. To your children, it may just sound like more chores. To parents, we know that these are all the skills theyll need not only when they go off to college, but when they eventually start a household of their own.
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Chapter 4
Legally Speaking
The homeschooling laws Record keeping methods
here you sit at the kitchen table, waiting for your children to wake up for their first day of homeschooling. You look at the clock wondering why theyre not awake yet. Could it have anything to do with the fact that its only 5 a.m.? What, you havent slept all night? Anxious? Excited? A little fearful, perhaps? Great! Its good to be all of those things and more. But, now I need to ask you one question. Did you notify your school district? What do you mean you didnt know?! Unless you want your children to be considered truant from school, you should probably use these extra couple of hours to brush up on the local and state laws in your area!
Homeschooling: Legal in all states

Contrary to what many well meaning friends and families may tell you, you have the legal right to homeschool your students in all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico. But, because public education is an issue that is handled individually by each state, you must discover what the laws are for your state. One of the easiest and quickest ways to do this is to start with another family who homeschools in your state. This home educator can help guide you through any paperwork you may to complete. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Usually, the minimum requirements are similar. The state must be notified in some fashion. In some states, like Delaware, you deal directly with the state on a yearly basis. Delaware in fact has some of the lowest requirements for reporting. The form you fill out is only one page long. The state only wants to know how many children youre planning on homeschooling, and whether you consider your conduct a school. At the end of the school year, you need to let the state know how many days your children attended classes. And thats it! Compare this with its neighbour, Pennsylvania, with the strictest of homeschooling laws is Pennsylvania. Not only do you need to inform the local officials, but you need to keep daily lesson plans indicating the days you conducted classes. As homeschooling becomes increasingly popular, some states are making parents do a little more paperwork. Some states are actually making it a little more difficult for parents to homeschool.
An invaluable tool: HSLDA

The Home School Legal Defense Association may be your most valuable tool when you homeschool. Its web site is: http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp. You can access it for just about any type of information about homeschooling, including a summary of the reporting requirements state by state. If youre new to homeschooling or just contemplating making the plunge, then you want to check this site out. HSLDA does more than just offer information on line. If you join, the organization can offer you advice should you run into problems with your state for any reason.
Satisfying state and local requirements: Keeping Accurate Records

Its one of those administrative duties that many home educators resent. But if viewed from a different perspective it can be one of the most rewarding aspects of homeschooling. Im talking about record-keeping. What? you say, Record keeping is fulfilling and rewarding? Indeed, it certainly can be. The specific requirements of what you need to record for the state may vary depending on where you live. You can turn this chore into a creative activity the entire family can enjoy. Well talk about that a little more later. Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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To make sure you comply with all record keeping requirements of your state, be sure to contact your state superintendent of schools. You can reach them through the Internet where theyll undoubtedly have these requirements listed. Contact your state even before you begin your homeschool year. Your state may require that you register by a certain date in the summer prior to your starting. Effective and successful homeschooling demands accurate and up-to-date record keeping even if it is not state required. You should be making daily lesson plans. These show what subjects you taught that day. They dont have to be very detailed (and yes, some states want to see your lesson plans). They need to cover at the very least, the subjects youve taught and the particular aspect of the subject themselves. If youre teaching math to you third grader for example, you may say that you worked with the mulitiplication tables of 4 and 5. You dont need to explain how you presented this, as long as you mentioned that you covered it. Notice that Im using the past tense. Ideally, youll have a lesson plan for that day made in advance. But being the flexible group we are, that doesnt mean we actually covered what we intended for the day.
Recording your progress

Its best to keep one inexpensive book with your intentions and aspirations for the days lessons. Then you can go back and record briefly what you actually did cover. This will be used as your official account should your state require it. And some states do want you to be this detailed in your administrative duties! Many homeschool parents view this level of record keeping for state purposes as micromanagement on the part of the government. In reality, its just that they are trying to ensure that youre providing your children with the vital aspects of a wellrounded education. Some official in some level of the organization reviews this. If he feels something is missing from your approach, theyll help you to fill that gap. Dont worry. The chances that youll be thrown in jail for forgetting to teach your children some bizarre aspect of the zebras mating ritual is small! Some states also want to know how much time you spent on each subject as well. Whether your state requires it or not, its a great habit to adopt. For your purposes, you can review this at the end of the year in relation to how much you believe your children learned. If youre not satisfied with their progress for the year, youll know you may have to spend more time on a subject.
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Dont let this item intimate you either. By all means, if you child loves science, lets say, keep lavishing them in this area as well. And this is also where the idea of unit studies comes in handy. You can be talking about volcanoes if your child loves science, and cover math, creative writing and every other subject all based on science. Your daughter is getting her fill of science and youre not neglecting the other subjects in the process. You may want to keep a simple diary or journal of your childs progress, noting achievements as well as the difficult times. This helps you remember what areas your children have already learned. And its a great way to monitor your childrens progress. And of course, once you review this, itll help you decide in what direction to spend your energies later in the year or in the following school year. Of course, theres always the traditional approach to include, the old-fashioned letter grades. Grading is the language of the professional educator. This means that the state can more easily read this form of record keeping and identify with it. I tried as often as possible not to grade my daughter. Much to my surprise though she requested it early in our foray into schooling. When she performed well, it gave her a great sense of accomplishment. And when she didnt perform as well as she thought she would, the poor letter grade strengthened her determination to do better the next time around. Your state may ask you to keep a portfolio. This is nothing more than a select collection of your childrens works. This could include anything from their tests to their worksheets to their creative writing assignments. The aim is to show the overall progress made by your children. In some states, like Ohio, the state requires a certified teacher to review the portfolio. The teacher, more than likely, isnt looking at specifics as much as shes looking for trends. She is going to look for trends and methods first and foremost. Then shell review to see if youve covered all the subjects that need to be taught for the grades of your children.
The scrapbook method of record keeping

