How to Homeschool – Create a Plan for your First Year Homeschooling
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Are you asking, “How Do I Homeschool?” If you are pulling your child out of school mid-year or are just beginning to research the idea; if you are a working mom, parent of a child with special needs, or parents wanting to hit the reset button on family life, this post has everything you need to answer your questions about getting started homeschooling and so much more…
It still might feel like your toes are on the edge of the great unknown. Whatever the circumstances that led you here, I have good news, there are plenty of tools and resources that will answer your questions, ease your fears and lead you to the homeschool style that will fit your unique family and learning needs. I’ve linked to a ton of them in this east to bookmark post. Consider our blog, 200 Fingers & Toes as your guide to help you find the way to your best homeschool year ever.
So where do you start…
Check Your State’s Homeschooling Laws
Home School Legal Defense HSLDA and National Home Education Research Institute NHERI are both good resources to locate your state’s information and begin creating a plan for how to communicate with the appropriate agencies.
We homeschool in IOWA which has had some major success in alleviating the burden of excessive or invasive oversight. A clear resource for a breakdown of your start-up options is provided by Homeschool Iowa. Their site is one the should be bookmarked for every Iowa based homeschooler and is a good resource for anyone trying to navigate their first year of homeschooling. The have printable forms and sample documents to help you know exactly what you need to provide to your school district.
We choose from several options according to our students needs, when you are just beginning it might be a little confusing for me to tell you how we do it. There are lots of terms and form references that can sound confusing, but a few simple questions to your state’s support group will have you feeling confident. The simple version is this; we are open enrolled (we had to apply to our own district and the district we wished to attend in April of the previous school year, so a heads up if you are thinking of going out of district, this step takes advance planning) to a neighboring school district.
Check With Your State For School Athletics Laws
Two of my sons are dual enrolled at that school for athletics, (we had baseball players and now wrestlers, each state has different rules regarding sports access, so contact your local district if you have a student athlete to be clear about your state’s laws) therefore we choose CPI (Competent Plan of Instruction) option 2 with opt-in reporting. You may choose to satisfy the “reporting,” by choosing to submit standardized test results, OR a portfolio evaluation by a licensed Iowa teacher, OR you may submit an end of the year report from an accredited correspondence school in which your child is enrolled, and send it to the district at the end of the school year. Homeschool Iowa has this handy chart to help you see how all you options clearly.
The rest of my homeschooled students are open enrolled, but are not using services from the school at this time. For these students, I send an IPI (Independent Private Instruction) only if and when the district in which those children are enrolled requests one. I do not have to report to the district about those students daily work or test results.
Depending on your state laws for attendance, the next thing you can do is schedule your school year. In Iowa, we must meet the minimum requirement of meeting for 148 days per calendar year, at least 37 days each school quarter. I divided 148 school days by five days a week, for a result of roughly 30 weeks of “class” time. That leaves 20+ weeks for summer, Holiday, Travel, and well deserved breaks.
Your First Year Homeschooling: Build a Plan that Fits Your Actual Life
Homeschooling allows you to schedule your school days as you need them to be. There is no need to replicate the Monday through Friday, 8 to 4 schedule. You are not getting paid for a fourty hour work week, teachers are. You can school for the amount of time it takes you to complete the studies for the day and you can schedule school for the day that you are available to teach.
After 19 years of being a stay at home partner in our business, I started a part-time job. In October of 2018, I became a working homeschool mom, working 20-25 hours a week away from home. The younger kids were already using a four-day school schedule and using day five for elective studies and personal projects. To help us cut down on our work load through the week we switched everyone to a four-day week, with three days of hands on instruction and one day for online work, elective and personal work. This means we do school a little longer, 38 weeks out of the year. We still have 14 weeks’ worth of time to distribute throughout the year for breaks and vacation.
Homeschooling Means Making Family Central to Life
I say all of this to let you know that you can still homeschool as a working parent. Homeschooling is a great fit for entrepreneurial families like mine. Our hours as restaurant owners were always unconventional. There were years when the only way the kids saw Daddy, was when I packed all of us in the car and headed over to the restaurant to hang out until closing time. looking back, I am so glad I made the effort to stay connected as a family.
