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I’ve been homeschooling for 4 years now and through those years I’ve learned a few things about homeschooling….
Homeschooling can be MUCH faster than traditional school.
Of course there will always be exceptions to every rule, especially if you’ve jam packed your children’s learning schedule. But generally, you can cover the same material as traditional school in a fraction of the time! Depending on what subjects we have to cover for the day, we can usually get through our school work in about 2-3 hours. Traditional schools have our children for about 5 hours of the day. In that time they have a lunch break and recess, but they also have a lot of “dead time” during the day. That time is spent transitioning 20-30 students from one subject to the next and moving to different classrooms. And I think we can all agree that teaching 20-30 kids at a time is going to take longer than just a few at a time.
I find we can usually be finished our schooling before lunch, and then we have the rest of the day to play, explore, and just hang out together. It makes for a happier, more relaxed day in my opinion. We can also work through some of the holidays and pro-d days that schools normally take, and take breaks at different times of the year that fit us better. This usually leads to being done the school year earlier that traditional schools. (We start in September and are normally finished some time in May)
Each child has a different way of learning things.
Even just between my own two school aged children, I can see that they learn differently from each other. In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher isn’t going to have enough time to tailor his or her lessons for each different learning style, it just wouldn’t be practical. This leads to some children not properly grasping the content, and in turn they get left behind, sometimes unable to catch back up to the rest of the class. Or on the other end, you’ll have students who quickly learn the content and are left waiting while the teacher works with the rest of the class, feeling bored and unchallenged day after day.
Homeschooling a smaller number of children, or even just one, gives us the freedom to teach in a way that is specific to each of our children. They will get more one on one time, and be able to dive deeper into the content they are learning. If they are having trouble, we can slow down and take more time to focus on those difficult areas. Or if they are breezing through a subject, we can work more quickly, freeing up time for other things.
You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to teach your children.
I’ve heard many people say that they couldn’t homeschool because they don’t have a teaching degree, or just aren’t smart enough. Well I’m hear to tell you that that is complete bologna! One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we can learn along side our children and figure things out together!
In this day and age we have a plethora of resources available to us to help us in teaching our children. The internet is filled with resources both free and paid for curriculum, ebooks, motivation and inspiration!
A little hint: Homeschoolers qualify for a FREE educators account with EPIC! Books for Kids.
One of my favorite places is our local library! You can find a book about pretty much anything, and if you can’t, most libraries have an inter-loan system where they can bring in books from other participating libraries for you to borrow. If you’re not sure if your library does this be sure to ask! Libraries also have many free programs available such as summer reading programs, arts and crafts days, book readings, etc.
What have been some of your revelations about homeschooling? Comment below and let me know!
Learn more about getting started with Homeschooling by reading this post: The Complete Beginners Guide To Homeschooling With Ease
If I ever am not required to be the bread-winner for my family, I will be all over homeschooling! Everything I hear about public schools these days usually gets a “Whaaaa? That’s not right! Why did they do that? /Why don’t they do that?” I heard they don’t teach cursive anymore. And I’ve seen some pretty wacky math lessons.
We’ve talked about Homeschooling . . . we may still go that way one day. It seems kind of daunting, but you’ve broken it down in a way that makes me feel we could do it!
I just started homeschooling our 13 year old 2 months ago, and you’re right! Things move much faster.
What’s even better, is I now know he’s doing all of his work, and he’s gone from D student to A/B student.
My concern is the social aspect. Do you have any suggestions on how to find face-to-face activities? We just moved to a new city, so he doesn’t have friends here yet. Thanks!
I totally understand about the social aspect. We live in a smaller community, and even though there are other homeschoolers here, there aren’t many organized get togethers. I’d start by seeing if there is a local homeschoolers group in your area (try searching for “area” homeschoolers on facebook).
Many places get a group together and organize “field trips” and social outings for the kids. We have a larger homeschooling group about 45 minutes away that we try to connect with when possible too. Recreational sports can be helpful as well if that is a possibility 🙂
I homeschool to and I love it! I can teach my son at his pace and level and we get wonderful quality time together 🙂