This is fun! Theres no other way to describe it. Not only can you record photos of your field trips, you can include photos of science experiments and other activities that your children have engaged in throughout the years. With the help of modern technology in the form of digital photography, any activity even math becomes a recordable event. Then you simply put these in a scrapbook adding all the frills and explanations that go with any good scrapbook these days. You can be in charge of maintaining yours, but Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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as part of your art lessons, you can have each child keep his own records as well. Hell appreciate this as he gets older and reflects on these years. Depending on the requirements of your state, you may be able to add these to your documentation methods. This unique form of record keeping, with a little forethought, can also satisfy the requirement for a portfolio. If you include in the scrapbook samples of your childrens work, then youve got a lively and interesting portfolio as well. Standardized testing is a necessary evil. Or at least thats how I viewed it. My daughter surprised me however. She actually enjoyed taking these tests. If you homeschool for any length of time, youll discover that youll need to take these tests. Requirements, of course, vary by state. Some require them every year, others only every several years. Once you do the research for your specific state then you can prepare your children emotionally and psychologically for these rituals. And dont worry. No one is grading your homeschooling by reviewing the results of these tests. This form of testing is just one more tool that allows school officials to gauge not only the level of learning your children are at, but if there are areas they can help you with. As a home educator, you too should look forward to the results of these tests. This allows you to see where your child stands in relation to the national norm. Usually, the results are presented in two ways. The first is by percentile. This is not be confused with percentage everyone tells us, but it certainly is a close relation to it. The higher the percentile rank of your child, the better the results. For example, if you daughter ranks up in the 70th percentile in scoring on a subject that means that she performed better than 70 percent of the students who took the test on that subject. Similarly, if she received a 90 percentile, she outperformed 90 percent of the students. Next, these tests typically explain what grade level your child is working at as well. If your son is a whiz at reading, itll be reflected on this test, not only by the percentile score, but by indicating that your fifth grader is reading at a 8 th grade level. Armed with these results, you can better prepare yourself for next years schooling. You may want to choose curriculum that better reflects your childs talents. You may want to work a little harder on subjects that he isnt doing as well in.
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Chapter 5
The Early Years: Ages 3 through 8
The fun, active years Tips for homeschooling preschooler through third graders Potential problems and how to overcome them Ideas and activities for a great school year
xcuse me, but dont you think that physics book just might be a bit beyond your second graders grasp of science? Oh, I see. You consulted it in preparing for teaching your son about the solar system.
While thats admirable of you, I think perhaps you over prepared for your first day of class. Your second grader is highly unlikely to ask a question thats going to require an understanding of physics at the college level! Your preschooler or kindergartener ability to learn will needless to say fall somewhere between astrophysics and the first inklings of learning shapes, numbers and the alphabet. Dont be intimidated by the fact that if youve chosen to homeschool even before your child steps foot in a real school. In fact, you should be rejoicing. Theres nothing more rewarding than teaching your very young the fundamentals of learning. Naturally your pre-schooler isnt going to start off knowing the alphabet or even his letters. Youll have to guide him through all of this. In many ways, its an activity as parents we all do without even giving much thought to. It seems to be instinctive to talk to youngsters and ask them what color is this blanket, how many toy cars are lined up in a row or what letters did you draw? Between the ages of 3 and 4 most preschool student are able to do the following activities: Listen to storybooks, then talk about them afterwards Realize that writing carries some message with it. Try to both read and write Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Identify familiar signs and labels (your daughter may know that the arches symbol is associated with McDonalds for example) Take part in rhyming games Identify some letters as well as match letters to their sounds Begin to form letters and try to write meaning names or phrases, like I love you!
A preschooler among older children

