Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Putting It All Together
(continued)
Learning at home happens mostly through interesting conversations, followed up by frequent research into all manner of topics. Stay flexible to learning in this way, with reference texts and materials nearby for extension activities.
Some families pick yearly or monthly themes, researching all aspects of a topic, and seeking out a variety of learning experiences. Generally these themes need to appeal to all family members to stay interesting.
Alternatively, you could build your program around traditional educational subjects, focussing on building skills and knowledge in these areas. For many parents this has been the only model of formal learning they have known and they feel most comfortable beginning home schooling using this approach. Don’t restrict yourself to only a few subjects though. Remember to add music, dance, creative movement, history, geography, crafts, the sciences, drama, etc., to subjects like maths, reading, writing, spelling, and grammar!
If you decide to work in this way, start with listing the subject heading you and your children have decided it is important to work on now. It is not necessary to do work in each subject everyday. Over time a balance will develop. Some children can focus exclusively on one subject for days, weeks or months, forging way ahead of their age related peers, only to suddenly lose interest. They will quickly catch up the other areas, and will not forget the learning they have done.
Selecting good educational texts can really assist with this form of learning program, as they are usually skill-sequenced and contain summaries of the texts’ aims and contents. Always involve the children in selecting books. After all, they are the ones who will be using them the most. Doing this will save you purchasing material you later find out to be unsuitable.
It isn’t necessary to use texts, and you can devise your own activities in each subject by brainstorming possible activities. Try to keep them related to the children’s lives and therefore meaningful in a real sense. Use the planning methods and examples illustrated in Part 6 to help you get started.
Wherever you start, acknowledge that you are a beginner, and allow yourself to make many‘false starts’ or ‘mistakes’. Look at these as positive learning experiences. Analyse what happened, and what could have happened differently to produce a satisfactory outcome. Always use ‘mistakes’ in this way, and you will rapidly evolve a successful home learning environment.
In many ways home schooling is very similar to parenting - you learn as you go! Experienced home schoolers know it takes at least a year to begin to feel really comfortable with educating your children at home, and a couple more to feel really confident!
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Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
