Next to the act of parenting, there is no greater privilege than to be given the opportunity to educate your child in the privacy of your own home, and the freedom to select the information you choose to teach your child. Fortunately, we live during a time when the amount of curriculum that is available at our disposal is virtually limitless. One of the biggest perks of homeschooling a child is the simple fact that no one knows your child better than you do. If your child happens to be a strong reader, then you, as their primary educator, can customize what your child will learn at home during the school year, and include lots of read-alouds, historical fiction, Christian missionary biographies, and so on. And because you know your child so well, choosing a curriculum for him or her may actually mean not following any given curriculum, but by taking bits and pieces from the many different programs available. Whether you prefer the structure of a textbook, concentrated unit studies, consumable workbook studies or interactive web-based programs, the goal of any Christian educator should be to keep God central to all that you are working on with your children.

Below are some of the various homeschool curriculums:

Monarch: 

Monarch is a new Christian, internet-based homeschool curriculum that is targeted for grades 3 through 12. Monarch’s curriculum encompasses core subjects as Bible, history and geography, language arts, math and science. Additionally, this homeschool program offers 35 elective courses to round off your child’s school day. Monarch uses interactive web-based lessons interspersed with fun graphics, engaging learning games, web-related links and much more.

LIFEPAC:

This curriculum is a work text program that weaves Scripture into each core subject and elective and includes chapter lessons, activities, quizzes, tests, and fundamental truths necessary for daily Christian living.

Horizons:

Horizons is a best-selling Bible-based curriculum in a consumable workbook format that is sure to engage learners of all ages. Horizon’s curriculum integrates the truth of God’s Word into each subject, and is an award-winning reading-based program.

Sonlight:

If you have a child who loves to read and be read to, Sonlight offers a great selection of quality, age appropriate literature for your homeschooled child. Sonlight can be purchased in customizable units or in pre-made all-inclusive packages.

Switched on Schoolhouse:

This multi-media based curriculum includes the core subjects and up to 35 electives. Switched on Schoolhouse can be customized to meet your student where he or she is at. This program is also geared towards grades 3 through 12. Scriptural truths coupled with Christian living applications make this curriculum a good foundation for your child.

The Weaver Collection: 

The Weaver Collection is a Bible-based unit study that uses God’s Word as its core. This collection is ideal if you have multiple grade levels in your family because you (the teacher) can formulate each study to be simple for your younger grades or more intricate for your older children.

Choosing the correct homeschool curriculum is really done by trial and error, and what works for one child in your family may not have the same desired effect on the other children in your household. But choosing a curriculum should not stress you out; it should be lots of fun. Remember, you know your son or daughter better than anyone else in the world. Selecting a program that you know will speak to your child’s heart in terms of having a strong Biblical foundation is key. So, as you are considering curriculum for your child, envision how your child would react to certain manners, methods and modalities of teaching, pray about whether a certain curriculum will build your child up and encourage him or her in his daily walk, and ask seasoned homeschool moms what curriculum worked best for their family. If you are shopping around for curriculum for an older child, include them in the selection process. Not only will you wind up with a more suitable match, but having that little say-so in choosing curriculum may prove to be very meaningful to your child.

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These describe what should be taught in a given year and a grade. And in public schools, standardized testing measures how well a child meets those standards. Are those the standards you want to use to evaluate your child, or do you want to use those standards as a guide or not at all? The answers to these questions go to the heart of why you homeschool in the first place and how you see your homeschooling relationship with your child. Your own core beliefs and values will dictate some of your answers to these questions along with the legal requirements for homeschooling in your state.

Listed below are some of the options for you to consider in grading or not in your homeschooling family.

Option One:

No Grading: (at least through elementary school). This is an option that can be pursued by families who do not have state assessment standards for homeschoolers. If you are not required by law to send in yearly graded reports or to do yearly testing with your child, then you have the freedom to decide for yourself whether you think that grading is a helpful assessment tool with your child. If you choose not to grade your child, you will still want to keep a good portfolio of their work and track their progress through the year in some kind of planner.

You will also probably want to commemorate your child’s achievements in some way unless you are a firm believer that a job well done is reward enough. Many parents who do not grade at all in the elementary years find that they need to do so in high school in order to create an acceptable portfolio for a college-bound student. Philosphically speaking, parents who do not grade are focusing on the individual child learning from within and working to a standard that is family-related but not state-related.

Option Two:

Limited Grading: Some parents do not want to get bogged down in grading every bit of written work, so they simply give a numeric score for work in math and do not grade written work at all. They may insist that a child rewrite an essay or report if they either have not understood the material or not given their best effort. Once a good and consistent writing effort has been made, then the parent is satisfied that the material has been mastered or the skill acquired and no grade is needed. The idea here is that children do not need that external grade system if they are not comparing themselves to others and are doing their best.