So just how do you approach homeschooling a toddler? Ask any mom with experience in juggling the demands of several students in several different grades and shell tell you as best you can. The truth is that youll approach a toddlers foray into home education differently if shes an only child than if you already have an older child whose education youre focusing on during the day. All of your attention is lavished on your toddler when hes the only child youre teaching. When hes among older students, you may find it difficult to spend the time you really need to on his development simply because youre busy teaching the multiplication tables or in the middle of a science project. That doesnt mean that your youngest childs education is neglected. Far from it. When interacting with your other children, your toddler absorbs more than you can even imagine. And just because you may be pressed for time, doesnt mean you cant assign an older sibling to help teach the youngest. In fact, this arrangement may be the best for both of them! Whenever possible, by the way, include your toddler in your hands on science experiments or using manipulatives when the older ones are learning math. (Maniupulatives are just a fancy term for learning tools used in certain subjects, especially in math. When you use coins to help children learn about money, the coins are the manipulatives. If you use M & Ms to facilitate counting, the candy becomes the manipulative a very tasty one at that!) Beyond that, there are many ways to set up a world of learning for you preschooler. Start with what many moms call a busy box. This is a box full of potential activity starters. Depending on the age of your child, you can place many toys and learning tools in here. Remember at this age, children love to imitate what they see their parents do. You probably already have a list of ideas for the contents. In addition to all the obvious ideas like wooden spoons, measuring cups, and the like try putting in old greeting Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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cards and post cards, as well as any unopened junk mail. In this way, your child has a great time role playing. He could make believe that hes a mailman. Or if you place empty cereal boxes and other food boxes in the busy box he can play store. Kids love this.
Teaching the letters

Obviously, a preschooler isnt going to absorb the alphabet immediately. Its a slow, steady exposure to the different letters that helps children recall and use them. You may want to introduce your child to one letter a week. In that time period, you can point out words that start with that letter. For example, youd start with the letter a. When it comes to teaching sounds, words and corresponding objects, keep in simple. A is for apple. Your toddler knows what an apple looks like. Granted, A is also for aardvark, but how many kids have every seen an aardvark? A is for animals. But dont let your lesson stop there. Bring out an old magazine or newspaper. Have your budding student circle all the as on the page or in the headlines. Recognizing numbers and learning to count are also a large part of the preschool experience. Start counting everything as early as possible and count everything in sight! No kidding! By the time your child has grown, youll be a counting machine. After a short time, allow your child to count as well. Dont worry that he may have trouble at first (my daughter was still in kindergarten and wanted to skip over 15 every time she counted!). Thats what this practicing is all about. Initially, hell not only skip numbers, hell probably get them all out of order! Hes trying hard to remember all the names of the numbers, so theyll probably just spew out of his mouth as he remembers them. Be patient, this is normal! Hell get it.
What should your kindergartener be learning?

