homeschool – tips on getting started

You’ve weighed your options and you feel homeschool is the best choice for your family…now what?

Getting started can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Just take one step at a time and use the guide below to help you on your journey.

WRITE OUT YOUR “WHY”

Take a few moments and document in the notes app on your phone or on paper why you are homeschooling. List a few of your reasons why you’re schooling at home and what you’d like to get out of this school year with your kids. Don’t worry about listing your academic goals, but list your personal relationship goals with your kids. They are the start of your why and it will be nice to have encouragement to look back on when you’re having a difficult day. You may also get a bit of questioning from friends and family, have a few of your top reasons ready when the questions arise. Not as a defense mechanism, but simply to help you feel confident in your decision. You’ve decided to do this for your family, start to get comfortable being able to explain to others, and remind yourself, of your “why”.

KNOW HOMESCHOOL LAWS FOR YOUR STATE

If you are doing virtual public school at home due to COVID, you can skip this step. If you are withdrawing from public school or starting Kindergarten at home you need to know the homeschool laws for your state. Some states are very strict and others are pretty lax. Go to the Home School Legal Defense Association website, https://hslda.org/legal, and look up the laws for your state.

CHOOSE YOUR CURRICULUM

Again, if you are doing virtual public school at home due to COVID you can skip this step unless you’d like to supplement what you’ll be provided.

Choosing a curriculum can be extremely overwhelming, if you let it. Before you research curriculums, decide on the core subjects you will focus on this year. For example, my kids will start kindergarten and we will focus on writing, reading, and math as core subjects. Your core subjects are the main subjects you will focus on every day. In addition to these core subjects we will supplement with fun units on science and social studies topics when needed.

Below are my core subject curriculum choices for this school year:

WRITING

They will work through the purple book first and then move on to the orange book. Handwriting Without Tears has a big selection of workbooks on Amazon. The kids have already worked through about 1/3 of the purple book and it is an amazing workbook! While they are working on each letter we also talk about the sounds the letter makes, so it’s more than just handwriting. I have not purchased the teacher manuals for these books, they’re pretty self-explanatory.

MATH

Singapore Math begins with basic math concepts and slowly builds upon them. We started the first book this spring and they are blowing through it. The concepts are really simple for them, but I felt it was important to work through the book as it’s presented. Instead of doing a couple pages every day, they do about 6-10. That’s the beauty of schooling at home, you get to choose your pace!

COMBINED CURRICULUM

Y’all…this printable curriculum is amazing! When I found it I instantly fell in love. Jenny over at The Relaxed Homeschool has created the ultimate no-prep curriculum. I could not think of anything better for the mom who may have had to rush in to schooling at home due to COVID. Everything is ready to print and put in a binder, eight full months of material! Click the image above to see a free preview along with what is covered in the curriculum.

BEWARE – there are tons of curriculums to choose from and more than likely every mom you ask will recommend a different curriculum. Curriculums can also get very expensive. Once you find one you like, research it well and, once purchased, stick to it. If I’m shopping for a home appliance, once I find one I love I quit shopping for one. I’m sure if I kept on shopping I could potentially find one I love more or for a better deal, but who does that? The same goes for curriculums. The only time you should shop for them is when you are starting your school year or when a curriculum just isn’t working for you.

KNOW WHAT “NEEDS” TO BE TAUGHT

I’m a former elementary education teacher so I knew having a set of standards to reference would help me, it’s just what I know. Standards are basically a checklist of concepts your child would be working on if they were in the public school system. It’s what all teachers have to use as a guide each school year and what the state tests on at the end of every school year.

While I do appreciate an itemized list, these lists are usually very long. If you choose, you can look up grade level standards for each subject (they’re different for each state) and use it as a loose guide. These standards often change and can be difficult to find an “easy read” of, but a simple Google search of “(state name) (grade level) standards” will get you off to a good start. Most of the time you can find a county within your state that has taken the standards and created an easy read summary document. If you are in KY and would like to look at the standards for Kindergarten you can find them here.

I hesitated even discussing the information above. Schooling at home is nothing like public school. One beauty of schooling at home is you can go at your own pace. Just because your child may not be on the “correct” grade level according to public school guidelines doesn’t mean you are failing at schooling at home. Just like early milestones for babies, kids will hit educational milestones at different ages. Having academic goals are vital, but don’t let them define you or your child. If Johnny begins reading at age 5 or 7 it doesn’t really matter, Johnny is going to be okay and thrive no matter what. As long as you have goals and strive to meet them, you are doing what needs to be done.