Option Three:

Consistent Grading System: Parents who decide to grade their children consistently whether from choice or state requirements can document their chid’s progress in a number of ways. If you need to review some of these ways in more detail, you can print out a grading chart or different grading rubrics free from the internet by doing a Google search under Grades or Grading Charts or Grading Rubrics for homeschoolers. A worksheet can be graded by simply dividing the number of problems correct by the total number of problems to receive a percentage that translates to a grade on the grading chart. An essay can be graded based on the standards that you have explained to your child for excellence.

You can break these down into elements especially for older children and you can either create your own rubric or follow one printed from the internet. For end of the year grades, you will have to tally up all the grades and divide by the total number of assignments to get a final grade. Be aware that this system does not reflect improvement or distinguish between assignments that are more or less important. To do that you will have to give some work a greater weight in order to have it count more towards a final grade.

Regardless of what grading system you use, if any, remember that it is important to keep track of your child’s lessons and work in a planner/journal that details your weekly progress with the child. You need this to assess your own progress in teaching and it is very handy to have good teaching notes when you have multiple children that you homeschool. You will also want to keep representative papers, art work and photos in some sort of portfolio you can store in a large binder, a file cabinet, or a box. You will want to review this yearly work yourself as you plan your next homeschooling year.

At the heart of homeschooling is the loving guidance that you provide a child that you know well. If you do your best to prepare your child’s lessons so that they love learning and grow in understanding and wisdom, then they will develop interests and skills that will serve them for a lifetime. They will then truly achieve mastery regardless of what grading system you choose.

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The Fundamental Characteristics

While there are many ways to homeschool, let us limit our discussion to the most basic situation, or what can be called the paradigm, of homeschooling. By understanding this case, we can pull out the key characteristics of the definition of homeschooling.

First, parents who homeschool have made a conscious decision to manage the education of their child to a much larger degree than present in any other schooling option. In essence, homeschooling parents have decided to control the education of their child in every detail. The homeschooling parents decide what material will be studied, what books will be used, how much time is spent in class, and many other details. The homeschooling parents do not give these decisions over to any other person, such as a school principal, an individual tutor, or even a government official.

Second, a child who is homeschooled does his schoolwork at home. This seems rather obvious, but again we are looking at the most fundamental characteristics of homeschooling. A homeschooled child does not go to another location for their education, not a school, not a church, not even the house of another person. While a homeschooled child may take a specific class elsewhere, the central location of education for homeschooling is the home.

Third, homeschooling parents are responsible for the actual delivery of the educational material. While a third party can be hired for a specific topic, the parents hold onto the final responsibility of the delivery of the material. The parents make sure the child does the work, the parents make sure the work is graded, and the parents are in charge of the records of the child’s education. The parents can use outside resources to help them with this task, but the final responsibility is with the parents.

Who Does the Teaching

A homeschool teacher can be any member of the family; it does not have to be a parent. A grandparent, sibling, uncle, or cousin, just to name a few possibilities, can be the teacher for a homeschool child. Having said that, usually the main teacher of a homeschooled child is either a parent or a grandparent, for obvious reasons (discipline, responsibility, etc.).

While a child can take a class taught by someone who is paid, having a paid tutor as the main teacher in a homeschool can sometimes be problematic. Some states require that if someone is paid to homeschool a child, that person needs a teaching license issued by the state. If you are thinking about hiring someone to teach your child at home, you need to check with the Department of Education for your state to determine the precise requirements.

What Needs to be Done to Homeschool

There are two different sets of requirements you need to meet in order to homeschool your child. First, there are the legal requirements of the state where you live. These can sometimes be confusing, so make sure you research these requirements thoroughly. Some counties will also have specific requirements for homeschooling, so you need to check with your local board of education as well. Be persistent with government officials because they may very well try to prevent you from homeschooling.

The second set of requirements is putting together the resources you want to use for your homeschooling effort. This is usually a set of books and a collection of normal school supplies. The books can be either a prepared curriculum or simply a set of individual textbooks. Both of these can be found online, and many states have conventions for homeschooling where you can buy books as well. You should start off simple, with your focus on the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. You can add other subjects later, once you have started; however, if you want to start with other additional subjects (art, history, science, and so on), certainly you should do so.

Call to Action

Many parents are dissatisfied with the education their child can get in the existing school systems. If you are one of these parents, I would strongly suggest that you consider homeschooling as an alternative to sending your child to a school every morning. From personal experience, I can say that homeschooling is one of the best ways to educate your child.

