homeschooling

Deciding to Homeschool. Now What?

Welcome to the wonderful, sometimes crazy, and often scary world of deciding to homeschool. Taking that big step to homeschool is scary for a lot of people, it was terrifying for me.

Deciding to Homeschool Your Kids

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The hardest part of homeschooling is deciding to homeschool your kids. You know in your heart that this is the right choice for your child right now. The hardest part is making the decision that your gut is screaming at you to make.

Research what you need to do, legally, to homeschool in your province/state and then do that. Send the letter, fill out the forms.

Once You You have Decided to Homeschool: Take time to Deschool

If your child went to a brick and mortar school, take time to decompress from that. Deschooling is the adjustment period a child goes through when leaving school and beginning homeschooling.

The general rule of thumb is one month of deschooling for each year that your child was in school.

Try to limit your recreation of school at home. Homeschooling is an educational lifestyle, not school at home with a strict schedule.

Don’t Buy all the Curriculum

There is this thing called shiny-new-curriculum syndrome. As you can guess it’s seeing new curriculum and wanting all the new curriculum. But when you are first starting out you don’t know exactly what is going to work for you and your kids.

Questions to Ask Before Buying Curriculum

Secular Homeschool Curriculum – How to Choose One

Boxed Curriculum Isn’t for You If…

Best Places to Find Curriculum

Our Homeschool Curriculum Picks: Grades K, 2, and 4

Accept Change, and Accept Change to Happen Again

You will second guess yourself all the time, especially during the first year. This is normal. Every aspect of your homeschool can and most likely will change, repeatedly through your homeschool journey.

Your reason – your why for homeschooling.

Curriculum – this could change repeatedly through a year as you learn what works for you and your children.

Find Your People

Look for people like you, find a community to support you, and to support. You can use Facebook to search for groups in your local area, this has been the easiest way in my experience to find groups of like minded individuals.

These people can provide you with support when you are feeling down and stressed about homeschooling. They can help by giving you tips, and sharing their experience with curriculum, and homeschooling in general.

If you can’t find local homeschoolers, think about creating a group at some point. Not right away, but make it a goal.

Homeschool Curriculum Facebook Group Header

Accept that You are going to Freak Out

Accept that at some point or other, especially in the first year, you are going to freak out and feel like you aren’t doing enough, or aren’t doing the right thing. Or one of many other things.

You are going to feel like you don’t know enough to teach your child – but you can learn along with them.

Doing School at Home

by Ashley Mullen

There are a lot of “homeschoolers” right now what with school being closed across Canada and the United States. There is a lot of information out there about how to schedule the day, how to re-create school at home. School at home is going to look a lot different than actual public school.

Doing School at Home

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School at home is going to look differently than public school. To start, you have a very small amount of kids in your school, and in your classroom, especially if you have multiple grades.

Let’s Take A Breath

You are stressed about working from home or being off work, and now you are stressing about how to teach your kids. Relax, take a breath and let me tell you about deschooling.

Deschooling is a period of adjustment that child goes through when leaving school and begins homeschooling. The child has he chance to decompress and disconnect from “school” being the default and “school ways” being the standard expectation. But this only happens through a lack of strict scheduling, and maybe even a complete lack of “school”.

How to do School at Home

This is where most of you are. You are now home with your child you are trying to figure out when to get school work done, and then school work is finished super early in the day. What you are suppose to do with the rest of the day, because doesn’t school take 8 hours a day?

School at home doesn’t take all day because your child is working at their pace and not working on someone else (or a classroom of someone elses), and are able to get their work done faster… assuming they work and aren’t getting distracted by the fact that they are home.

School at Home & Screen Time

You can use screen time. At this point, throw out the rules on limited screen time. Maybe your school has classes online, maybe you’re kids are super interested in learning more about graphic design or coding right now. You know where they are going to learn about those things: online, on the computer, screen time. Just go with it. We LOVE Teaching Textbooks which is online.

There are a lot of places that are doing live videos on Facebook showing and teaching new things as well as this goes on. Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden for example is one that we have been enjoying each day. We just love seeing and learning about animals from them.

Get Outside

Just because you are having to stay away from people does not mean that you can’t get outside and get some fresh air. In fact, I recommend it for helping everyone burn off energy, to keep people from climbing the walls in the house.

