If you are thinking about homeschooling your child or educating your child at home, then this blog post will give you 5 homeschooling tips and suggestions for doing so.
We will discuss five of our top tips that will help make the process easier for both you and your child or children.
Homeschooling can be a great way to provide your child with a personalized education, and more importantly, it can be a lot of fun once you get into a routine.
Here Are Our Five Home Schooling Tips For Parents:
Tip One: Forget The Word Home Schooling.
When people first start looking into the option of home schooling it’s easy to get overwhelmed and for very good reason, we think we need to replicate school at home and this isn’t the case. We are instead providing home education and a learning environment.
What’s the difference?
Well lots, learning is a lifelong process whereas education and schooling are temporary.
This quote is one of my favourites on the subject.
I found a great article over on medium which shares lots about this subject. You can have a read of it here. The difference between schooling, learning, and education.
It basically breaks everything down but here is a quick summary for you.
Learning: The cognitive process of acquiring new skills or knowledge.
Education: Knowledge acquired by formal learning and instruction.
Schooling: The process of being formally educated in a school (as opposed to self-study, online learning, private tutorship etc.)
(Side note – I will continue with the word “home schooling” in this article as that’s what everyone types into Google to find more information about home education.)
Tip Two: Involve Your Child In The Homeschooling Process (Home Education)
One of the benefits of homeschooling/education is that you can get your child more involved in their own education. This means that they have a say in what they learn and how they learn it.
A simple way to do this is by letting them choose some of the textbooks or course materials themselves. You can also let them help plan lessons, and even assign some chores related to schooling (such as making sure their school supplies are organized).
Allowing your child to be more involved will not only make them feel appreciated, but it will also give them a sense of ownership over their education – something which is key to success.
Tip Three: Take Advantage of Homeschooling Resources.
There are many homeschooling resources available to parents, both online and off. You can find many websites that offer free lesson plans, worksheets and other teaching materials.
The best piece of advice I can offer here is to find local or national groups over on Facebook, once you get accepted in these groups you can get tips and advice from other parents who are in the same boat as you. Plus you can also find out about local meetups, activities and lots more.
I have written a full article about this and shared over 70 Facebook groups that cover all of the UK and many more countries.
You can find the full list of Facebook groups in this article: Facebook Groups For Home Educators
In addition, there are many physical resources available as well. You can find curriculum guides at your local library or bookstore, and there are even Homeschooling conventions held throughout the year which offer a variety of exhibits and workshops on different subjects.
So take advantage of all the resources that are available both online and offline. They will be a great help in your new journey.
Tip Four: Get Creative with Homeschooling.
One of the awesome things about home education is that you can get very creative with it. You can tailor the education to fit your child’s interests and needs. And by doing so they actually learn more and want to participate.
If they love art, you can make sure they have plenty of opportunities to do art projects. If they enjoy history, you can focus on teaching them more about history topics.
The sky really is the limit when it comes to creativity in homeschooling – so let your imagination run wild!
Tip Five: Make Homeschooling Fun for Your Child.
Last but by no means least, one of the most important tips for parents is to make sure home education is fun for their children. This means that you should try not to be too strict, and allow for some flexibility in the schedule. And don’t put too much pressure on yourself either.
It’s also important to find activities outside of school that your child will enjoy, you can do things like visiting the beach, a local lake, going on nature walks or playing sports.
Homeschooling can be a great experience for both parents and children if it’s done in the right way. We hope these tips help make the process easier for you. Good luck!
Final Thoughts?
Many people think that one of the most important things for parents who are homeschooling is to create a schedule and stick to it as this will help keep you on track and make the whole process smoother overall. Others like to divide up the school year into quarters, and then start creating lesson plans from there.
But we need to remember our reasons for actually home educating and be realistic so that it doesn’t become too overwhelming for either you or your child.
There is no right or wrong way with home education, sure, you will need to cover the basics like maths and literacy but even this can be incorporated into everyday life. You do not need to create a “school at home” just because you are home educating.
Take things slow in the beginning, learn what makes your child tick, what they actually enjoy and then tailor your education around this, yes, it can be overwhelming, yes, we all have days where we worry about making the right decisions for our children but we are not alone either.
Find support and help from your local community and finally be kind to yourself, we didn’t make the decision to home school for our own needs, did we?
(Please share our website with other home educators. We are adding stuff all the time to make it a great resource for everyone on their journeys)
Below are some other articles you may find useful.
How much time in school, is actually spent learning?
Hilarious Homeschooling Memes & Videos To Make You Smile
Recommended Resources For Home Educators
Facebook Groups For Home Educators
FAQ About Home Schooling.
What is the best way to homeschool your child?
There is no right or wrong way.
Homeschooling can be a great experience for both parents and children if it’s done in the right way. Don’t put pressure on yourself to follow any criteria when you first start, instead try to focus on what your child actually enjoys and take it from there. The learning will happen naturally.
How many hours a day should you homeschool?
Do I have to follow the school curriculum?
Nope! Whilst some families like to try this it certainly isn’t a requirement and lots of families create their own curriculum based upon their child’s interests. You will find that it’s very easy to slip maths, science and English into many day to day activities.
Excellent post!!!!