I was recently asked for some advice by a newbie, and since it's a
question I've been asked a lot recently, I thought I'd blog my answer.
Dear S:
Do you want the short answer or the long answer?
Short answer: If you are homeschooling a four year old and want to know where to go to get free, easy curriculum materials go here , here and here. But also read up the Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori philosophies and read lots of challenging books aloud to your child.
on how we workbox kindergarten and this on how we homeschool the younger years.
(Eden's side of the school room)
Looooong answer:
First of all, you can do it. You can do it because God has equipped you to teach your own child, as evidenced by - ahem - everything you teach him every day. (Where would we be as a species if we didn't have this basic ability?) Also, you can do it as evidenced by the reams of research that has proven that homeschooled children do as well or better than traditionally schooled children on every single measure, INCLUDING (and perhaps especially) socialization. This is true notwithstanding a family's socioeconomic status or the parents' post secondary education. So let's just settle that part now.
However, it is hard, very hard, to unplug from the idea that the sun rises and sets and your child will someday go to public school. In fact, for me, making the decision to homeschool was the hardest part. Letting go of some of my plans for myself and how I would spend my own time while my kids were in school also took some time.
Be prepared for criticism. Research on homeschoolers can be found here and here. So if (when) you get criticism or concern from well meaning friends and family members, you can simply agree with them that homeschooling is definitely not for everyone and then diplomatically say that while they are certainly entitled to their own opinions and choices, they are NOT entitled to their own facts. And then graciously direct them to those facts, you know, to alleviate their concern. (Oh, and tell them to read "Hold On to Your Kids", a parenting book not about homeschooling, especially if their kids are in school.)
You CAN do it.
If you honestly think about it, the skill of being a professional teacher is to teach "school". By "school" I mean, the delivery of traditional education to 30 kids with different abilities. It takes special skill to teach the same thing, at the same time and in the same way to a whole lot of kids, (some of whom have learning challenges, some with behaviour challenges, some with a language barrier....) Ask any teacher and they'll tell you that their job is 90% classroom management. You won't have to deal with any of that. So forget recreating school at home. That WOULD be very difficult. I simply do not accept that it takes any special skill to teach your child skills you already have, namely, the abilities to read, write and learn.
Notice I said that you are teaching the ability to LEARN. This is very distinct from the ability to parrot back spoon fed information. Teaching the ability to learn is critical to homeschooling (and to life) because, at some point you WILL hit a wall where you are out of your depth (for me that will be higher maths and physics.) When that day comes, you can rely on resources like this.
(Josh's desk and the main shelving.
Since this photo was taken I've added some drawers
to two sections of this unit, which is from Ikea.
Oh, and I've cleaned up!)
But let's get back to STARTING out...
Or rather, to preparing to start.
1. Don't get overwhelmed.
It might be more helpful to say when you get overwhelmed take a deep breath and understand that like anything new, getting your sea legs takes time. There are so many resources, curricula, philosophies, work books and whatnot to homeschooling. You can not review them all. Similarly, you do not need to to teach your child everything under the sun. Think of education this way: education is like a library. You will never, ever, know everything there is to know in a library. You should, however, acquire some basic skills in order to use the library. You will also need some familiarity with the general subject areas in the library in order to make the best use of it. You are not ever going to know even a 10th of what is in any given library. So let. it. go.
2. Review some philosophies.
If you were traditionally schooled, or even if you were homeschooled in a traditional manner you might not be aware that the way we have always taught children in schools is not the only way to educate. In fact, many authors suggest convincingly that it is a very ineffective, not to mention uninspiring, way to teach and learn. That said, we all learned in spite of it, and many homeschoolers default to this approach because it is most familiar and comes naturally. If that describes you, you will probably like this sort of curriculum.
If however, like me you are choosing to homeschool because testing and parroting back text books sound like the third ring of a hot place, then you might want to read up about alternatives like Charlotte Mason, Maria Montessori and unit studies. You might even want to look into the philosophy of unschooling.
Some resources to get you started are:
Available in our local library:
Teaching Montessori in the Home (and other titles by Hainstock)
Books I can lend you:
Sites to visit:
Sonlight (A Charlotte Mason inspired curriculum. Definitly order a free catalogue...in fact, acquire as many catalogues as you can they are a wealth of information!)
Heart of Dakota (I haven't used this, but many of our mutual friends use it for kindergarten.)
Five in a Row (I have this if you want to look at it.)
Also, have a look at the sites on the side bar, where I have listed favourites and things we use.
3. Consider a conference.
There are two major conferences coming up, but before you go to them see #1 above. :) www.kwchea.ca and www.ochec.org. The conferences have large (read: overwhelming) exhibit halls and extremely helpful seminars covering a huge range of subjects of interest to homeschoolers. Topics include starting out, homeschooling boys, dealing with learning challenges, living on one income, learning for crafty types...and on and on. You might think that you can put off conferences until later in your homeschool journey, and you can, but I have found that because there is so much to see, particularly in the exhibit halls, a number of exposures actually increased my familiarity with the offerings and made it much less overwhelming when the time came to make bigger (and more expensive) curriculum choices. So my advice is to go, breath deeply, learn as much as you can and tell yourself you have lots of time to consider your options.
I hope this helps! I might do another post on why homeschooling works for us soon, if the new addition allows.
