How to Start Home Schooling
Homeschooling is a great educational option for some families, but getting started can be overwhelming. With concerns about legalities and lessons, and what you will be doing with your children all day, it’s no wonder that starting this adventure can be intimidating. Fortunately, getting started with homeschooling is pretty easy.
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Instructions
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Research your state’s homeschooling laws. You can look them up on your state’s board of education website, find them at the library, or at the Home School Legal Defense Associate at www.hslda.org. Become familiar with your options, and make sure you understand all of your responsibilities as a homeschooling parent. It is important to comply with your state laws in a timely manner. Any paperwork necessary to get started should be submitted as soon as possible.
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Get in touch with other homeschoolers in your area. Seek out support groups, play groups or co-ops. Co-ops, short for cooperatives, are groups in which parents join forces and bring their children together for classes and other educational activities. Not only will getting involved in your community give your child a chance to meet and get to know other homeschooling children, but you will find veteran homeschooling parents a great resource for information and support.
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Read as much as you can about homeschooling. Raid your public library for all of their homeschooling materials, as well as books on education, teaching philosophies and methodology. While you’re at it, make friends with the librarian, who can be a great asset when you need assistance researching, seeking materials, or looking for events and activities in your community.
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Take it slow. While anxiety and excitement may cause you to feel compelled to jump right into full school days, ease into it. You don’t have to have an entire pre-packaged curriculum or a set schedule for 5 days full of periods and activities per week when you are starting out. In fact, spending a lot of time and money on these things up front may only leave you feeling frustrated if they don’t work for you. It is especially important to ease into homeschooling if your children have been in school up until now, so that new learning philosophies and habits can begin to take root. Putting too much pressure on yourself or your children with expectations of learning certain things in a certain way within a specific amount of time can lead to burn-out. Spend time with your children doing educational activities such as reading, writing stories, exploring the library, kitchen science experiments, or taking field trips to museums, art galleries and historic landmarks. Pursue topics and activities that interest your children and encourage them to begin exploring their world.
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Be flexible. Homeschooling is a lifestyle, and lifestyles are not easily changed overnight or over the course of a few days. Try different methods, working different times of day, and types of activities to see which work best, and which don’t work at all. Get familiar with your child’s learning style. Make your style of homeschooling fits your family, rather than trying to fit your family to some pre-conceived notion of education you might have.
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