Let’s roll back the clock a few months to those halcyon months of January and Feruary; remember those days? The morning rush to get the kids off to school so Mom and Dad could then rush off to work themselves. Coming back home in the evening to eat dinner together and then puzzling over the latest round of homework. Aaaah, those were the days and then COVID-19 had to come along and muck everything up <sigh>.
Here in Arizona the Governor has just delayed the opening of our public schools by two weeks, so as to give the districts more time to plan and implement new safety procedures. Even so, many parents are skeptical that these measures will be enough to keep their kids from bringing the virus home and a growing number are even considering homeschooling.
If you are one of those parents, welcome. You will find a community that is more than willing to share our experience and answer your questions. Honestly, let us help you so you don’t fail. With that in mind I have a few tips to share with you to help you get started.
Legal Considerations
First and foremost, visit your state’s Department of Education website to find out the legal requirements for homeschooling in your area. In Arizona you simply need to fill out an Intent to Homeschool form and then make sure you teach the appropriate subject matter. Other states have much more rigorous requirements, like testing, tracking attendance or supplying a body of work produced by your students.
Know your Students
Think about your students and what they like or dislike about school. There are actually kids that do not like to be homeschooled. These are children who thrive on social interaction and if you are not careful to provide lots of that, then they will ultimately come to resent you. You may need to consider joining a co-op, a club or even giving them more time with social media to satisfy their needs. Just keep this in mind.
Next, you need to understand your child’s learning style. The best rated curriculum will do nothing for your student if it does not match their learning style. You can take a quiz to find out each child’s learning style from Educationplanner.org (20 questions) or Homeschool On (10 questions). Both lean towards the VAK model of learning styles so you will only get results for Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic learning. There are other models that list 4, 7 or even 8 distinct learning styles. Most of us will be a mixture of two styles, but understanding if your child needs more visual or auditory examples is huge in helping them to learn new concepts.
Curriculum and Planning
By now, most homeschoolers have purchased and received their curriculum for the coming year (or if you are crazy like me, you are putting the finishing touches on your custom lesson plans.) But what should they be learning? While each state will be a little different in what they expect at each grade level, there is somewhat of a broad consensus. Most purchased curriculum will have those requirements naturally built in; but if you want to know the specific learning objectives for each grade head on over to homeschoolcurriculum.org. I like to create a checklist and then check off each skill as it is mastered. This helps to alleviate the fear that they are not learning enough and are somehow going to fall behind their public school peers.
I am going to warn you now, there is a dazzling assortment of pre-packaged curriculum. You MUST research each specific subject curriculum and ask questions. There are many homeschoolers out there who have reviewed the various curriculum and would be more than happy to answers your questions in a way that the publisher cannot. Ask about what learning styles it supports, how long do the lessons take and how much of your time does it take? These people have invaluable information, take advantage of that.
Next, you need to plan out the year, so you don’t rush through or fall short. Mary, over at Simplybewildandfree has some great advice about how she goes about planning out her school year. She also talks about her choice to school only 3 days a week. Yes, you heard that right. At a time when most of us are on the 4 day-a-week bandwagon, she has one-upped us. The takeaway here is that you need to set up a routine that works with your family’s natural rhythms in order to make your homeschooling a success.
All your work can fall apart if you don’t post your schedule. This can be daily, weekly or monthly, but you need to have it visible so everyone can be held accountable for making sure the schoolwork gets done. If you don’t make an effort to keep track of what work is getting done, then you will fall behind. I like putting everything in a Homeschool Bullet Journal and then posting a simple chart stating what subjects need to get done each day. I can then review our progress at the end of the week and adjust next week’s tasks accordingly. Another method that I used in the past is the Spiral Notebook method by Sarah Mackenzie which she describes in her blog amongstlovelythings.com. With this method older students can take more of the responsibility on themselves to get their work done, but you still need to check periodically.
Lastly, relax. This is not school at home. You don’t need to schedule 6-8 hours of academics 5 days a week. Most of the time spent in school is either waiting for instruction or in transition to the next subject. You can safely plan to get everything done in a few hours (a little longer for High School students.) Look for activities that can be done in the car while doing errands, have the older ones help their younger siblings and use games that can be played by the whole family to help make better use of your educational time. It’s not always easy, but with planning and support, you can do this.