Going for a walk is a great way to get out of the house without, hopefully, coming into contact with many people, and if you do, remember the 6 foot rule. Walking is a great way to start a nature study, and you don’t need to be formal about it, just talk about what you see and hear.

Arts & Crafts Time

This is a favorite past time for my six year old. He loves to color and draw. One of our favorite YouTube channels is Art for Kids Hub. Step by step drawing of kids favorite characters, animals, and more. I really like this videos for my kids and I to do together.

You don’t need formal art time, just let your kids have free range to crayons, markers, paper, etc.

Reading

Any homeschooler will tell you, reading is the best thing ever! You kids can read to themselves, they can read to you, or you can read to them. The answer to many questions lay within a book.

With all the closures libraries are also closed for physical books which is completely horrible but many have access online with OverDrive. There are also online book subscription places that are offering their services for free for a certain amount of time. Scribd is one of these places, Epic offers reading FREE for 30 days , and Amazon is offering children’s books for free on Audible.

You don’t need to make this time stressful and hard on yourself or your kids. Just be together. Read a book out loud. Maybe take some time for yourself in your room away from everything.

Homeschool Tips for Beginners

by Ashley Mullen

Deciding to start homeschooling can be scary, and exciting, and overwhelming, and the list of emotions goes on and on. I have some homeschool tips for beginners to help you out on your incredible journey. I have three main takeaways for you today as you get ready to begin homeschooling. Tips for Moms. Tips the First Year. Organization Tips.

Homeschool Tips for Beginners

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Homeschool Tips for Moms

Moms, or dads, should first head to your provincial or state education website and formalize yourself with the rules and laws for homeschooling in your province.

Each province have very different laws and regulations, and requires something different of you, for example New Brunswick just needs you to fill out a form at the beginning of the school year, very simple.

Another example is Saskatchewan where each school district is different, and you are required to register, provide educational plans, and an end of year report.

Take a deep breathe, grab a cup of tea and some books to read.
Homeschool Books I Recommend for Beginning to Homeschool
Homeschool Books for Homeschool Moms
6 Secular Books for Secular Homeschooling

Do a Facebook search for homeschool groups in your area. This is the first thing I do when we move, I want to join and talk/”meet” other homeschool families right away. This is also a great way to find used curriculum as well.

Homeschool Tips for Beginners - how to start homeschooling

Homeschool Tips – First Year

Things aren’t going to go perfectly the first year. Use the first year, or even the first two or three years, to find out what works best for you and your kids. There are so many different styles of curriculum and learning styles, that for the first year you might not land on what works for your right away, and that’s OK.

My homeschool advice is to not try to create school at home. Sometimes it’s more relaxing and enjoyable to sit on the couch with a read-aloud or even workbooks than at a desk or table. If you are enjoying it, you are more likely to stick with it long term. You can find lap desks to making working on the couch easier, and neater, we have them and use them everywhere including in the vehicle.

Homeschool Organization Tips

I like digital homeschool resources that I can print off as needed and re-use for each of my kids. But digital resources do come with their own unique organizational challenges, one being forgetting what you have, and not remembering where you stored it on your computer. This Guide to Digital Homeschool Organization might be a lifesaver for you.

What about lesson plans?

How are you going to keep track of your lessons, what you want cover each day. Some people, myself included, are paper planner people. I like writing thing out by hand. But some prefer online planner that send you email reminders, which I admit can be so very helpful like the Homeschool Planet planner, you can check out my review of here.

I try to have a very rough idea of what I want to cover for the year for each of my kids. And then break it down into how many months we’ll homeschooling so I know how much of each subject to cover each week.

For example there are 118 lessons + 17 quizzes in Teaching Textbooks Level 3. That means for 9 months of school Brookland should be doing at least 15 lessons/quizzes a month. I now see she’ll be done very soon doing a lesson or two a day because she enjoys doing it.

There are many other options for keeping track of your plans including using Google tools, the calendar app built into your phone or computer. OR maybe you unschool or interest led and just want to keep track of what your kids have done.

FREE DIGITAL PLANNER

I have a Google Slides planner – 2 page layout that you can use and edit in Google Slides to create your own digital planner. CLICK THIS LINK to get a copy of it.