Homeschooling gave us the flexibility we needed, I don’t know if we would have beaten the odds and made it twenty-three years as business owners and lovers if we hadn’t made “US” a priority. I would have chosen late nights with Dad if the kids had to be up for the bus at 6:30 in the morning. Homeschool helped us create a closer family.
The Next Step to Being Sure…
Do you believe homeschooling would be the best education model for your family right now?
Would it be the best fit for your family, or most importantly, your child?
If the answer is yes, the rest is just details. I’ll help you sort those out.
Staying On Course: Knowing Your Why
On hard days; and we all have them, you will need a reminder of why you’re choosing to homeschool. Here is where you get deeply personal about your reasons. These are not boxed reasons. No one gives up their personal comfort, a good paying job, a clean house; and endures the occasional ridicule of strangers in the grocery checkout line without a deep personal motivation.
Here is a hard truth: Being mad at the teacher, wanting to look religiously righteous, trying to protect you children from sin, are all reasons that will lead to failure and frustration. Your heart must be for your child and their education. Homeschooling is never a punishment, it’s not an insulator, nor can it offer a guarantee your child will be safe in this world, it is a tool to help educate your child in a way that they will be able to bring their best self to the world when the time comes to step out from your leadership.
Homeschooling is a commitment and should be weighed honestly against your reasons.
So, what are good reasons to Homeschool?
- Is your child struggling in their education?
- Are you are losing connection with your children and as a family?
- Do you want to learn together and explore the world with enthusiasm?
- Is your child missing opportunities to dedicate time to a true talent because school takes too long?
All of those are great reasons to homeschool. Over the last ten years, homeschooling is the fastest growing education sector. This means; you are not alone.
Parents are discovering that there is another approach to education, homeschooling is actually the way children have been learning throughout history. Homeschooling is personalized and responsive, so it meet the learners needs at every learning level.
What is your reason? Write it Down…
I created a “Why” page for our family. It is an anchoring statement for us. I read it during hard times, at the beginning of every school year and when I just need to be reassured that we are on track. This same vision statement has served me for all fourteen years that I’ve been homeschooling. I want you to create your own Why page. Hop over to free mini-course to create your own “Why Page” and build a statement for your family that will keep you on track for years to come just like I did.
Consider How you Child is Learning Well Right Now
When we first began homeschooling our kids were all very small. In fact here is a picture of our first official day of table subject school.
We had a 7, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 and I was six months pregnant.
During that season of life, what we did well was nap. Sleeping was a huge focus of every day, play, naps, food and bedtime was pretty much all we did. We spent time reading when everyone went down for a nap. I was very intentional about wanting my kids to love books. When the baby fell asleep, I gathered everyone upstairs on the bunkbeds and pulled out the trundle bed. I would read while they all dropped off one by one. Doug would come home for a mid-day break to find all of us sleeping in a dog-pile. It was an amazing, beautiful, story filled time.
How does your child like to learn?
What are some tools that they enjoy already OR tools you want them to learn to use. We can be very intentional about helping our kids learn to love learning if we keep an end goal in mind. I raised a crop of readers, because it was my number one priority.
What Type of Instructing Do You Like?
I know alot of questions are going to be geared toward you children but it is important to know what kind of tools you work best with. Some people (like me) love clear instructions and boxes to check off. Others do not like being hemmed in to a specific plan for the whole year and want more flexibllity. There are families who take a unit study approach and gather materials from the library and online sources to deeply explore one subject or theme at a time. You have options that will fit your personality and learning style too.
Many Curriculum Providers Have Learning Guidelines for Each Level
You can use general guidelines online for year by year expectations, if you feel like you need to stay current with what schools are expecting, or you can not. I’ve never looked up what a fifth grader should know, because every one of my fifth graders was different and we schooled in a way that met their needs and complimented their capabilities. We will explore a few of the types of teaching tools you can use, this is only an overview to get you started.
