Welcome New and Returning Homeschoolers!
Are You New To Homeschooling?
Homeschool Freebies and Giveaways is here to help you on your homeschooling journey! Find out what style homeschooler you are, what style learners you have, and what curriculum options there are organized by grade and subject below!
Homeschooling is an increasingly popular option for teaching your child at home instead of sending them off to either public or private schools. Parents have the opportunity to learn the way their child learns and give them the one-on-one attention that they need to grasp certain areas of learning. If you are wondering about state laws and what is required of you to homeschool your child, then HSLDA is a great resource for learning about each state’s requirements.
Some Things To Remember About Homeschooling
- Crisis-Schooling is NOT the same as Homeschooling: In 2020, the entire world decided that e-learning and Zoom calls for preschoolers was the same as homeschooling. Well, they also discovered that they were doing a lot of work to keep up with home work and realized there HAS to be a better option. Good News! There is a better way! When you homeschool, you are not simply doing school at home, but you are creating an environment of learning. As homeschoolers, we are consistently going on field trips, museums, parks, homeschool co-op, traveling to national parks or going to the grocery store. All of it is part of the learning process, and can be included in your “curriculum”. As a loose guideline (some families do more, while others do less), book-work should be around the following time frames for each level:
- 1-2 hours a day for elementary
- 2-4 hours a day for middle school
- 4-6 hours a day for high school
- Not all children learn at the same pace or in the same timeframe: Just because a child turns 5 doesn’t necessarily mean your child is magically ready to learn to read. This study shows that the average age of reading is 5.65 years old, BUT they could be as young at 3 and as old as 7.5 years old. If your child is not interested in learning to read, then playing games with letters and sight words could be a great option until they are ready. Check out this great resource called Play Your Way Into Reading if you need ideas on how to teach your child to read through play. You should also be reading aloud to your child to expand their language skills and encouraging a habit of reading. The 182.5 Reading Challenge might interest you if this is something you haven’t done before. You can also find our book lists with book recommendations here. This just goes to show you that each child is an individual, who will be ready at their own time. Just like a child learns to tie their shoes and ride a bike at different ages, they’ll also grasp concepts differently as well.
- Don’t forget to utilize free resources: The Library is your friend! Our free printables library is your friend! Check out this list of free curriculum options if you are on a budget! Don’t think because you’re homeschooling that you need to spend a lot of money! You can get books from the library about just about anything as well as digital libraries like Libby. All these things allow you to homeschool for cheap or free in you need to.
- Lastly, remember there is NO perfect homeschool and NO perfect curriculum: Adapt to your child’s needs, no one and no thing is perfect. Allow you child to build a lego scene instead of writing a paragraph about a history lesson. Try doing math facts on the trampoline instead of sitting at the table using multiplication flash cards. Have your child do sight word hopscotch, instead of using traditional flash cards. Try to think outside the box and get your child moving while they learn. It’ll open up a whole new world of learning to both you and your child!
How To Get Started Homeschooling?
Step 1: Find out your state laws! Again, HSLDA is a great resource for this.
Step 2: Choose your subjects! See which subjects are required and start there. Don’t try to add too much at once. If you need to start with your basics of reading writing and arithmetic, do just that. You can always add in a book about the mayflower compact, or Mozart as part of your reading to qualify for your history and music! Here is a massive list of homeschool curriculum options listed by grade and subject!
Step 3: Choose your curriculum. Again, look at your curriculum options, read reviews and decide on one you’d like to try. Don’t worry about spending all the money or finding the perfect curriculum, just start with something and if it doesn’t work for your family it’s okay to stop halfway through and try something else.
Step 4: Create a Homeschool Schedule or Homeschool Routine. We have a free printable homeschool schedule here. We Also have a whole blog post about homeschool routines and how I plan my homeschooling year. We do something called Reverse Planning which helps keep my from planning out every single day of my whole year only to realize that we get sick two weeks into the start and everything is off schedule. So because life happens another thing to keep in mind is to be flexible!
Step 5: As Nike says, Just Do It. Now that you know your state laws, picked your subjects, chose a curriculum and made a basic schedule, now is the time to start. Start with what you have, see what works, change what doesn’t. This whole process is fun because each individual is different. So what works for me, may not work for you.