Homeschooling and Having a Home Daycare

by Ashley Mullen

Sometimes one income isn’t enough and you, as a homeschool mom, need to find a way to help out with the family expenses. One way to do this is to watch children in your home. This is always my fall back. I actually went to college for early childhood education, to work in daycare centers. Homeschooling and having a home daycare is challenging but definitely doable.

Homeschooling and Having a Home Daycare

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

We knew that when we made the move to the Maritimes I would need to have an enough income coming in each month to cover our rent. Providing childcare allows me to stay at home with my kids so we can continue to homeschool, and have an income.

It is not always easy. It is not always something I want to do, nor is it necessarily something I want to do long term, I want to get out of the house again during the week!

Making it work

Have a homeschool plan. Know what you want to accomplish each day in your homeschool and be realistic about what you can actually do. Math is simple for my older girls because they do math online and need very little help from me. Getting a planner and using it makes the biggest difference.

Reading is easy as well. 1. My girls can read to themselves. 2. Gauge (and my girls) can read to me any time – while we’re on the floor, on the couch, while I’m making lunch, etc. 3. Me reading to my homeschool kids is me reading to my daycare kids.

Science and history are little more tricky, I’m not going to say hard or difficult, because it’s about planning. We either do these on the weekends, or on days that I don’t have a lot of “extra” kids in the house. Also, documentaries. These can be watched and everyone is learning. We were watching one about large cats and the three year old was asking what animals would bite, she was learning along with us, at her level.

Life skills

Having a home daycare while I have my kids at home for school has been amazing for learning life skills! My 10 year old wants to be in charge of lunch three days a week. With little babies and a child with allergies she’s learning to think about what she wants to make to make sure everyone can enjoy it before she starts in the kitchen.

How Parents Feel about Homeschooling and a Home Daycare

I have had parents come to meet me and see our home that couldn’t understand how I could provide care and homeschool at the same time, and decided we weren’t a good fit because of it, or I got the “you must have so much patience and be so organized!” comment. Both responses are OK. The parents of the kids I have now, love that I have “helpers”, they love that their little ones have older kids to watch and learn from, and for the little ones that are just learning to walk – someone to chase. 😉

Starting a Home Daycare

I’m not going to touch this one as it is different everywhere. You need to look into how many kids you are allowed to have, what you need to do in order to provide care for kids if you are wanting to set up a Home Daycare.

Simple Things for First Time Homeschool Moms

by Ashley Mullen

Are you a first-time homeschool mom? You might think you need to know all about lesson planning, or curriculum choices. The things you really need to know about homeschooling are these simple. There are some simple thing for first time homeschool moms to think about when starting out.

Simple Things for First Time Homeschool Moms

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

Quality over quantity.
Just take a breathe.
Enjoy being with your kids.
Change things up if you or your child is struggling.
You can’t teach your kids every single thing that you’d like to teach them.
Homeschooling isn’t regular “public” school.
Stick to the basics. You don’t need to cover everything.
They will read… someday.
You and your kids don’t have to read 8 hours a day.
Your curriculum is there to help you. You are not a slave to it.
Not every “perfect” curriculum is perfect for you.
Stick to the basics and don’t get too involved in the extras.
Mix and match or even make up your own thing.
Do not compare your homeschool journey to others.
You are in it for the long haul, there will be many years to cover everything – you don’t need to do it all at once.
Take your time and explore what works best for your family.
Always praise your child when something finally clicks.
You can homeschool on a very tight budget.
Let them be kids, let them play, a lot.
You don’t need to do each subject each day.
Your children will learn way more than you think just in everyday play and life.
Focus on the way they learn best.
You can homeschool multiple ages, without loosing your mind.
Be flexible.
You don’t need a homeschool room. Your kitchen/dining room table or couch will be perfect.
There will be hard days, remember your reasoning for homeschooling.
Your initial idea/plan may not be how things turn out in the end.
Let them sleep in. They’ll be better learners for it.
You can learn as you go.
You are the expert in your child’s life.

homeschooling

Deciding to Homeschool. Now What?

Deciding to Homeschool Your Kids

Once You You have Decided to Homeschool: Take time to Deschool

Don’t Buy all the Curriculum

Accept Change, and Accept Change to Happen Again

Find Your People

Accept that You are going to Freak Out

Recommended Products for Beginning to Homeschool

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Doing School at Home