Tips for Making the Daily Schedule When Teaching Home Schooled Children

After teaching our children for ten years I learned how to make the routine of homeschooling a little easier. Prioritizing your jobs is the first and most important. From that list of jobs, sort out what the children can do for you. Sort out what needs to be done, hourly, twice daily, daily, everyday, weekly, periodically.

When I started home schooling it was more out of necessity than choice as we live so far from a type of normal school. Our lives where fairly crazy for a year or so until I/we got a grasp on things. Planning is the success to anything, so I planned things the best I could.

My day would begin with putting a load of washing on, it would wash away while I got breakfast sorted for my family. After breakfast one child would take the dogs for a walk and the other would unpack and re-pack the dishwasher, while I put the washing on the line and put another in the washing machine. The children doing something physical before school served two purposes, 1. it got them active and woke them up for school. 2 it helped me to get my jobs done.

School started at 8am. We had a timetable for that, we started with the most difficult subject first, for one child it was maths, the other one was spelling. Lessons where scheduled around their on-air lessons that they had with their teacher each day over the phone. Morning tea was at 10am or 10.30am depending on the on-air lessons. I tried to have cakes, biscuits etc for morning tea cooked on the weekend and stored in the freezer. The next session was usually a bit more interesting like science. A lot of the time we would finish school for the day at 1pm. Sometimes though we would go back into the schoolroom and do an art or craft activity. Lunch was usually a sandwich, I tried to cook some meat on the weekend to use as cold meat during the week.

After lunch if I was going to be out the slow cooker came in handy. Go through your receipts and see which ones are really easy and quick. Copy them somewhere where they are easy to find when you need a meal quickly. Check out magazines when you get a chance to read them for easy and really quick meals.

Prep school work the day before when you have finished lessons, and/or the weekend before.

That washing you put on the line as you where on your way to the school room, get the kids to take it off for you, take a chair to the line if they are too short to reach from the ground. If they are watching TV, get them to get their washing and fold it while they are watching TV. After all, it is what you do and it is their clothes.

I learned that it was really important to be adaptable, and not to get upset about something that can really be done tomorrow, and hey, does it really need to be done at all, did you create the job in the first place.

Remember children learn from your actions, not so much what you tell them. Learning is as much out of the class room as it is in the class room. But most important thing I learned in 10 years of home schooling, you are first and foremost Mum, and whatever happens in the school room should never take away or sacrifice that role.

 

 

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Practical Advice for Beginning Homeschool Mothers

Have you ever wanted to homeschool your child and you need information on how to do this effectively? There is so much information on the internet about homeschooling. You could look for a year and never find everything. But the best information is going to come from someone who has been there, experienced the day-to-day struggles, and survived to tell about it.

I live in Georgia, and homeschooled four children here for over 14 years. I learned a lot during that time. Every state in the US has different rules governing the homeshool student, just like they have different school attendance rules. It’s important to follow the rules wherever you live. You don’t want the officials to think badly of homeschoolers because they had a bad experience with getting you to follow the prescribed guidelines.

But just as that is important, it’s also important to protect the homeschool experience for you and other homeschoolers by realizing that what you are doing is allowed and just as important as if you were sending your child to a public or private school. The homeschool is protected under Georgia law and needs to be respected in all the legal ways allowed by the local school system.

Fortunately, homeschooling is so prevalent all over the US now that problems with local school officials are becoming a thing of the past. When I started homeschooling it was many years ago, so unknown, and very unaccepted. Boards of educations were reluctant to encourage it in any way, even so far as being rude or condescending. One incident happened when a friend was arrested for taking her daughter out of kindergarten. The woman sued the superintendent and won, but not before a lot of grief. That child taken out of school is now an honor student at a major college in Georgia. The mother is glad she persevered and gave her children the best education possible.

I never had major problems with staff at the Board of Ed, but any problems encountered in those days are not the norm anymore. School systems in Georgia and elsewhere have stepped up and realized that homeschooling isn’t a fad or hobby that mothers want to do with their children. It is a serious undertaking that requires dedication and commitment. The homeschool mother has to make lesson plans–or learn to survive without them, usually teach more than one grade level, give standardized tests, be responsible for field trips, raise responsible citizens, choose curriculum, get science project materials, all while keeping a home. It’s a hard job sometimes but a very rewarding one to mold young minds and train up a generation.

 

Academics and Socialization Are Key to Homeschool College Admission

The reason I’m strongly in favor of homeschooling if because I believe it’s the perfect environment for learning. The academics of a homeschool are always and can always be challenging and yet they never have to be overwhelming, and that’s the only place you’re going to get that setting.

Homeschooling allows for socialization that is always safe and supportive and it never has to be threatening or scary in anyway. Homeschooling allows time for specialization; homeschooling is much more efficient since you’re not waiting for the bus and you’re not waiting in line, kids have much more time to specialize in something that they’re passionate about.

It’s one of the reasons why colleges seek homeschoolers. A common fear early in the homeschool movement was that homeschool kids wouldn’t make it into college. Now, the tables are turned. Colleges actively seek out homeschoolers!

In our homeschool, we prepared our kids academically and part of that academic preparation was SAT preparation. SAT covers reading, writing, and math which what we want our kids to know what to do. Because of their academic preparation, they were invited to compete in the full tuition scholarship competition. They were told to bring something that they could talk about who they were.

Because we had time to specialize as homeschoolers, they each had something very unique that they could bring to talk about. My older son brought his chess set and he talked about how he teaches chess. My younger son brought a charcoal drawing of the French economist, Jean Baptiste Say, so that he could talk about political economy.

They found out later that they weren’t judged their academics but they were evaluated based on how they interacted with their peers when nobody was looking. The ironic part is my kids were given full tuition scholarship because of socialization.

 

 

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