One of the best things about homeschooling is that you don’t have to recreate school at home; in fact, in most cases you shouldn’t recreate school at home. You have the freedom to allow your children to learn in ways that aren’t possible in an institutional setting, so learn more about what might work best for your family. Consider how your children learn. Home is not school and does not need the same structure. There are many homeschooling methods; take some time to look into how each works.
While you are exploring, take the opportunity for your children and yourself to go through a period of deschooling before you jump into homeschooling, especially if your child was previously in public school. There is an adjustment period that a child (and often the parent) goes through when leaving school and beginning homeschooling.
To fully benefit from homeschooling, a child has to let go of the school culture as the norm. This is deschooling, and it is a crucial part of beginning homeschooling after a period of time spent in a classroom. This period is a great time to explore the homeschooling methods and learning styles if you haven’t already done so.
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Related Reading
Considering Homeschooling? Find the Right Fit.
Homeschooling is all about finding the right fit: finding what works for each child, for the homeschooling parent, and for the family’s lifestyle and values. Luckily, homeschooling has gained mainstream popularity in the last decade and the resources for homeschoolers have exploded into a veritable feast of choices.
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Styles of Homeschooling
When you mention homeschooling, many people instantly imagine denim jumpers, large families, and kids sitting around the kitchen table with textbooks all day. The reality is a little more… realistic. There are endless ways to homeschool, as well as countless reasons to do so. There definitely aren’t any typical homeschool families. Unless “different” counts as “typical.”
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Thinking Outside the Textbook
I’m a member of several homeschooling groups and email loops, and the most common questions are all related to, “It’s a battle to get my child to do her work. I thought homeschooling would be better for my child, but it’s all tears and yelling. For both of us. I may have to put her back in school.”
The specifics vary, but many parents new to homeschooling are trying to recreate a public school environment in their home and finding that it doesn’t work. It’s not their fault. Most of us went to public school; it’s what we know. We’re taught ... Read More »
Homeschooling at Night: How Nightschooling Can Work for You
Everybody knows that your kids should be up early hitting the books, right? Homeschooling goes better if Mom is organized and has lessons prepared for first thing in the morning. Homeschooling works well when kids focus on academics when they’re fresh, and they get to play when they’ve completed their school work.
Homeschooling at any other time of day is risking disaster.
That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway.
However, sometimes homeschooling at night makes more sense than the conventional wisdom. That can even include “nightschooling” – focusing all or part of your homeschooling efforts during the evening hours.
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Delaying Academics: When Homeschoolers Defer Formal Lessons
Schools are pushing standardized testing and formal academics earlier than ever, with today’s kindergartners and preschoolers asked to master skills and content that used to be learned in first and second grades.
Stories like this one from New York and this one from Chicago are popping up all over the country — frequent standardized testing of five year olds (and the accompanying test prep) is becoming the norm in public education. Formal reading, writing, and arithmetic teaching are displacing the time honored traditions of kindergarten — play, story time, learning to share, and enrichment activities that lead to numeracy and ... Read More »
The Homeschool Year
The Homeschool Calendar: New homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers frequently wonder about whether the “homeschool year” follows or needs to follow the traditional calendar used by most public and private schools in the United States. Long-term homeschoolers frequently find their answer to that question changes as their children get older. Casual observers of homeschooling might think “of course” homeschooling has to follow a school calendar in order to be legitimate and sufficient.
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School Choice
I support school choice. Unlike politicians who advocate school choice, I am not referring to vouchers and tax credits. No, when I say school choice, I am referring to the right and responsibility that each parent has to direct the education of their own children. As a homeschooler, you may think it’s obvious that an editor of a homeschool newsletter would support school choice. To that, I would ask you to consider what school choice means to you and whether you truly support school choice for other parents no matter what their choices are.
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Dropping Out Was a Great Idea
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of questions raised about how innovations in technology will change education as we know it – Can machines replace teachers? Do internet resources provide everything needed to develop professional skills? What happens if you replace school with online learning? I’ve spent my life trying to find out, and the answers I have are both promising and a little horrifying.
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Transcripts and Delight-Directed Learning
Some people just aren’t textbook people! What do you do if your homeschooler learns by living, instead of studying textbooks? What if your child soaks up knowledge like a sponge, without being directed in any way? Can you still create a serious-looking high school transcript?