Literature Based Homeschool Programs
When I started thinking about homeschooling, I knew I wanted to keep doing exactly what was working for us AND get school credit for it. I searched for a Literature Based Curriculum, one with full length books that I could read aloud covering the majority of our core subjects for the day. We settled on Sonlight Curriculum and have used it from the start. It fit our learning goals and is perfect for multi-student families like mine. We wanted to build a library that we could keep coming back to year after year. Being rural, I like having everything we need delivered to our door at the outset of the school year.
- Sonlight My top Literature Based Bundle pick for great content and price
- Memoria Press Classical Subjects Latin, Greek, Logic & Rhetoric, Streaming
- Veritas Press Classical Subjects, Language Arts, Live & Online too
- Beautiful Feet Lighter reading workload with a study guide
- Notgrass Stories all in one or two big book with guide and readers optional
- Ambleside Online Free classical literature book links and individual lesson plans or purchase the year lesson plan
Tools for Every Teaching Style and Student
There are tons of Homeschool teaching styles. The important thing is to find your family’s best fit. I have a friend who only uses textbooks and workbooks. She is confident in knowing that all of the information she needs to cover is in one book for the year. If a textbook is overwhelming to you or your child, there are some providers that break up the whole year into packets with ten workbooks for the year for each subject. That said…textbooks make me want to cry. Don’t be sorry for knowing what you like friends, to each their own.
When I started blogging at 200fingersandtoes.com I wanted to encourage parents who were looking for an alternative in education. Over that year I realized we only used one curriculum and a few supplements, because we love them. You might not love them like I do. That is why I have used a lot of materials over the last few years that I would not have chosen for myself. Our reviews and links are the best of the bunch.
Why I Write Reviews
If you crave structure and assurance check out the textbook providers. I don’t review materials to find what fits me best. For over two years, we were reviewing curriculum with The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, so I could serve homeschooling families better. We want you to find your best school year and that means we cover all the tools to find ones that you will love.
Are you looking for something specific in a program; the next thing you can do after reading this article is to search 200fingersandtoes.com and over 200 reviews and articles we created to help you plan and succeed in your homeschooling endeavors. One easy article that will help you find more reviews in one place is 23 Great Teaching Tools for Language Arts in Your Homeschool.
Text Book and Packet Based Programs
- Abeka Trusted leader in Textbook style, offers Video and Full Online Instruction
- Alpha Omega AOP Offering teacher Led Textbooks, self-directed workbook, digital and full online
- Saxon Math Clear, time-tested and not too much repetition, solid test prep
- ACE Core Paces A series of workbooks sets covering four core subjects systematically
Other resources I use…
- Timberdoodle
- Christianbook.com
- My Amazon Recommendations Page
- Schooling Inspired on pinterest
Use These Resources and Read More…
Many of these curriculum providers developed some form of online instruction. Many have either in an live streaming an actual real-time class, or using an online go at your own pace program. Also, almost every one of these publishers and curriculum creators has a website. They are a huge resource library, newsletter and FAQ pages that are full of helpful information. Subscripe to those that appeal to you, follow their blogs.
After fifteen years of homeschooling, I learn new things from these all the time. Here is the thing, it looks like you are all going to be learning at the same time. Welcome back to school! My best advice is to become a learner. If you are considering homeschooling, I imagine you are already someone who likes exploring new ideas and challenges. If not, you soon will be!
Continue With What is Working
We kept a literature based program because it was what was working in our life. We had a groove with reading and I didn’t want to change that. I am still a little taken back when a parent posts the question, “Which curriculum should I choose?” to a room full of strangers. There is so much I would want to know before I could begin to narrow down suggestions that I think you might find useful.
That is why many homeschool veterans offer consultations. Not to make money, but to narrow down the sea of options for you. Paying for a consult is an investment, paying for a curriculum you hate six weeks from now, that is a waste.
If I were going to give you a consultation I would ask these four questions…
1. What is prompting you to homeschool
- What specific problem you are trying to solve?