And with that in mind, well continue on with this chapter, which is all about what your child should be mastering when hes in kindergarten through the fourth grade. And while someday he may become a professor in astrophysics (Yes, in large part to your dedication, Mom), he first needs to learn the fundamentals, not only of science, but other academic subjects as well. The goals of kindergarten have changed considerably in the last 30 years. A generation or more ago, kindergarten was viewed mainly as a classroom where children began learning socializations skills, how to follow instructions from the teacher and enjoyed Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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delicious snacks. Todays kindergarten classrooms, by contrast, are places of serious learning. Your child, by the way, will still be learning all of this from you, but in addition, youll also be providing him with the foundation to one of the most important achievements of his school career: reading. In this grade level, your child will be learning the following: Recognize and print the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet. Recognize the sounds of the letters Recognize and use rhyming words Begin reading words by using the first consonant sound in patterned words fan, man, can and fat, rat, sat, for examples. Recognize several sight words: the, is Capitalize the first and last name of a person Recognize and be able to count and write numbers up to 20 Identify shapes like square, circle, triangle, oval and diamond and rectangle. Classify and group objects in relation to shape, color, size, and texture. Understand how people living in the same community work together Use all five of their senses to begin to make simple scientific observations.
How to start
You dont need a lot of store-bought educational stuff in order to teach your children effectively at this age. Some of the best learning, in fat, takes place with some of the simplest tools. Lets talk for a moment about counting. Children learn to count not only by writing numbers, but by counting objects. Your preschooler can count blocks, socks as you do laundry or . . . as a treat M&M candies. These colourful candies in fact can help not only your childs counting skills, but he can separate the candy into colors, then count the different colors. To help your child learn his shapes, you can simply cut out cardboard squares, triangles and circles. Cut out at least five of each of these shapes in order to play a great learning game. These cardboard shapes should be no smaller than three inches. Have him place all the shapes of one kind into a pile. He should be able eventually to put all the squares together and to call them squares and to put all the triangles together as well.
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Dont neglect the arts
Even in kindergarten, its important to teach the something about the arts. In fact, in many ways learning more about the arts is second nature, kids love to play dress up and role play. So why not take advantage of their natural desire to act. Dont panic! You dont have to be a creative genius to encourage creativity in your children. You can start with music. Children love to sing. Experiment with making sounds using a variety of rhythm instruments. Listen to the different kinds of music. Make up your own family songs. Attend musical performances. But dont limit it to those concerts aimed at toddlers and youngsters. Your children are never to young to attend the symphony (you just need to teach them certain manners and provide some quiet toys to keep them occupied throughout the entire concert!) And while youre making music, encourage your children at this age to dance . . . dance . . .and then dance some more! This helps improve coordination. And again, dont hesitate to take your children to dance performances. If you live near a college campus, you may be able to find a variety of dance performances given by the dance majors of the school. Live Theatre. Well, in a way. Your toddler or kindergarten loves to play dress up no doubt. At this age, its hard to keep them out of your closet. So why try? Why not give them a section of your closet? Provide them with clothes you no longer wear or dont really care if theyre damaged. Provide them with shoes and let them have a blast. Encourage your children, in fact, to create their own play! Then invite some very close neighbours and friends to view it. As messy as it may be, finger painting is still a favorite of every kindergartener. But they also love to use crayons, markers, pencils and even play with clay. Take your children even at this early age to art galleries. Talk about some artists who have made a mark in the art world. A great exercise would be to visit an art museum, then the following day ask your child to either re-create his favorite painting, or provide him with a painting to replicate!
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Tips, tricks and techniques: For the preschool and kindergarten age
Curriculum is far less of a concern at this age than as you progress in the grades. The good news about this age is that these children learn the fundamentals while they play. You can use a variety of methods to help teach them their numbers, letters, shapes and colors. And the best part is that during every moment of this learning process, the children are playing! What a delightful combination! If you try any type of formal classroom instruction, keep in mind that children of this age can only sit still for up to 15 minutes at a time. You need to make any lessons short and to the point. One of the most wonderful techniques for learning letters and number is Pudding Writing. Oh, dont tell me youve never heard of this. Make several boxes of chocolate pudding (chocolate is the best because its easily seen on just about any surface.) They give them a large clean surface, like a cookie sheet, a serving platter even a large plate. Cover the surface with pudding and have them trace numbers and letters using their fingers. Theyll appreciate that after every couple of numbers or letters they can lick their fingers! They enjoy playing with the food so much, the children wont notice theyre learning! Consider investing in a white dry erase board. This will come in handy as you progress in your schooling. But right now, your little ones will think its special to write their numbers, letters and draw their shapes on the board. If you use the old-fashioned form of writing you know not pudding or the white board, but the lined paper dont even be concerned yet with the children forming the figures within the lines. The coordination level of the average preschooler and kindergartener is not that finely developed correctly forming the letters is quite an accomplishment. And speaking of accomplishments, be sure to praise your student when he does form the figures properly. Sincere encouragement is important! Hes putting in more effort to this task than you can imagine (why just look at his little face while hes concentrating on it!)
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The elementary years
These are the fun years of homeschooling. Your children are in grades that range between the first and third. While you have your hands full teaching them how to read, the rewards of this time are many. In many ways, these are the most hands on years of schooling for you. At this age children learn best it seems by touching and feeling objects. This is true for just about every subject theyre learning. Consider how you can help them learn how to add and subtract. You can use a variety of objects to help them visualize the actual act of taking the sum total of objects. You can use just about any object you have around the house from coins to building blocks and Legos, to M & Ms. You can even use French fries while youre sitting around McDonalds! Science at this age is an extremely fun activity as well. Using a variety of simple science experiments, you can demonstrate a whole host of ideas. If youre lacking for ideas, just visit your library for some books on this subject. If you happen to live near a teacher supply store, you can choose from an array of books and boxed experiments to help you.
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Chapter 6
The Middle Years: Ages 9-12
The imaginative, inquisitive years: Tips for homeschooling children of this age Potential problems and how to overcome them Ideas and activities for a great school year
Ah, so you think youre a pro at homeschooling now, because youve breezed through the lower elementary school years with ease. Or perhaps youre new to the activity. Your children spent the first several years of learning in a public or private school. And now youre ready for the middle years. Those grades 4 th through 8th in which a child enters a child but emerges . . . well, lets just say she emerges. These are the developing years for children. They may start out sweet and compliant, but they may end up a bit defensive. You may find homeschooling this age group to be more challenging, not only in the subject matter, but also in the manner in which the children approach the idea of school. The older a child gets, the more important his peer group becomes. Dont be surprised if by the eighth grade youre not the hero or the role model in your childs life anymore. And dont be surprised if the neighbourhood children and other homeschool children become a big part of your childrens lives. Because they will! This, though, is not necessarily a bad thing. And in many ways this is a good thing! It means theyre becoming independent people and thinking for themselves. And in the long run thats the goal of homeschool. In fact, by the time your child emerges from these years, hell be pretty confident of his own social and academic skills. Youll discover that hes able to work on his own more, at a pace that he sets for himself. Thats not to say that he wont need some supervision. Many children love to test the bounds of their parents patients. If they could get away with not studying they would. It may be that youll have to sit your children down at the kitchen table to make Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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sure theyre working. But, they wont need that constant attention that they did in the first or third grades. Dont be afraid to begin expecting more of them academically. The more you expect, the more theyll be able to perform. Its one of those laws you know. If you sit there and help them too much, they tend to rely on that. I tried to teach my daughter from the very beginning that her work was her work. If she ran into a tough spot I would help, but she needed to try to work out problems especially in math on her own. Of course, sometimes, well meaning friends saw it differently. We were visiting my husband in North Carolina. My daughter was not going to the hotel pool until she finished her math (oh, yes, I was a mean teacher!). Our friend strolled into our hotel room just at that time. She sat down and helped my daughter with every single problem. Now, its one thing to have to scold her daughter about schoolwork. Its a little embarrassing to scold a grown adult for aiding and abetting your daughter. The page of problems was completed; Ill give you that. But my daughter had little input into that! (I contemplated allowing my daughter going to the pool, but making our friend stay in the hotel room for what I saw as interference in our family affairs.)
The time for memorization is gone

