You are finally ready to take the plunge! What do you do now?
Create your personal 'Why statement'
Answering your 'Why' gives you inspiration, focus, and direction. Try to include both general and specific things and keep it as positive as possible. Be sure you write down your answers to the question, "Why am I homeschooling?" For example:
- God is calling me to educate differently
- Flexibility to travel
- We want to choose the curriculum for our kids
- I want my children to know each other and have close relationships with family
- To foster a love of learning in my children
Once you know your 'Why' then you can more easily answer 'What are my goals for home education?' and 'How will I achieve those goals?'
Think of your 'Why' as the point on the horizon you are aiming for. It is where you want to be at the end of your adventure with home education, and creating goals helps you steer the ship. Goals can be long term and/or short term depending upon where you are in your journey. Many of the most successful home educators re-evaluate their goals every year and as their children get older they are included in the discussion on goals for the upcoming school year.
If you are having trouble figuring out goals, consider what your main concerns are. Is it social opportunities for an extroverted child, staying caught up to go back to brick and mortar school, a way to keep you and/or your children on task and accountable throughout the school year, figuring out how to balance work and educating your children, getting a child reading or writing at grade level, helping your child to love learning again, preparing your children for college? Your goals should reflect where you are right now as well as where you want to be and remember to celebrate small victories.
Get to know your child(ren)'s learning styles
- There are many resources out there explaining how children learn, but they can generally be broken into:
- Visual Learner - learns by seeing information and graphics
- Visual learners benefit from charts on the wall, graphics, pictures, color-coded information, highlighters, and keeping it all well organized.
- Reading and Writing Learner - learns by reading and writing
- Reading and writing learners get the most out of reading and writing. Reading books, filling out workbooks, writing essays, and taking notes or converting visuals into written notes help them most.
- Auditory Learner - learns by listening to information
- Auditory learners tend to enjoy singing songs, lectures, discussions, and audiobooks.
- Kinesthetic Learner - learns by doing hands-on work
- Kinesthetic learners learn best through using manipulatives to help them grasp concepts, bouncing a ball, or moving around to help them focus and retain facts and information.
- Visual Learner - learns by seeing information and graphics
Everyone has some ability in all of these styles of learning, but generally, we have one or two ways that stand out more than others. Observation is key to help you figure out the best way to reach your child(ren). Be flexible and adapt as you come to understand your children's strengths and weaknesses better.
Get to know your teaching style
Chances are your teaching style and your child(ren)'s learning styles don't match perfectly or at all. You can still successfully teach! All of us have gotten over this particular obstacle in one way or another. The important thing to remember is your default style or the curriculum you love because it matches your style may not work as well for your child(ren). Look for a program that works with both of your strengths and be flexible. One of the joys of homeschooling is that you can adapt any program to work in a way that is best for your family.
- HSLDA has a great guide that includes ways to identify your teaching style and your children's learning style(s).
Deschooling
If your children have been in a brick and mortar school for a while you may find that they need time to deschool. Deschooling is the period of time in which your children reset their understanding and expectations of what education is. Having a parent suddenly in the role of the teacher can be a shock. Many parents choose to take some time off and build up their relationship with their children in a new way during deschooling to help prepare them for the new way they will be educated. Field trips, watching educational videos, baking or cooking together, and discussions can be very useful in working through this time of resetting. The goal is to prepare your children to be ready to start whatever the new form of education will look like.
Choosing Your Curriculum/ Program
Now that you have an idea of Why you are homeschooling, what your goals are, and how you and your children learn, it is time to consider curriculum. Most importantly, do not let perfect become the enemy of good. Use the information you have as a starting point and experiment. It is perfectly normal to try out a curriculum or a program and then find out it is not a great fit for your family or to have your family's needs change which puts you back on the hunt for something new. When that happens, try again or modify what you have to become a better fit. You know your children better than anyone. Trust your gut and leave room for serendipity.
Legal Requirements
- Oregon Requirements for homeschooling in summary:
- Fill out your intent to homeschool form the September 1st when your child is age 6 (or within 10 days of withdrawing from public or private school) with your local Educational Service District (ESD)
- If your child has never been enrolled in school you need to test at the end of 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th grades with a state-licensed testing instructor
- If your child has been enrolled in school, they need to test 18 months after being withdrawn from school and then at the end of 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th grades
- Send in test results if your ESD requests them
- Washington Requirements for homeschooling are a bit more complicated
- Fill out the intent to homeschool form every September for children ages 8 - 18 with your local Superintendent
- As the parent educator, you must meet state qualifications
- Teach for 180 days or about 1,000 hours every school year
- Teach the required subjects (WA is lenient on how you cover these subjects): occupational education, science, math, language, social studies, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, and the development of an appreciation of art and music.
- Test all registered children annually and keep a copy in your records
Beginning Your Journey
Purchasing Supplies
- The best sales on office/school supplies happen during summer. Check out places like Office Depot, Staples, Walmart, Target, Bi-Mart, and Walgreens. If you watch their ads and are willing to shop around you can get amazing deals throughout the summer.
- If you are looking for ways to save money on curriculum watch for people on our Community list selling their old curriculum, post asking for things you want to buy on the Community list, or you can also check out [email protected] or their Facebook page to reach a larger audience from all over the country.
- Locally, Exodus Books is a wonderful book store where you can purchase new or used curriculum either through their website or at their physical location in Oregon City. Exodus Books also schedules free private sessions where you can talk with a curriculum expert about homeschooling and take a look at the various curriculum they have. Keep in mind they are not specifically Catholic so pay attention to the content.
Depending upon the method of homeschooling you choose you may need to enroll in a program. The program's website will have information on how and when to enroll. Generally, once you are enrolled someone will contact you regarding how to get supplies and start.
Setting a schedule/ finding your routine
- Keep your normal routine in mind. Do your children rise early ready to learn or are you all night owls? You get to set your own schedule based upon what works best for your family.
- Don't forget to incorporate what you discovered about learning styles. Your kinesthetic learner may need to run around for 15 minutes before he can sit and do 15 minutes of work.
- Make sure you include time for your kids to help out around the house, with everyone home your house will be messier.
- Be flexible and adapt as your children get older or a new baby comes or various crises come up. For many homeschoolers, every year looks a little bit different than the one before. Keep a sense of humor to help you through difficult times.
- Be gentle with yourself and your children as you find what works best for your family.