- Is your child struggling academically, emotionally, relationally?
- Are you coping with a sickness or disability that make schooling from home necessary?
- Do you want to create a different orientation around family life?
Needs like these must to be taken into account and addressed in your school planning.
2. What are the ages and learning abilities of your children?
Time for gut level honesty. If they are reading below grade level, failing math, behind on graduation requirements, you need to take the real facts into account to make a real plan. Are they ahead in school and need to be let loose, they can take placement tests in many of the curriculum on the market to find a best level. Ages are important to consider too. Can your kids be grouped together to save teaching time on some subjects?
3. How is your relationship with your child?
Listen, I would rather you choose a soft work load and spend the year building up a loving relationship built on trust and mutual respect than have you both butting heads trying to leap forward three levels in reading. Family is the core of homeschool, this is where you have to begin.
4. What does your kid love?
Find a way to make it count for school in a positive way. Let areas they excel in shine. My son was a gamer. I challenged myself to allow his passion for games to count as a real skill. When I did I saw thousands of things he was learning from cooperative gaming. My daughter was a writer so we jumped into NaNoWriMo and wrote 75k words one November. I would encourage you to find ways to connect real life to learning experiences.
Set Up Obtainable and Measurable Goals
Once you know what you want to accomplish this year, find a way to make it measurable. Is there an academic struggle you can do a pre and post-tests for. Do you want to have more actual fun with your own kids. Could you keep a scrap book of your year. Plan for a way to measure your goals. Let older kids set some academic goals for themselves too. I go over our year end test score with my older boys so they see in real context where they need to put in more work and where they are doing really well.
Start Smaller Than You Think
What you are going to need the first year is a whopping dose of grace, humor, openness, humility, coffee and Jesus.
Doing anything from start-up is hard. This is your first time homeschooling. Acknowledging that it will be a season of fine tuning and finding your way gives you permission to start smaller and make changes sooner.
When we begin the school year we typically start in August. I give us a month to come up to full steam. We begin with just our core subjects, Math, Reading, (our reading book subjects cover History, Social Studies, Geography and can even Science) Language Arts. By September, we incorporate Bible, Writing assignments, current events and the full science curriculum. By reading great books we sneak in a lot of learning time.
We Don’t Sit at Desks From Eight to Three
People alway wonder how we get done with our work so quickly? Are we cheating, slacking off? The real question should be why is the school week five, eight-hour days? School is forty hours a week…because teaching is a job. Teachers are employees and our work-week, payment structure is built on forty-hour work weeks. If every class in a seven period rotation, has thrity minutes of solid instructing time, that’s 210 minutes. That is just three and a half hours, about what our school day takes to teach. We don’t have an hour bus ride, changing classes, announcements, but your could throw on some tunes and have a pep rally if you need it!
Schooling Your Way Means Setting Your Own Hours
We all work from 10 to 2pm most school days. There is plenty of time to play and pursue other interests if they get right to work and stay on task. If they give me their best durring school hours, I generally promise not to take their free time.
I can keep my word because there is no homework for us to do at night. Why so late of a start? Because I am a working mom of ten and a writer. I have always kept mornings as my personal quiet time and productive hours. You can create a life that fits ALL of your goals. Homeschooling truly is a whole famly deal.
The Biggest Factor in Succeeding is Deciding to Start
Through research, planning, plain trial and error, and a ton of grace, we have made it through fifteen years of teaching at home. Our three oldest graduated in 2017 and are grateful for the opportunity homeschooling gave them to persue their interests, graduate early and prepare for college. They are thriving and doing great in school. This could be your future too.
Let This Article be the Spring Board to Learning More
If you got this far it is clear you are tipping toward deciding to begin your homeschool journey, your next step is to let me know. I want to cheer you on! If you have any other questions you can always drop me a comment or email me at [email protected].
200 Fingers & Toes blog is for you. It is full of resources, encouragement, reviews of tools and curriculum that we actually used in our home so we could share it with you.
Consider it a welcome gift to you from me.
Blessings,
Amber
