Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Part 6 Planning Methods
The following methods are only a sample of the many that can be used to help plan a unit or program of work. You don’t have to record your plans, but, as parents new to home schooling, putting your ideas and activity suggestions on paper does offer you direction at key points, and is also an excellent way to help you evaluate your educational program.
All libraries have books relating to education. Those that are directed toward improving study skills and early childhood learning are excellent resources for the home educator interested in different approaches and ideas. Although your children may be aged more than eight years, the theory and practices found in early childhood education are often perfect for learning in the home environment. Early childhood education encourages a hands-on approach to education closely related to child development. This is appropriate to any age group. Ask the librarian to help you locate them.
It is hoped the methods described here will help get you started planning your children’s learning program, offering you a range of ideas to build from. As you plan, ask yourself the following set of questions:
- What are your children’s main interests?
- What are your children’s main strengths?
- Are there any areas in which you feel your child needs help?
- Do you have any major concerns about your child?
- What ideas could be implemented to improve or overcome these?
Retrospective Planning
Often it is easier to understand the planning process by completing your plan after the events and activities have occurred. You do this by recording all the things you have done over a period of time, for example, a week, a fortnight or a month. If you are planning to take your children out of school before the next term begins, a good time to do your planning by this method is during the holidays. Alternatively, you could give your children some time off from school during the term. You will need to notify their school, giving a reason for their absence. During this week make it clear to the children you will be recording the daily activities of everyone in the family to help you plan the home schooling program.
Watching how the children structure their day, interact with you, and the different activities they chose to do will give you a good indication of how learning is going to take place. Do this before you introduce any formalised or structured activities. This allows you to examine what naturally happens each day with your children, and to then analyse it in educational terms. You shouldn’t be doing anything you wouldn’t normally be doing with your children when they are on holiday from school. A lot of activities involved in daily life in the home are already high quality educational activities. These are often duplicated, with difficulty and out of a meaningful context, in the school environment. There is no point trying to ‘teach’ your children things that already occur naturally in their lives.
Planning by this method should also help you to discover your children’s learning styles. An easy way to do this is to lay an exercise book open in a conspicuous place and jot down all the things your children are doing, including summaries of conversations. Write down your thoughts and insights from your observations of your children’s activities, behaviours and understandings. Y ou can include your objectives for any activities the children engage in, as well listing the activities, their relevance to those objectives (or the children’s personal objectives), and how they worked out.
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Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
