Making the decision to home school is the hard part. Deciding to withdrawal your child from public school and following through in the middle of the year is the hard part. The looks, the accusations, the silent judgement (and sometimes not so silent) is the hard part. The actual schooling of your kids at home is not hard.

The first step is research. SERIOUS RESEARCH. Join a couple facebook groups about homeschooling and sit back and observe. Save links, take notes; ask questions from people at all stages of their homeschool journey. Find out if there are activities available for homeschool families locally. Think about your family dynamic and your house. Will you be able to set up a separate area in your house that is “school” specific or will you have a cabinet next to the dining room table? Do you want your child to work mostly on-line, all book/workbook with little to no screen time, or a combination of both? Research will help you make all of these decisions.

Don’t think you can afford to homeschool? There are on-line curriculum options that are completely free. There is a GREAT website that lists virtually every home school resource available and it also lists each resource’s stance on common core. Don’t like common core- then don’t use the websites and resources that are explicitly aligned. There is a plethora of worksheets available to print for FREE! You can get workbooks CHEAP all over from the Dollar Tree, to Walmart, to the Five Below store. Places like Goodwill, garage sales, and some on-line groups have GREAT homeschool resources for cheap or in some cases FREE. If you join a group or have a group of friends that homeschool sharing home school materials is a great way to save money too.

There WILL BE trial and error. I started using a few websites and then completely dropped them because my kids didn’t like it. I had a certain idea in my head of the way we were going to do things and it just didn’t pan out. My kids either didn’t respond well or my expectations were a little too high so we scaled back. Trial and error is normal, expected even, and necessary to build a home school routine and lifestyle that works for your whole family.

What homeschool looks like for my family may not, and probably will not, work for your family. Illinois has a very relaxed view or homeschool in terms of keeping records and evaluations (there are none). It is at your discretion to keep records and make sure your child is progressing. BUT if for any reason you are turned in to DCFS you must be able to prove that you are in fact homeschooling your child.

First….do not let the term DCFS scare you! Unless you plan to withdrawal your child from school and let them play zombie video games for 12 hours a day and learn nothing else, but how to defeat whatever monster in whatever the popular game is, then you shouldn’t have a problem. What if you child responds so well to video games? There is a whole Facebook group and lesson plan set up for schooling with Minecraft! Seriously there are so many options to best fit your child’s personality and learning style…which you will find through trial and error.

So what do I do? I keep a home school journal every day. It helps me stay on track and progress. I can look back easily at what we have accomplished day to day. We follow a 6 weeks on 1 week off calendar and at the end of that 6 week stint I write up a one page “report” or summary about what was accomplished in that 6 weeks.

Here is what yesterday looked like for us:

It is not always this long. Tumbling is only one day a week and we also have Piano lessons for both kids one day a week. They practice Piano 2-3 times a week. We watch American Sign Language video’s a couple times a week. There are soooo many video’s on Netflix and Youtube for everything!

Our day usually starts out with a leisure wake up, no dragging the kids out of bed and rushing them out the door. Breakfast, morning chores, and some free time (cartoons/video games) depending on what time they way up. My oldest wakes up before 7 most days and my other 2 sometimes closer to 8.

We try to start “school” about 9a.m. From 9-11am is our sit down worksheet, workbook, pencil to paper school time. They can seriously accomplish A LOT in a solid 2 hour span of time.

I will make note here that we do have a tiny “classroom” set up in our basement, but in the past month or so we have found it easier to bring all pencil boxes and all the sit down work up to the dining room table. My 18 month old has the run of the house right now and it is much easier to keep him entertained if we are in the main part of the house while the kids are doing sit down schooling. He does not bother the kids too much and he feels better being “included” and not separated from us during the sit down time.

After lunch the kids usually have free art time and/or they do their daily journal entry while I am putting the little down for his nap. If we have to drive for afternoon activities (tumbling/piano) or errands then the kids each take turns reading to us on the commute.

Other activities sneak in, but for the most part we are done for the day and the kids have free time and chores to do.

We can rearrange and add to our schedule as needed. If we have doctor appointments and will be in the van for an hour or two; the kids will bring workbooks and learning wrap ups along with their books to read.

I think the biggest thing to remember is it is OUR home school. If something doesn’t work we change it. If the schedule or location needs switched up we do it. If the kids hear or see something they are curious about we can literally drop everything and look it up.

Let the kids explore. Let them learn in ways that are conducive to them. Guide their learning, but don’t dictate too much. Kids are naturally curious and natural learners. My favorite thing about home schooling is that we aren’t governed by benchmarks, tests, and comparisons. We can master one thing before moving on to the next, gently challenge, but not pushing them to move forward before their individual brain is ready. Putting all the kids at the same age in the same box doesn’t work. Yes, some kids thrive with that push, I have a child that does, but I also have a child that doesn’t. That sometimes needs a little extra time on one thing to build a solid confidence level before moving on.

I am no expert, but my main piece of advice is that YOU WILL LEARN! You, as the home school parent will learn as you go. You will learn about your child. You will learn what they need to learn. You will learn how to help your child learn. It’s not hard to home school. Get creative and learn together. Grow together. 

A Little Organization can Save Your Sanity and Time OFF is a Must!

This week is our scheduled week off on our 6 weeks on 1 week off home school plan. It is now Friday and we have spent the entire week decluttering, rearranging, and catching up on house work. Unfortunately it is proving to be a bigger task than I originally planned. I have 3 rooms done (the biggest 3 challenges thankfully), but I now have a HUGE pile in the middle of our play/office room to sort, price, and get ready for a garage sale.

On this Friday morning I have a really long to do list so I can get the rest of the tasks done I had planned for this week. We organized and did a bedroom switch this week by moving my almost 18 month old out of the nursery (tiny room) and into the room with my oldest son. Then we moved all my daughters’ things into the tiny room. Separating them now seemed like the thing to do as privacy is becoming an issue. The task of moving bedrooms took nearly 3 days though, more time than I intended. The kids have been troopers, helping every day, and getting excited about their “new” spaces. I still have a couple more rooms to tackle, including our school room that needs some TLC.

Do you see where I am going with this…..we have worked hard our entire week off!! I still need at least an entire day to organize school work for the next 6 weeks, write my assessment for their progress the last 6 weeks, and get in a good place for kicking off our next sprint. I am hoping my husband can take the kids somewhere Sunday so I can have quiet time for getting all that accomplished! That still does not take care of our “break” problem, so I am having an idea that I need to take a look at our school calendar and schedule a little more time off (a day or two) for this break. Early Spring is when I really get in the mood to Spring Clean anyway so scheduling a little more time off this time of year (now and the future) will be beneficial for us all I think.

Guess What?! Because we home school I can make this split second decision without feeling guilty!! We are chugging along a little ahead of schedule for one kid and right no schedule for another so there is no reason we can’t take an extra day or two when we need it!

We aren’t in a race! I have recently read an article titled “The Secret of Year-Round Homeschooling” (http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2015/year-round-homeschooling) that aligns with my thoughts exactly. This is our first year so there is undoubtedly a learning curve. It is our test year. I am learning as I go and the kids are Learning As They Grow!