GATHER SUPPLIES AND PREP

How much or how little you have for homeschooling will not determine your child’s academic success. Some moms choose to have a designated school room with beautiful supplies and organized bookshelves. Other moms choose to sit at the kitchen table or couch with workbooks and pencils. This part is totally up to you! There is no right way to school at home, just your way.

If you’ve come to this blog post because you follow me on Instagram, @morganmillerblog, then you probably know I’m the mom who likes having a room designated for schooling. I enjoy having organized shelves and colorful supplies, that’s just who I am. It’s the type of teacher I was while in the classroom, it’s the type of mom I am, and it’s the type of school at home mom I am. That’s me, you do you momma.

Almost everything we use in our schoolroom can be found on Amazon and I continually add things to my Amazon Storefront for you to reference. You can shop my Amazon Storefront by clicking here. To keep this post from being a supply list, I’ll just let you shop the various homeschool categories I have in my storefront. I’ll go in to more detail in a future post.

Prepping your homeschool material is crucial. Whatever you choose, get it all out and prep whatever you may need. A good rule of thumb is to prep an entire week of your schooling material at a time. I like to use the weekend to make sure everything is ready for the week. I also try to do simple prep the night before so it’s ready every morning. I know all too well that time spent planning and prepping is vital to the success of your school day. If you’re busy printing off pages or cutting things out, your kiddo will surely find something to distract them from what they should be doing. Your school time should be solely devoted to teaching, not prepping. Of course, things happen and we will all stray from this from time to time, but remember to keep it as a goal.

START SLOW AKA “SOFT OPENING”

Marathon runners don’t just show up the day of the big race to run. They spend weeks and sometimes months slowly preparing and building their bodies up for the task ahead. Schooling at home should work the same way.

The last thing you want to do is start your first week of school at home trying to cover every subject and do and all the things. Below is a list of things you can do to slowly ease in to schooling at home:

TWO WEEKS BEFORE

-Decide on what time your school day will begin and wake your child up 15 minutes earlier every day until you reach your designated wake up time.

-Same goes with bedtime. Decide on a suitable bedtime for your kids and put them to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until you reach your designated bed time.

ONE WEEK BEFORE

-Start your mornings with kids waking up, getting dressed, making beds and eating breakfast.

-Shop for new school supplies together. New markers. crayons, notebooks, pencils, etc. always bring excitement for the new school year ahead.

FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL

-Celebrate with the traditional First Day of School photos. If you’d like to include a sign there are tons of free printables to choose from on Pinterest. I plan to do pictures and a first day of school interview, I found a free interview printable here.

-Begin doing one subject a day. Every couple days add a subject in, you don’t want to start off by overwhelming your child with schoolwork. I plan to use the combined curriculum the first week (it’s already organized by day of the week), and then I’ll add in handwriting and extra math when I feel the kids are ready for it.

BE REALISTIC, PRAY, AND GIVE YOURSELF GRACE

Be realistic, don’t expect too much of your kids. Everyone will slowly get used to your new schooling at home routine and it will become your new normal.

Pray often. God has allowed this to happen for you, use Him. When you’re stressed or feel like giving up, go to Him for comfort and reassurance.

Give yourself grace. Every homeschool day will not be a good one. Try your best to stick with your routine and schedule you’ve decided on. But, if things are just not working out one day or the baby is fussy while you’re trying to work with your elementary child, it’s okay to stop for a day. Pack everyone up and go for a drive to get ice cream or hunker down and watch a movie. Schooling at home gives you lots of flexibility, way more than a child would ever dream of in the public school setting, take advantage of it.

FOLLOW OTHERS AND BE ENCOURAGED

You are not alone in this momma. There are so many others who have decided, or are continuing, on schooling at home. I would almost promise that other moms will face the same discouragement you will face. It always encourages me knowing I am not alone.

I follow other homeschooling mommas on IG and use them not only for encouragement, but as a resource. When I have questions on a certain curriculum or a way I could help the twins with something specific, I have people I can go to to ask questions or bounce ideas off of. IG is almost like your own hand picked homeschooling community, search the hashtag #homeschool to search for other homeschooling mommas who encourage you.

Below is a list of a few of my favorites to follow on IG:

@the.five.girl.schoolhouse

@letsplayschool

@simply.eclectic.homeschool

@robison_tribe