Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Text And Student Work Book Approach
(continued)
Allowing children to work at their own pace through the material is better than setting deadlines. Encourage them to set personal goals that also satisfy your needs for their education. The reward of ‘free’ time when finished is often enough to motivate most children. Stickers, stars and other rewards are not necessary, and will cost you money best spent on more productive resources.
Home schooling doesn’t take up as much time as school, with ‘book work’ usually confined to the morning. Good home schools also provide children with a range of other activities. These include art and craft projects, science experiments, social opportunities, regular exercise or sport activities, and educational ‘field trips’ or excursions. Plan other activities using one or more of the methods outlined earlier. Add some variety. This will help both you and your children enjoy home schooling more.
You may be tempted to compare the amount of work your children are doing to another home schooling family using the same material. Or you may compare your children against one another. This is never constructive and serves no positive purpose. The best result from doing this is an increase in your confidence as a provider of home education, the worst is your child may feel inferior and his or her self-esteem will suffer. Comparison is never worth the risk.
Text and work books are readily available from businesses that specialise in educational materials for teachers. Most of these sell direct to the public, but you may have to pay sales tax. Businesses that specialise in home educating materials are becoming more common in Australia, and it is possible to purchase materials from overseas by mail order. Texts from overseas are different in many ways to Australian ones. They reflect a different cultural way of thinking in addition to containing specific content irrelevant to Australian conditions. It is always preferable to buy local if you can. There are now reputable and reliable home schooling supply businesses in Australia. Supporting these will encourage this small specialised industry to grow and better meet the needs of Australian home educators.
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Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