Youll find as your child progresses in school, hell need to memorize less material. Instead the material youll be presenting him should make him think more. Hell be exposed to new concepts in all subjects. And hell be using a new approach to schoolwork: comparing and contrasting. This may take him some time to adjust to. You can certainly help facilitate this learning process by not allowing him to answer your questions about his subjects with a simple yes or no. In fact, youll need to learn to start asking him why? when he starts telling you about the science lesson or history topics. Youll also notice that because the schoolwork is more challenging, your middle school student will need to spend more time working on his homeschool assignments. When he was in the lower grades, you may have been able to cover everything you needed in just a matter of three or four hours, maximum. In middle school your student will need five or six hours to complete his schoolwork. This is also the perfect age to consider hiring a tutor for a subject or two. You may want to find him some special interests, like playing an instrument. He could go to Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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music lessons once or twice a week. If your daughter is interested in learning a foreign language, you may want her to be tutored in this subject. Tutoring serves two very good purposes. It provides your child with a well-rounded education. But, in relation to your childs personal development, it helps him to investigate his own interests and personality apart from you and the rest of the family.
MUGS: Typical problems with writing

Your daughter is at the age when her creative juices start to rev up. Youll notice that your child may start writing short stories (even if she doesnt finish them). As part of school, youll also be adding more writing assignments. That doesnt automatically mean, though, that the grammar and spelling of her papers are going to be perfect. In fact, when she hands you her papers, youll likely to find many problems. These can all be summed up in the acronym: MUGS. This stands for Mechanics, Usage, Grammar and Spelling. If you start at the beginning of her paper only to dig in and mark every single problem, youll no doubt overwhelm her. These mistakes may frustrate you, especially if youve been dutifully teaching her grammar, drilling her in spelling, and diagramming sentences. Ill clue you in on a secret, though. When children at this age start writing, they write with a purpose. They dont worry about spelling, they write the words as they sound so they go on to the next sentence before the creative streak leaves them. Even though theyve been taught the proper way, their first drafts may appear to you as if youve totally failed at teaching them! Its not you (I thought it was me for the longest time!). When you go to correct the paper, whatever you do, dont start correcting every little mistake right away. It may be far too discouraging for him. And your childs first impression is that you dont like what they wrote. My daughter wrote this wonderful short story of a murder mystery based on the voice of the dead woman. It possessed on basic flaw: it was one very long paragraph. Mentioning this problem only in passing, I went on to extol the virtues of the imaginative approach (and it was) as well as some of the details embedded in the story itself (especially the click, click, click of the heels on the floor). The mechanics (as well as usage, grammar and spelling) can be dealt with later. If you feel that strongly about those mistakes, choose one item like proper grammar and Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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mark only that. In fact, Im betting you may find more than your share of grammar mistakes if you just limit to that category. Ignore spelling mistakes if you have to, and other mistakes for the moment. One of the ways to clarify these items is to discuss them before you actually assign the project. Explain to him what you expect of the paper. Explain some typical problems that he should avoid, like run on sentences, or sentence fragments that dont contain both a subject and a predicate! The following day, ask your child to go through and re-write the paper, finding and correcting any problems along the way. Dont expect too much though. He still may not see everything. The development of grammar is a slow and from the perspective of you, the teacher and tedious process. But I promise you, he will improve!
And now for some fun!

