You might be wanting to homeschool but have no idea how you even do it. Well you might not like this answer, but there is no right way to homeschool. How families homeschool varies between families and if you think there must be one right way to do it, then you'd be wrong. It's easy to believe there is one right way, but that comes from the assumption you've already been making by buying into the public school model- one size fits all.
The true power in homeschooling lies behind the fact that you get to create it to be whatever you want it to be. You get to choose what works best for your family. It's hard to choose though when you have not been modeled other ways to "school". So this is where you will have to do the work- research, ask around, and start to critically think what might be best for your kids.
But I'll give you some examples to get your juices flowing. To start, let's look back in history. Ancient wisdom can speak volumes in our modern society. We tend to think our modern ways are the best, the most improved, we got it right while all of history got it wrong. But is that true?
How did families manage before public schools? Well, the whole construct of society was different. Before the Industrial Revolution, families had their own home economies. They didn't rely on institutions or corporations for their survival or needs. They relied on their family and the families around them. Thus you had strong families and strong local communities. Every member of the family worked their own land and in their own home and they traded with their neighbors.
Kids were brought up alongside their parents and relatives. Thus kids learned by their parents and relatives teaching and modeling to them. They received a lot of hands on experience this way and were taught what was most needed at that time for their area.
Fast forward to today, most homes are retreats for consumption with little to no production coming out of them. The family today more closely resembles individuals seeking their own benefits outside of the home and coming together when the institutions fail them and they need to rely on each other.
You teach your kids from birth already by modeling behavior and showing them how to do things. It's the same with "school". The best way for them to learn something is to be modeled it and then for them to practice it themselves. Yes, the best teachers in schools don't just talk at their students or give them worksheets, but they show them how to do the problem, how to think critically, how to form a hypothesis. Then they let them practice. Mastery is shown once they can teach others in the simplest and easiest to understand explanation.
That might sound daunting to you because you don't think you can teach, let's say, math. Well then, why would you send your child to the same system that made you feel incompetent in math? The good news it that when you are teaching your child daily, you get to understand the material better and you'll never have to fret over not understanding their homework again. And when all else fails, resource out to an "expert". Yes, many homeschoolers resource out, especially in the high school years. Community colleges even have dual enrollment programs where your child can get high school and college credit for the same course (for free, too).
So what do homeschools look like today? Some try to replicate school at home, some rely solely on online programs for all teaching, some teach through life experiences, some teach out in nature, some buy curriculums, some make their own curriculums, some hire tutors, some utilize educational programs such as learning centers and charter schools, some teach through reading books, some print worksheets off teacherspayteachers.com.
You might find in your research that most of these examples prescribe to a particular methodology. There are different homeschool methods and models you can follow, but really just finding what works best for you is the way to go.
Teaching through life experience is usually termed "unschooling". Nature schooling is using nature to teach the subjects. The Charlotte Mason way is a very popular one. Many homeschool curriculum are based off of it. A key principle of this method is learning through living stories. Many homeschool moms study Charlotte Mason in depth. Some homeschoolers like to utilize unit studies- meaning that they pick a topic such as bees and teach each subject around the fun topic of bees (you can see that this is usually only used when kids are younger). Most homeschoolers are eclectic in nature, meaning that they use many methods.
The most common home educating looks something like this: Mom buys curriculum online based off of recommendations or CathyDuffyReviews.com. She enrolls her kids in a coop that meets once a week where they take one or two core subjects such as science and math and two electives such as art and P.E. Mom teaches them history and language arts at home using the curriculum she purchased. Usually after breakfast, they might do thirty minutes to one hour of history and thirty minutes to one hour of language arts each day, while also completing any homework they have from their coop classes.They might spend the rest of the day out in nature or doing whatever they want to do.
It will be hard to determine what you want your homeschool to look like and why you want it that way since you have been modeled a completely different educational paradigm which tells you its way is the right way and best way to do it. If you came here seeking quick answers and are disappointed there isn't someone to tell you exactly what to do, just trust that your journey to discovering what works best for your family is way better than getting a quick answer to your problem right now.
You can do this! Start by finding out your WHY. Once you have that, everything else will fall into place. And remember along your journey, to not fall into the comparison trap. Your family is different than other families. We need a world where everyone is not the same. We need your unique family.
*Not created by AI
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