Welcome to the world of homeschooling! My name is Tonya and I’ve not only been homeschooling for the past 5 years, but I’ve actually been teaching in some capacity for over a decade! I enjoy educating on a wide range of topics, so I’m super excited to help you get started on your homeschool journey.
The 8 steps below will lead you from start to finish in setting up your homeschool. Each step has an in-depth training attached to it as well as a couple of free downloads. Enjoy!
Here's an overview of what we'll be discussing when it comes to setting up YOUR dream homeschool life
Step 1: Know the Law
First thing you’ll want to do is become familiar with the laws in your country and state. The buttons below will guide you through the local laws of your region as well as put you in touch with local homeschool groups so you can start building a community with other homeschool families.
I’d also like to offer the online homeschool community that I’ve been building to connect with other homeschool families all over the globe. Feel free to join and then once accepted into the group, introduce yourself and let us know how long you’ve been homeschooling, where you’re homeschooling from (if you’re comfortable sharing), and any topics you’d like to learn more about from the community
Step 2: National Standards
The next step is to familiarize yourself with what your child should be learning in their grade level.
Grade Level Skill Guide
The point of these lists is not to get you all worked up by thinking that your child is behind. It’s simply to have a working knowledge of what the standard is in the United States.
I’m sure we’d all say “yes, I’m homeschooling until my child graduates”. If that’s the case, what’s the big deal about meeting the standards? None of us know what tomorrow may bring. Personally, I plan to homeschool all the way through, but what if God has other plans? Heaven forbid I get struck with an unexpected health crisis or my husband does and I have to hand off my child’s education to the local teachers because I can’t mentally or physically give attention to homeschooling. I owe it to my daughter for the transition into the school system to be as smooth for her as possible.
The stress of a sick parent (or anything else God can bring our way) combined with a change in school routine would already be stressful enough on our children without adding in the anxiety of being years behind their peers and having to scramble to catch up.
Again, I’m all about flexibility and child led learning, but there comes a point when certain things should be known unless there is a disability to factor in. I personally don’t stress over this list, but I reference it from time to time to make sure we’re at least introducing everything suggested. It’s important to keep in mind that teachers aren’t the enemy, and they are very knowledgeable in the area of education. I actually went to college and got my teaching degree. I can vouch for how many hours it takes to be considered an expert in the education field (and even then you've never arrived, most of us continue to take teaching classes well after graduation). It’s not a bad idea to use the recommendations of the education system as a loose guide for our own school years “just in case” our kids ever have to transition into the world of traditional schooling.
Step 3: Identify Your Child's Learning Language
So you know the laws and you have a loose guideline of what to teach, do you just plop your kids in front of a stack of workbooks or a video for 8 hours a day now? Nope! Now you get to learn how to teach in a way that your child not only understands the information given, but actually enjoys it!
Skip this step and it's likely that your kids will struggle to learn the material, or they'll constantly have an attitude. In this step we go over the four learning styles, and in the next step we'll go over the four corresponding teaching styles.
Steps 4-5: Your Preferred Teaching Style and Choosing Curriculum
Step 4 goes right along with step 3. Once you have your child's learning style pinpointed, it's time to pinpoint YOUR teaching style and then figure out what curriculum goes along with your options. Because of that, step 5 will also be covered in this step, so 4 and 5 are both here in this one blog post.
Step 6: Choose a Homeschool Schedule
At this point, you know your state or country laws, you know your child's learning style as well as the best teaching style for them, and have chosen your curriculum. Now it's time to break it all down into a schedule that works for your family. As a bonus, I'm including a how-to tutorial detailing exactly how we schedule our curriculum both yearly and weekly as well as how we keep our attendance records.
BONUS!!
If you feel like your life is just not organized, check out this bonus training and download the free "organize my life" packet.
Step 7: Write Out Your Homeschool Mission Statement
Hard times will come. There will be discouragement and doubt. You'll feel like throwing in the towel at least once during your homeschool journey. Writing out your homeschool mission statement will help you keep going when the going gets tough.
Step 8: Have FUN!
Step 8 isn’t really anything specific, it’s just a reminder to have fun! You chose homeschooling for a reason. Don’t undo in doubt what you did in faith. If you ever need help, here are a couple free resources. Just click on the one(s) you'd like to use.
Free to message me at instagram.com/helpingheartshomeschool, and let me know how I can better serve you. I hope y'all have an awesome rest of your day!