Just because your child is growing, maturing and discovering new avenues of expression, that doesnt mean hes completely ready to discard some of those fun times that he had working with those science projects. And there are plenty of ways you can help him keep one foot in the creative side of homeschooling a little longer. Go to http://fun.familyeducation.com/activitiescenter/toddlers-preschoolers-K12children/?theme=arts-and-crafts&grade_range=101106&detoured=1 to find lists of hands on art projects. Here youre bound to find at least one and very possibly more! that will not only entertain your student but may actually be instructional as well. Here is one such project: the creation of a terrarium, a self contained ecosystem. This is a great project to tie in with a science lesson. In this self enclosed system, you can grow a variety of flowers and plants all without the need to water with it. Since its self-contained, the condensation that naturally forms from the moisture automatically provides rainfall for the plants. Any one of these jars makes a good container for your plants: Wine jug Large mayonnaise of pickle jar Candy jar Glass canister Distilled water jug Plastic cake dome Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation
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Fish bowl Clear cookie jar
If younger children are going to aid in the creation of the project, then youll want to keep the mouth of the jar as wide as possible. These are the easiest containers to place plants in. Youll want to buy miniature plants. You can find these in nurseries and in some plant departments in larger grocery stores. Choose plants that will thrive in similar environments. Now that youve chosen both your container and plants, now youre ready to get down to the really fun part actually constructing the environment. Before you even begin, gather the list of components youll need: Wire hanger Pieces of wire Sponge Horticultural charcoal (Dont worry, every nursery carries this!) Potting soil Gravel Funnel A long-spoon to use as a shovel A tamper (this can be a simple as a dowel with a cork on the end) A placer (this can be a wire puller from the hardware store) Longhandled tweezers Small, soft-bristled brush Cotton swabs A sprayer bottle A kitchen baster Long scissors
Youre going to mix the soil for your terrarium using even amounts of sand, topsoil and peat moss or leaf mold. Of course, the type of soil you ultimately put in her new horticultural environment depends in great part on the plants you bought. Desert, tropical or forest plants all require different soils in order to thrive. If you want to make sure youve got the right type of soil, consult a book from the library on building terrariums. Its landscaping time! Plant all the plants according to size from large to small. Dont hesitate to arrange and rearrange them. If you want to move them around its simple
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enough. Once youve got them where they look the best, you can perform additional landscaping by accentuating the terrarium with colored gravel or even redwood chips. Youll water the plants when you first place them in the container. Of course, just how much water you use again depends on the types of plants youve selected, the temperature and humidity level of the room itll be placed in, and the size of the opening of the jar you use. In the beginning youll just need to observe your new landscape in order to gauge the frequency with which you water it. If theres no more condensation appearing following your initial watering, then youll need to help it along. If the container feels particularly light when you pick it up, you may need to add some water to it as well. Once youve had it for a while and can recognize certain conditions by sight then you wont need to go through much examination of the structure, youll know by sight when its in need of more moisture.
Potential problems
Occasionally, youll discover that you may need to air out your self-contained environment. This may be true, even if you have chosen plants that love humidity. Dont worry, theres some very telling signs of when this should be done, especially if left untouched to long. Fungus, mold or mildew growing in the container is one of those obvious signals. Simply open the container and let some air in. Yes, its that simple. Dont worry. The longer you have the terrarium, the more experienced you and especially your children will become in caring for the plants. Your plants, just like any others, will require a certain amount of light. You can get a general idea of the amount of light when you purchase the plants. They usually come with a good description of the type of light their species like, as well as watering instructions. Beyond that, youll need to experiment. It may be the light in the dining room is too strong, the light in the kitchen too weak. If the terrarium doesnt seem to thrive in one location, dont hesitate to place it in another, observe how it grows and change it again if you must. After all, thats all part of the scientific process, now isnt it?
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Home Sweet School
Chapter 7
The Teen Years: High School
The searching for truth and self years Tips for homeschooling youth of this age Potential problems and how to overcome them Ideas and activities for a great school year
h, dont tell me. Youre going to wimp out on me! Sure, homeschooling when your kids were in elementary school was amazing. The middle school years are sometimes a challenge, but always rewarding.
But trying to teach a child whos going through puberty... most parents regard the thought as they would going up into space or to making a nuclear warhead in their garage. Physically possible, but with astronomical odds. The fact is, your teen is going to be doing a lot of self-discovery during these years, and they do need your support and love. Homeschooling through this time isnt going to be a walk in the park, but its not impossible.
Socializing Throughout This Time

High school for many kids is all about socializing. The talking with friends before class, the hanging out during lunch, sitting on the steps after school waiting for the buses to come its all about friends, more now then ever. Making sure that your child has enough socializing during this period is absolutely essential for proper development of their social skills. These are the years that their skills are established and defined. This is of course unrelated to the fact that its going to be nearly impossible to live with your teenage child if they feel deprived from social contact, which can lead to depression or worse.
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There are actually many ways to ensure that your children always have something to do during their school year, and during the summer as well, which will stretch on forever without any exciting events. The best thing is to join email lists and forums for homeschooling parents that deal with events. This can include skating and bowling, or just a get-together at someones house. Eventually, youll find a family that your children really like, and youll be able to hook up with them on a regular basis. Sometimes these groups will hold things like dances, so keep an eye out for something that your child will really appreciate! Sometimes there are programs that are like schools for homeschooling children, with part time classes and a school setting, without the constraint of an actual school. Its easy to utilize, and often free. Consider this: colleges will accept children as young as 13, and have special programs for high school students. Give your child the chance to take 1-2 classes a semester from a college, be in an encouraging environment, and really be able to get out of the house. This can be an amazing experience for so many children; so dont discount this valuable tool. Call your local community college and see what you can get. Even if the college credits dont transfer to their eventual college, it can be a learning experience and a great socializing experience. If youre comfortable with people in your home, and have the room, you can establish your home as a common homeschool meeting place. Let your homeschooler have a weekly movie night with other homeschoolers, and make it known to parents that this is a place they can socialize without worry about drugs, liquor, or out-of-control behaviour. Trade off weeks with another family so that you can get some long-deserved time alone, without your kids or stress.
The Difficult Curriculum