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Preschool Homeschool Textbooks

Preschool is the perfect time to introduce young children to the wonders of school and learning. If you’ve chosen not to enroll your children in a preschool outside the home, it’s easy to find preschool homeschooling supplies. Preschoolers have little minds like sponges and everything is a fun adventure, so homeschooling can resemble playtime with the right preschool homeschooling supplies.

Children this age learn best with songs, games, storybooks and getting their hands dirty, so look for preschool homeschooling supplies that encourage play. Instead of just playing with modeling clay, make your own homemade play dough together and then create figures according to what you’re working on that week. If this is your first time homeschooling, look for a curriculum for preschool homeschool that gives you ideas of how to fill your days. Once you have that, you’re on your way to successfully homeschooling your preschooler.

Elementary Homeschool Textbooks

Elementary homeschooling supplies include curriculum on science, phonics, math and many other subjects children learn in a traditional school setting. However, homeschooling your elementary school student gives you the freedom to concentrate on the individual subjects your child is interested in. For instance, if your child is working on a science lesson, homeschooling means you’ll be able to take part in a hands-on lesson such as studying the life cycle of an insect or watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly in your own home.

Many times you can find an entire elementary curriculum for homeschool that follows a student throughout their entire elementary years. Keeping with one curriculum set will ensure your child has a consistent homeschool education. As long as your child continues to learn and thrive with a curriculum for homeschool, there will be no reason to look for new homeschooling supplies every year.

Junior High And High School Homeschool Textbooks

A curriculum for homeschool gets more complicated as the student gets older. Junior high and high school homeschool textbooks often have two different educational tracks students can choose to take. One is for students planning on entering the workforce and the other is for students who are planning on attending college after graduating.

As students go into high school homeschool, the options for homeschool textbooks increase. Students are able to more finely tailor their own education, just as in a mainstream public or private school. Available courses include foreign languages, physics, chemistry, literature courses and American government. If you can find the right curriculum for homeschool, your high school student can be ahead of other students when it comes to college applications.

No matter what curriculum for homeschool you’re looking for, look for one with a comprehensive teacher’s guide, especially as students get older and the course material becomes more difficult. You should be able to find homeschooling supplies to match the educational goals for your children, no matter what their ages.

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Religious View

The “oldest” reason for homeschooling has been the idea that homeschoolers are doing what they are doing in order to support and reinforce their religious convictions or Judeo-Christian worldview. This still remains a primary reason for motivating some families to homeschool, although it is clearly not the only reason any longer. But, it is not possible to group the denomination or religious perspective into any single category any longer. The beliefs and worldviews that motivate homeschoolers are expanding all the time.

Moving Family

Another common reason for homeschooling is when families live the “wanderer” lifestyle. This can be as a result of many things. For instance, some families have chosen to homeschool because the primary breadwinner may have a job that requires frequent relocations. That can be difficult to accommodate from public school to public school, so families in this situation opt for homeschooling. This is the case for missionary families, oil-industry families, military families, etc.

Health Reasons

In many cases, families are led into homeschooling, not by choice, but by necessity due to health issues or limitations that have made going to a traditional brick and mortar public or private school impossible. Most traditional schools are subject to attendance standards set by state or local governments. Therefore, a student with too many absences will cost the school district a loss in tax revenues, so they require minimum attendance days. If health issues cause a student to miss too many days, they are resigned to repeating that grade level by their district’s standards. Homeschooling allows families to work around these health restrictions and make forward progress academically at the same time.

Private School Mentality

Other families choose homeschooling because they would like to have a private school type education – small classes, customized curricula, mastery learning, etc. – but they cannot afford private school tuition. Homeschooling can be done on a variety of budgets, but in most cases, a diligent, well-planned homeschool program can be done much cheaper than a private school, especially when you also consider the costs of uniforms, travel expenses, sporting event fees, fundraisers, and other fees that get added into a typical private school education.

Curricula Choice

Another primary reason for homeschooling is in the ability to approach the curricula like a menu. If a student excels in English, but needs more work in Algebra, a homeschool student can work above grade level in one subject, such as English, but at or even below grade level in another area. This allows homeschooling families to ensure that their children are getting a solid academic foundation in all subjects by meeting the student where they are and working forward from there. Many, many homeschool students find that they are in a variety of “grades” based on the curricula being used, but they are growing in knowledge, not frustration, because of their choice to homeschool.