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Letting Go of Teaching
“I always thought the idea of teaching was highly overrated. I was more interested that my kids learned.” ~Lee Binz Stop Teaching and Start Learning – Do you sometimes long for an “escape from teaching?” I sure did, especially as my kids got a little older. The good news is that your days playing the “teacher” role will someday come to an end. Instead your role will evolve to that of a “learning facilitator.” Read More »
Why We Educate at Home (A Discussion of the Classical Education Method)
My husband and I have no qualms about our style of parenting, which is so tied up in home education. He grew up beside his father in a greenhouse. Our first apartment at 500 sq ft, had 31 houseplants in it. He now works as a landscape designer. So we understand this analogy: Children are like little plants. You take the seed and put it in a little cup of the best topsoil. You give it lots of light. You gently sprinkle it with drops of water so the delicate leaves aren’t broken. When it gets a decent root system, ... Read More »
Unschooling – Education Outside the Box
To understand unschooling, you really have to look back at the history of education and homeschooling. The standard used to be for children to be taught in the home. However, by the mid ’70s, homeschooling was nearly extinct. Over 99% of school-aged children in the United States were attending institutional classroom schools. By that point, people seemed to have forgotten that children had ever been successfully educated without going to school. Slowly, though, an increasing number of parents began to recognize that they were in a battle for their children’s hearts, minds, and time. They saw the control that the ... Read More »
Introduction to Waldorf Homeschooling
Despite the fact that there are over 100 Waldorf schools and kindergartens in the USA (and about 1000 more in countries as diverse as Mexico, Latvia, France, Germany, Israel, India and Egypt), Waldorf education is not well known. Indeed, amongst homeschoolers, those of us who work with Waldorf are almost invisible! My hope is to address this imbalance and to help get the word out about a form of education which others might find beneficial to their children. Read More »
Raising God-Directed Learners
One of the goals of Christian home schooling families is to raise our children to be God-Directed learners… that means not just self-motivated, but led by the Holy Spirit. At first, whether you are starting out with a young child, or if you are just bringing your children home after months or years of institutionalized education, they will NOT be Spirit-led learners, or even independent ... Read More »
Definition For Classical Education
Those who incorporate the reading of ancient classical authors, and declare this to be of the very essence of any education which could be styled as Classical, are actually referring to what might better be called a Classical Humanist Education. The Applied Trivium, on the other hand, is more interested in teaching by the same educational principles and toward the same educational goals as the ancients than in teaching the same literature ... Read More »
Awakening the Soul Through Liberal Education
A liberal education awakens the soul of a child. Liberal means a full and generous curriculum. After a thirty-year experiment, educationalist Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) said, “I believe the ardor for knowledge in the children of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities… To find that the children of a mining population were equally responsive seemed to open a new hope for the world. It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living.” Read More »
Charlotte Mason In a Nutshell
Charlotte Mason was a big thinker who had a very high view of children. So let me start out by saying that I don’t believe anyone could ever fit Charlotte Mason’s ideas, methods and philosophies into an actual nutshell (I just thought it made a good title for this article). Miss Mason’s ideas were so broad and far reaching, it took six large volumes to contain her writings on just the topic of education. With that said, here’s a very brief overview of a handful of Charlotte Mason’s most familiar ideas.
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Unit Study Approach
Unit studies, sometimes called thematic units or integrated studies, are very popular with homeschoolers. Unit studies usually use a hands-on approach for effective learning. The child learns by actually experiencing or discovering through different methods and activities, rather than just reading a chapter from a textbook. Studies show that children using unit-study methods retain 45% more than those using a traditional approach. Read More »
Unschooling Flowers in the Spring
Well, a lot of people predicted it and now it’s happened. My daughter’s unschooling has led her to a dead-end job at low pay. Yup, she’s a hired hand on a farm. She didn’t tell me that she was taking the job. I found out about it when I came across a list of her chores that she’d written out. In addition to feeding the pigs, chickens, horses and cows, she has to haul water, milk the cows and even chop wood! And for all this, she only gets room and board! Read More »
Unit Studies Using Weaver
The Weaver uses the Bible as the spring-board for history, science, creative writing and many other projects. As we began to systematically work through the Bible I realized that my goal was being accomplished. My children were exposed to the profound truths of the Bible and loving it. Our Bible times do not focus on facts but on the application of the Word. In Ruth 3 we discussed the importance of choosing a mate who was not only a Christian but one who displayed the character of Christ as Boaz and Ruth both did. The ... Read More »
Waiting For Unschooling To Work
Remarkably, the best homeschooling advice I received came when my first child was a baby. My friend Barb, an experienced homeschooling mom who loaned me stacks of Home Education Magazine and Growing Without Schooling, told me that to homeschool I only had to "provide a rich environment, involve children in everyday living, and help find answers to their questions." That sounded very simple, and ... Read More »
Eclectic Homeschooling
I am now beginning my fifteenth year in homeschooling so I feel well qualified to tell you how our homeschool has evolved into the eclectic approach. My oldest daughter, Laura, graduated from homeschool high school in 2002 and from a one year Bible college in 2003.However, I am still homeschooling my son Stephen, aged 15 for tenth grade and my daughter Mary aged 10 for fourth grade. Over the years I have tried many different curriculums and eventually I just learned to stick with what works for both myself and my children. I also learned that there is no such thing ... Read More »
The Moore Formula
Dr. Raymond Moore and his wife Dorothy Moore are sometimes called the grandparents of the modern home schooling movement. For over 50 years they have been educational professionals, and for the last 30 years have been sharing their research and their “formula” for successful home schooling, a program that is low-cost, low stress, and yet brings ... Read More »
The Steiner Waldorf Approach to Education
The Steiner Waldorf approach to education emphasizes on the use of practical, artistic and conceptual elements into education. This method of education was established by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of a philosophy called anthrophosophy. The Steiner Waldorf approach is based on the fact that the role of imagination in learning is integral for the development of creative and analytical thinking. This educational approach is aimed at providing an environment where young people can develop free thinking, which can be a basis for developing their own personalities as responsible individuals by fulfilling their destiny. Read More »