Chemistry. College algebra. Trigonometry. Physics. Advanced maths, sciences, and English its all part of the high school years, and something youre going to have to teach your children.
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This can be extremely daunting for those that barely passed high school chemistry (That nice geek was a life saver, huh?). The idea of teaching these things can be like a bucket of cold water. Dont fret. It isnt as scary as you think. We promise. Teaching these complex subjects doesnt have to fall on your shoulders alone. There are other options available to you, so dont start hyperventilating just yet. Youre going to do fine. If you know friends or relatives that are proficient in a certain subject, ask them to help out. Maybe you know an English professor that can handle this subject, or your sister speaks German fluently. Many times, the person will take it as a compliment, and help your family out for no charge. If there is a charge, its often small something affordable and easy, like a dinner out a month. Trading knowledge is another common occurrence. Homeschooling groups often have classes on what you may consider difficult topics. If youre confident with English, teach a small group of homeschoolers that and in exchange, someone else will help out with other subjects, like chemistry or physics. This doesnt even have to be in a group, and individual families can do this as well. Its a great system that really does benefit the children.
Tutoring as an option
Hiring a tutor is something that many parents enjoy doing. It gives them at least an hour of free time in the middle of a day, and they know that their child is getting a good education. Call the local college and ask for a recommendation for a tutor. Make sure its someone who majored in what your child needs to know, and has plenty of experience. Most of the time, you can get an advanced level college student whos just looking for a way to pay a few extra bills. Internet schooling is something that some parents dont like, but others love. Its available in most states, and easy to use the school provides a computer, curriculum, and teachers.
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This often isnt the best option, though, as you usually cant just take a few classes, but must take the entire curriculum for the year. This can give your child some socializing, but nothing face to face however, these can offer proms, graduation, and more.
Homework Tips
Homework can be a constant battle with you and your children. Really, it can be truly miserable for both sides. By this time, your child should have a favorite place to do their homework. A bed, a desk, a floor, a table somewhere that they really enjoy doing it, and its easy to work with. Now all you need to do is to stop nagging. Just, stop nagging. Really! Your kids are going to find different ways to do their homework. Sometimes they can talk on the phone and do their homework, and others can watch television and complete an award winning paper. Give them space to do their homework their way, and youre going to end up with good work and a happy child. Now, saying that, your child should always have a desk on hand if they choose to use it. A $20 desk from the local Goodwill or thrift store works fine, but its important to have a structured environment to work in. Make sure that you facilitate your teens homework needs, and have everything they need. Files to file away good papers, labels, pencils, plenty of notebook paper and enough light to see by (even though many times they wont use this light!). The best way to know what your teen needs for homework and school needs is to take them to an office supply store and ask them exactly what they need. Highlighters, pens, paper its what theyre going to use, after all, to secure their future. You should also have a dictionary, an atlas, and a thesaurus so that your child always has what they need to complete an assignment. A computer is also almost essential for your child. While pricey, you can purchase a desktop for just a little over $300, and its going to introduce your child to a world of learning tools.
Allowing your Child to Blossom

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Each teen has his or her interests, likes, and dislikes. You shouldnt have to ask your child to take extra computer courses if they dont like computers, and a girl that hates to dance isnt going to want to take tap lessons. Ask your child specifically what they want to do, and try to encourage them to develop their interests. For example, if your child likes computers, ask the local mom-and-pop computer shop if they could keep your child around for two hours once a week, and help with computer repairs. Or maybe your child has an interest in politics if so, you should allow them to volunteer on a local campaign. Even passing out flyers can be exciting to a child whos passionate. Perhaps science is your childs cup of tea? Hey, ask the local museums if they can volunteer and learn the ropes! Is writing what they prefer? Encourage them to keep a journal and find local writing groups that will critique their work in a good, positive way. Dont forget that 90% of areas have local community theatres that hold open auditions. This would allow your child to try acting out for size, beat their fears, and make lifelong friends. If its music, provide lessons and an instrument so that they always have something to do on a winter day. If your child has an interest that they really love, its going to keep them busy, keep them happier, and give you the knowledge that youre doing something really wonderful for your teen. Besides, an interest that is encouraged will be an interest that lasts a lifetime.
Independence: The Cornerstone of the Teen Years

Its normal to sit with an elementary student while they do their work and help them along. When it comes to a middle school student, theres no question that staying with them is important. But a high school student is a whole other matter. Most parents see that their job as a parent is to help encourage their child to grow up to be independent, well functioning adults. These are the years that really define this, and you need to show them they can handle life at least somewhat independently.
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Your child is getting to an age where school work can be done alone. Show them a concept for the first half of the day, and allow them to do work for the second half. It really gives them a chance to see what its like to work on this alone. Dont be afraid to let them go, and see what they can do. Some kids work wonderfully on their own others need more supervision. Figure out how you can provide your child with their freedom, and with a great education.
Give Your Child Plenty of Me Time

