Where do I start? is a common question I get from anyone thinking about homeschooling, but answering it can be very daunting. I'll do my best to answer it. There are a lot of "starting" spots, so I'll actually answer this with the answers to a few other questions.
1. Am I really committed to doing everything it takes for my child to learn?
Be sure that homeschooling your child is something you want to do. Most people think about it, but you can't just think it is a good idea, you have to have a commitment to the idea. This can't be something that someone else suggested you do, or your spouse is telling you that they want you to do it. I can tell you from experience that it is not easy when you start, and you may have a lot of opposition to what you are doing. Family may not back you, friends may scoff or even degrade you, and you may even run up against people who for whatever reason want to put a stop to what you have chosen for your children. You have to be willing and able to fight through it all and continue on without wavering in your choice. If you don't have a strong conviction in your reasons for why you want to home school, then you will not be able to ride out the difficulties. Wavering causes your children to suffer, because you can't teach them properly if you having doubts or reservations. So first off you need to decide, is this what you really really want for your child? Are you willing to devote as much of your time, energy, strength, sanity, and everything else into this as it takes to make them succeed? You cannot take your teacher role lightly any more than you would take your mothering role lightly. None of us would sit by while our newborn baby cries and not feed them or change them, but quite a few moms will see their child struggling to read or learn to count and will do nothing to help them, leaving it up to "Well I'm sure they'll learn eventually." The honest truth when you home school is that your child wont learn it unless you teach it, so everything rides on your willingness and desire to help them (no pressure now, right?)
Once you know that YES, unequivocally this is something I want to do, and you've answered the "Who?" and "Why?" questions, the next question to answer is...
2. Where will you do your schooling?
At home is not a good enough answer to this question. It is extremely important that you have a designated place in your house that you can do school work. You don't need to have a whole room set aside just for school, although that would be ideal and my dream come true! You can do school with as little as a small spot on your rug if your child is only doing preschool, but if they are doing any sort of pencil or crayon work then you need a solid surface, like a table or desk, to set up shop. My school area is scattered around my house. I have one closet that is devoted to storing all the school supplies, I have a few small kid sized desks that we use sometimes when the kids want to go off and do school alone, but the vast majority of our school is done right at our dining room table where we can all sit together. It really doesn't matter where you designate as your school area, but you need to have it be the same place every day. Routine is very important if you want a smooth school day, and if your child isn't even sure where you'll be sitting for school you aren't off to a very good start.
Also make sure that your area is quiet. My kitchen also has the washer and dryer in it, so we moved the dining table out of the kitchen/dining room area so we could close all the doors to the kitchen if I'm doing laundry. If there is an abundance of noise or distraction, you wont have your child's full concentration, not to mention you may lose your voice trying to shout lessons over a thumpy washing machine.
Your area should also be clean and neat. If there is too much clutter and mess in your school area then lessons will take longer to teach as you search for what you need or try to clear an area to write on. I have invested more money in organizers for my school area than anything else (even curriculum). It helps me so much to be able to go to my school closet and find every item I need for a lesson in just a few minutes, rather than taking hours to dig through a mess or to misplace items because they have no "home." Everyone organizes differently, I'll probably write a post on how my school area is set up another time, so I wont go into detail about it right now, but the basic idea here is to make things easy to find and easy to access.
Good, we're off to a good start. Now on to what most people are really wanting me to tell them, and the most complicated question of all...
3. What should I be teaching my child?
So you've got your game face on, you set up your school area, and you have your bright eyed student(s) in front of you... now what? "What should I teach first?" is usually what people mean when they ask me "Where should I start?" So here it is, start by assessing your child. Everyone's child is at a different age, thus different things will be expected. I'll try to add a list of subjects and the benchmarks for knowledge in each subject later for anyone who doesn't know how to test their child for what they do and don't know. If you don't even know what your child knows, then you wont know what to teach them. You can run out and get the best curriculum for what grade they should be at, but each curriculum teaches different things at a different time - one curriculum's Kindergarten math may be another's 1st grade math. So testing your child to see what they know will help you a lot in determining which curriculum you should buy, or what you should teach next. If your child is under 4 years old there is a lot you can do to teach them before they hit even preschool level. I will be adding a whole section on fun games or activities that you can do with children under the age of 4 to get them ready for preschool and even kindergarten.
Once you've assessed your child and what they know in each subject (math and reading are the most important, but you should also ask them about any other subjects they may have been learning or that you may want to start teaching them) you should then find the right curriculum for you. K12.com offers free curriculum and you are able to advance your child to the next grade of curriculum if they finish their work ahead of schedule. You can advance one subject also so you don't have to worry about skipping them an entire grade in all subjects, you can skip up in just math or just science if your child has an aptitude for one thing or another. Abeka is also a very good curriculum I've heard recommended by a lot of moms. BJU had a very good Kindergarten math that I use for my girls and it actually was almost as advanced as the 1st grade math at K12 for WA state. My oldest got to skip up to 2nd grade math in 1st grade because I prepped her with the BJU press math in Kindergarten. Hooked on Phonics has an okay program for teaching just reading, but they don't really get into grammar or much spelling, I'd recommend getting something different, although the songs and games are really fun with my preschoolers. We've really liked being on K12 and I wish we would have started sooner because the K12 language arts is more advanced than what I was using to teach Abby in Kindergarten. Find something that will work with your family's budget and that you can understand easily. I recommend going to a book show or somewhere that you can view the curriculum before you buy it though. Some of the curriculum is not what you expect, and just because you like one subject from one company does not mean that all their subjects will be fantastic.
4. When is the best time to do school? and How do I teach my child ____?
These questions are best answered by you. You will mostly likely have to try out different learning schedules with your child to find out when it is easiest to teach them (and it may be different times for different things). The same goes for how you teach them a new skill. Every child is very different. My oldest is a sit down kind of kid. She will sit at a table for hours with me and do school, or go over flashcards again and again. Serenity on the other hand... if she isn't moving, she's getting into trouble real fast! The best example I have is that when I taught Abbagail her numbers I taught her with index cards, she sat and said them and had fun getting them right. When I tried flashcards with Serenity, she inevitably would snatch them out of my hand, chew on them, or toss them around the room if she'd sit down with me at all. I ended up having to make up some games to help her learn her numbers. Her favorite was when I'd hide all the numbers around the living room, then let her go find them and she'd tell me what number she'd found each time she brought me a card. We also played a game to learn shapes and colors where I made huge shapes of different colors and laid them out on the floor, then I'd call out "Jump to a red shape," or "Quick! Get on a yellow triangle!" and she'd have to follow the directions. Moving games that used up her energy kept her interested and she learned still. How you teach your child should revolve around how they learn best, and it will become apparent to you very quickly if your child is NOT a sit down and do sort of kid.
Don't ever feel like your child isn't learning as fast or as much as they ought to be. Your child will go through learning spurts just like growth spurts. I've had times where I can't give my girls enough to learn because they just eat it up and learn so fast! But you can bet there have been those learning lulls too, times where I could tell their brains were over-full and needed a rest. We have taken entire days, weeks, or even once or twice a full month off of school. If your main goal is to make school time enjoyable, your children will always ask you to learn more when they are ready to start soaking it up again. I've never had to poke and prod my kids to learn, because I always make lessons fun for them - whatever their style of learning is. I adapt even the K12 lessons so that they cater to each child's learning style.
I hope this helps someone if they aren't sure where to start with teaching their child at home. Hopefully I'll get more on here about what to teach and when soon.
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