Knowing their reasons for homeschooling will help to determine how and where to interact with homeschoolers around you. If you sell curricula, know their motives. If you offer athletic memberships, be sure to consider a variety of needs. Thinking about offering classes in your area or niche? The homeschoolers in your area may need you, but don’t assume – do the research in your area. If you are considering homeschooling yourself, be sure to understand your motivation. You will need to “hang on to it” when those around you challenge your methods.

No matter how you interact with homeschooling families, it is safe to say that you can no longer make any assumptions about their motives until you have gotten to know them individually. Homeschoolers are an ever-growing component of the educational marketplace, and knowing their needs will help you to better fit this market as a conscientious business owner or homeschooler.

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You can easily become overwhelmed by the demands of your responsibilities as an educator. You can better any homeschooling by using classes as well as seminars.

Designate your housework to the kids or get help from outside. It is unrealistic to think that you can be hard to do everything all by yourself. You will quickly become exhausted if you attempt to keep up with all household duties in addition to your own. Accept any help if you get it and don’t feel bad about it.

One of the major benefits of homeschooling is maximizing your child’s specific learning needs. This will improve your child is a successful learner.

Find out any laws in your state when it comes to running a school in your home. You can easily visit the HSLDA’s website to find out about your state’s laws. A homeschooling organization can help prepare you when you’re questioned by the BOA or CPS. The assistance they provide will be worth the investment.

Reach out to other homeschoolers like you. People choose to homeschool for a number of reasons now. You can likely find or create a homeschool group of others with interests and viewpoints similar goals as yours.

Homeschooling groups are also a great place to get advice and support that can really help you if you’re new to it.

Are you thinking of home schooling multiple children? You need to know if your current disciplinary strategies will work in the school environment. It can be hard to keep your students orderly if you don’t currently have clear expectations or rules of behavior for them. By knowing where you may need to tighten up discipline, you will be able to increase the chances of your children succeeding academically.

Homeschooling is a perfect opportunity to flex your crafty side to use. You can make certain resources that you need. You can make flash cards with some laminating simple index cards. Have your students take part and they’ll learn even more!

Realize that home school won’t always entirely enjoyable. There will be times when you have to push your children harder. Studying flash cards and reading about subjects they aren’t interested in isn’t fun for them. You can use reward schemes to bribe your children to study topics which they have little interest in.

Homeschooling is an alternative for kids that are having difficulties in school. This will cut down on the level of stress and anxiety your child’s life. You will also be able to bond with your child via homeschooling him or her. This is a great option when your child in an uncomfortable and challenging situation.

Make sure you still maintain proper family time. Spending some time with your spouse can help maintain free time that might be lost to homeschooling. Make sure that you let them know how important they mean to you by going out to dinner or a movie regularly. Doing things with your family when you can make a world of difference.

It’s easy for you to get overwhelmed when you’re a new home school teacher. Classes and seminars can offer some hands-on inspiration and guidance for almost everything involved with homeschooling.

Make sure that you have all of the proper qualifications before attempting to homeschool your children.Think about relationships with your parenting relationship to reveal whether you have to resolve some issues before homeschooling can start.

Homeschooling will call on all your role as well. You may need to refine or redefine your roles slightly to accommodate being a parent to a teacher. Be sure you think this whole thing through prior to becoming a teacher that home schooling.

These are tools and not blunt your own creativity. Invest in quality tools that can be used to instill your own take on the lesson tailored to your child. This is the great aspect of homeschooling your children.

Hands-on lessons can make teaching your children a very effective way to teach children. You could cook a dish from the topic they’re learning. An example of this is making cabbage rolls and perogies if they are learning about Stalin. If your theme unit is about WWII you can make German or a historical site. Learning will allow your child to more fully understand the topics.

Find ways to get kids to become independent learners. You do not want to have to stand over your child and supervise their every move. They will know the expectations and give them timelines for completion. This experience teaches them independence as well as confidence and they will soon learn that putting off their work will only reduce their free time.

Know that homeschooling doesn’t only have to sit at a desk to homeschool. One of the great things about homeschooling is that it can be done anywhere. You can go on vacation and learn or even to a relative’s house. This is what can make homeschooling function well. This variety helps to keep things interesting and let you get other tasks done while teaching.

If your budget allows for it, consider hiring help for cooking, cleaning and errands. Homeschooling is a full-time job and household errands. This allows you to focus more on lesson plans and educate your child.

Make a budget plan for your homeschooling venture accordingly. Each child should have their own budget. Make sure you account for unexpected expenses.

Now you are armed with plenty of information, it’s time to put together the ideal homeschooling plan for your children. Use what you’ve learned to make sound decisions and create a great school environment. Sheer will and fortitude can make you the best teacher for your kids. The children are very lucky to have a parent as their teacher.

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