Its easy to get overworked at that age, and when theyre literally doing work at home, it can become overwhelming, fast. Structured school work usually helps this problem with older children. Set specific times (as best you can, of course) for certain things, and make sure they have their evenings to themselves to watch television, chat online with friends, or go to the movies like any other teen. If theyre given too much work, it can easily take over their life. Without time for themselves, you might find that your child has no idea who he is as a person, and this can be very troubling for a teenager who is just looking for answers.
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Conclusion
ow! Look at you! Well, that is a rather unique piece of apparel youre wearing there. Isnt that a suit of armor? And exactly why are you wearing it now? I see, you slipped it on as a Medieval demonstration and now you cant take it off. At least thats what youre telling people. In reality, youre wearing it to protect you from the slings and arrows of the angry homeschooled mob following you about all day long? Excuse me? But I only see three children. And they all look pretty content doing their schoolwork. Yes! I guess I do see how effective the suit of armor is! Good job! If this book taught you anything, its that you actually dont need a suit of armor in order to homeschool. In fact, you can be an effective home educator regardless of the level of your education . . . how many children you have . . . and how old your children are. Homeschooling is a wonderful opportunity to help ensure a good education for your children. Youll discover that they learn more than they ever did in public schools. And they dont have to spend as much time in that structured environment. But the added bonus that youre going to discover that youre forming bonds with your children that you never knew could exist. What you and your children experience as you make the journey through homeschooling will be some of the best years of your life. Your children will blossom. And as a family youll have more freedom to spend time as you please! Youve not only discovered the hidden talents of your children, youve discovered that you have talents and creativity as well. Youll discover that even if you need to occasionally don that suit of armor to protect you from those flying pens and hurling notebooks . . . you know that at the end of the school year your children have learned some of the biggest lessons in life . . . among them that you care enough for them to dedicate your time to their education.
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Appendix I Curriculum Sources

Core Curriculum http://www.core-curriculum.com/ Sonlight Curriculum http://www.sonlight.com/homeschool-curriculum-packages.html Bob Jones University Press http://www.bjupress.com/page/HS+Home A Beka http://www.abeka.com/
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Appendix II
Academic Competitions
The following competitions all welcome homeschool students. For more information on any of them, simply click on the underlined words. Achievement Awards in Writing This is a fairly limited writing competition; sponsored by The National Council of Teachers of English, its only for high school juniors. Promising Young Writers Program --writing competition only for those students in the eighth grade. Geography Bee- This competitions main purpose is to encourage teachers to include the instruction of geography in their classrooms. Every year thousand of schools and home school students participate in the event, sponsored in large part by The National Geographic Society. Students from grades four through eight are eligible. Intel Science Talent Search Science competition, formerly known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search International Mathematical Olympiad--World Championship Mathematics Competition for High School students held in a different locale worldwide every year. The Knowledge Master Open- This may sound like the golfing event of the academic world, its nonetheless a unique test of skill and knowledge. Secondary school students are given 200 curriculum-based questions on a disk, elementary school students 100. As a team, they must answer these questions using a computer. MathCounts - A national math coaching and math competition program open to students in the seventh and eighth grades. Math League Press-Specializing in math contests, books and computer software, The Math Leagues aim is to introduce math students to challenging math materials. The goal is to stimulate interest in mathematics while building the confidence of math students from fourth grade through high school.
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More than one million students participate in the Math League contests yearly. The problems are created to cover a wide range of mathematical knowledge for every grade level. Odyssey of the Mind A creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college, students apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. Scripps National Spelling Bee (under 16, before 8th grade)--spelling competition USA Computing Olympiad--The USACO sponsors this computer programming competition. A team of four students is selected to represent the United States International Olympiad in Informatics each year. USA Mathematical Talent SearchThis math competition is open to all students, regardless of age or grade.
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Appendix III
Miscellaneous Resources
Homeschooling as a Way of Life (article) A personal homeschooling philosophy Free Online Homeschoolers course Free online schoolroom for the use of home educators. Any homeschooling parent may be added as a teacher and create resources and activities on this site. Online classes for Homeschoolers Courses offered online by Excellence in Education and Abacus Educational Services Degreewire This may be the only college homeschool site currently on the web. Explore colleges in your area and online. Take college classes while you are homeschooling if youd like or homeschool all the way through to a degree. Recommended Children's Books Everything you could possibly want in childrens books . . . reviews, excerpts, downloads, bookstore links and more! Most of these resources are free for the download. These works, by the way, are specifically for children and demonstrate the English language at its best. Pedagogic Perfidy (article) A homeschooler's struggle with a perfidious pedant Reviews at Wistfulvistas See what other homeschoolers have to say about a wide variety of books, films, and food. Critical Thinking and Mind Control (article) A critique of reflexive compliance. Excellence in Education The definitive homeschooling resource in Monrovia California Excellence in Education Online Courses Courses offered online
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Walden University offers bachelor's, masters degree, and Ph.D. online. Tailored for the busy to working adult, Walden offers goal-minded homeschoolers an ideal way to work towards a degree at home at one's own pace. Homeschooling Resources.net a very extensive collection of homeschooling material. Homeschooling Books Each book on this site is handpicked and offers an accompanying commentary. The Fourth Purpose -- Documentary Series Exploration and condemnation of American compulsory schooling. National Home Education Network, NHEN This network encourages and facilitates the vital grassroots efforts of state and local homeschooling organizations and individuals by providing information, fostering networking and promoting public relations on a national level.
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References
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/083198.htm http://www.illinoishouse.org/a06.htm http://www.usidentitytheft.org/homeschooling.html http://www.homeschool.com/articles/Socialization/default.asp http://homeschooling.suite101.com/article.cfm/common_homeschool_mistakes http://www.homeschoolacademy.com/articles/toptenmistakes.html http://school.familyeducation.com/home-schooling/mentors/56330.html?detoured=1 http://www.homeschoolinglibrary.com/homeschool_resources.htm#main_menu

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Homeschooling Your Child From Preschool to Graduation