Our homeschooling is just like any other day, we just add worksheets and turn off the TV.
Maybe you’re a seasoned homeschooler, or maybe this is your first year. Maybe you came here to get advice on how to make your year easier, or maybe you came here to compare schedules. Maybe you’re in it for the long haul, or maybe you’re just homeschooling for 2020 because of COVID-19. Either way, welcome!
Let me preface this by saying; I was never that great of a student, I don’t have a college degree, and I DEFINITELY never thought I would home schooling any of my children, but here we are. So, here are some things I have learned in the first few weeks of homeschooling.
1. Know your laws: First and foremost, know the laws in your state when it comes to homeschooling! You really need to know if you should be keeping track of hours the kids are doing learning or not. You also need to know if you need to save the half-colored sailboat to show that your child knows that the ocean is blue.
2. Homeschooling is what you want it to be: If you want your kids to do worksheets at a table, that’s so cool. If you want your kids to learn all about bugs on your hike, that’s awesome too. If you want to use ABC mouse to teach your kids to read, you go glen coco. You can use a curriculum, you can make your own unit studies, or you can find some tools online. Homeschooling is about your kids, your family what works for you and how you do it doesn’t matter, except when it comes to how your kids learn… Which leads me into point three.
3. Every kid learns differently: I definitely knew this one going in, but I didn’t realize how accurate it was. My 5 year old son learns drastically different than my 7 year old daughter. He LOVES worksheets but honestly they don’t work for him so we have been adapting his worksheets in ways that do. Homeschooling is all about being open to change and adapting to what the child needs in the long run. The best thing you can do is try to incorporate learning into play, this is especially important when you’re teaching more than one kid, or if you have toddlers at home to entertain too. ( More to come on this)
4. You can Home school if you’re Type A too: I am super organized, I love lists, I love order and a plan. I think I got the most joy I have ever had out of the few days I set up our curriculum. You can still have a plan, order and organization and be flexible and open to change. *Gasp* I know, I said it, but I promise you can. Set up a system, use it, if it doesn’t work set up a new system and then you have twice the fun!
5. There will be bad days, know your why; I don’t want you to think that homeschooling is all sunshine and rainbows. There will be days when your kids don’t cooperate, when you wake up late and everything is off. There will be days when your kids say school is boring and days you get frustrated that they’re just not getting what you’re trying to teach. We are only 2 weeks in and we have already had days like this. I want to encourage you that you can get through those times. Every day is new, and you likely have a new lesson so it’s like a fresh start.
I could go on and on; things like you are more flexible and can travel. You can go do errands or “field trips” in the middle of the day to beat the crowds, you can wake up and not have to rush out the door. You can choose what you teach and do not teach your kids. You can home school for 2-3 hours instead of having your child spend 4-6 hours in a classroom or right now on a zoom call. If you’ve been wanting to home school, I encourage you to give it a try. I hope this was helpful for you. Please if you ever have any questions find me and shoot me a message.
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