So you are considering homeschooling? Before you go any further make sure you read about these 5 things you must do before you take the plunge!
1. Set a PURPOSE for homeschooling.
Whether it’s for spiritual reasons, academic reasons or personal reasons you need to identify your WHY? Why are you choosing to do this? This will be your #1 motivator and driving force throughout this journey!
2. Research your state’s Homeschool LAWS!
Yes, there are laws! Every state is different. This is something very important that you MUST do before homeschooling! Some states are more regulated than others and require certain steps to legally homeschool your children. For example, we live in Pennsylvania, which is a highly regulated state, therefore we have to submit out intent to homeschool annually along with an affitdavit, and objectives that we plan to address for the year. We also have certain required subjects that must be thought as well as number of days/hours. At the end of the year we must have an evaluator evaluate our homeschool program. It is imperative that you are very well aware of what your states homeschool laws are. If you need help you can reference HSLDA website and find your state with the laws.
3. Identify your child/children’s learning style.
This is important to do before homeschooling because it will help guide how you structure your homeschool days and will help you in selecting a curriculum that will work for your family. I know that my children thrive in structure and do very well with physical books and activities. This helped me decide our curriculum and how we were going to implement it.
4. Think about CURRICULUM.
Before you begin your homeschooling journey, decide how you are going to teach your children.
- Are you going to buy a curriculum or are you going to create your own?
- Do you want a more traditional, classical or Charlotte Mason approach?
- Do you want to do subjects as a family or as independent grade levels?
- Would you like a thematic approach?
Remember this is your homeschool YOU decide what will best meet your child/children’s needs. For our family we use a Christian Curriculum with a traditional and spiral learning approach that includes all the subjects, assessments, and video lessons. For us, this was a must for us to homeschool as working parents. We needed a curriculum that was set and ready to go and needed little prep and the ABEKA ACADEMY curriculum hit all the marks for us. If you are interested in seeing how we put it all together you can visit my YouTube Channel or View or read our story here: Our Abeka Homeschool Story.
5. Test it out!
Before you commit to a certain approach or style for you homeschooling, test it out with your children first! Just because it sounds like an amazing approach does not mean that it will be the best for your children. So give it a trial run, test it out on the weekends or over the summer before the school year begins. Take advantage of any trials or free samples that different curriculum companies may offer. I used my daughter’s preschool year to test out different systems & schedules in our home. This was essential, especially since we are a full time working homeschooling family (read how we make it happen here ) Then, I used the summer before we started homeschooling to fine tune a few things. We used Abeka’s 25 free hours to test out the curriculum and see if our children enjoyed it before we decided to purchase the whole thing.
Do your research and read reviews to help you decide what might be the best fit for your family. Know that every family is different. Try your very best not to compare yourself to others. Just because something works very well for someone else doesn’t mean it will have the same results for you or visa versa.
Check out this YouTube DITL video where I share how we were structuring the day for our daughter before we officially began to homeschool.
I know this undertaking can seem very intimidating and over whelming, however after doing these 5 things you will feel ready to begin your homeschooling journey!
4 Comments