Tips on Homechooling or Unschooling

Homeschooling can be an easy and fun adventure between parents and children. As the little ones get older, it can become a difficult task trying to keep up with each subject, each child, all day long. Having homeschooled for years, I want to offer some easy, yet practical homeschool tips to help make your life easier.

Do you ever feel like you want to pull your hair out in frustration?

If your answer was yes, you aren't alone. Homeschooling is not an easy task to take on. Don't get me wrong, homeschool is fulfilling from start to end. The hardships come in dealing with multiple kids; studying the subjects; and really just trying to keep on track of every part of the homeschool life. The first thing we are going to tackle is what a homeschool day should look like. If you have young kids, have Coloring Pages always available for those stressful moments. When you are working with the older kids, these Coloring Pages will come in handy.

What is Homeschool?

Whether you call in homechooling or homeschool, the definition is the same. Homeschool is all about educating your children at home instead of sending them to a public, charter, or private school. Homeschool is all about the family. The family sets the boundaries for the children, the schooling, and the curriculum. It is up to the homeschool parent to decide which curriculum they want to use for each child. They are in charge of keeping up with the child's transcripts for elementary, middle, and high school.

For a few years we registered through the state. You can go to your cities local school district website to find more information about registering through the public school system. After one year of homeschooling through the public school system, I chose to look for others alternatives. I wanted more freedom and less rules placed on me. That is why I homeschooled in the first place.

Make sure to read the laws for your particular state. This vital to staying up to date with what is required of your in your particular state. There are many options to choose from, you just have to be diligent and research every angle; finding the one option that works best for your family.

What is Unschooling?

Unschooling is allowing the children to learn through natural experiences instead of through solely using curriculum as a learning tool. I utilize being a Homeschooler, but also am registered as an Unschooler. Many homeschool parents want fewer rules placed and more flexibility as homeschool educators. The homeschool parents get to decide what and how they want to educate. They can use curriculum or not. They are not required to test yearly and have the freedom of teaching in their own format.

Having been a homeschooler for years, our family is also Unschoolers. We love the flexibility of less rules and more freedom. With one high schooler, we use top curriculums recognized by colleges and we test years (Even though we are the only ones who see the grades.)

Achievement Tests

As my kids get closer to college, the achievement tests are wonderful to show where they are, as they are both at least one year ahead of schedule. Each child has a Transcript Folder I am preparing for college. In each Transcript Folder, I have all the achievement tests for each child. This is just another great way to show how smart your children really are.

NOTE: My kids didn't always like achievement tests. I've heard parents say that they don't understand what the point of taking the achievement tests are. My philosophy is to prepare them the best I can for college, or whatever they decide to do. In college, there are major tests. Achievement Tests are just a wonderful way of preparing for life. The best thing is that you can help your homeschool kids prepare for these tests.

Wake Up Time

Because you've chosen to homeschool, your wake up time is totally up to you. You get to decide when you want your children to begin school. My suggestion would be to have some type of pattern. For instance, a couple days of week you get up at 8 a.m. and start school at 9 a.m. The rest of the week is set aside for field trips, day off, etc. Another example would be to wake your kids at 9 a.m. School starts at 10 a.m. No matter what time you start the day, the key is to be consistent in the schooling.

Homeschool is School

The beauty of homeschool is you can make it real life throughout your day. Teach about history while you are driving; teach about measurements while in the kitchen; and explore nature while outside; the point is, you can teach some subjects throughout your busy lives. Teaching can come in a variety of methods: reading, curriculum, and everyday learning. I've found through the years that utilizing each of these creates an active, fun-filled homeschool life. History is a subject that can be taught every day throughout the day. Although math is a subject that needs to be taught through a curriculum, there are many Fun Facts about Math you can add in through the day to make math fun.

Create a daily format that works best for your family. By this, I mean to have some type of structure for your day. Whether you mix up your subjects or not, you, the homeschool parent, have some kind of system to help you with multiple kids.

You could start one child in Spelling, while another child is doing their reading. Try to balance hard and easy subjects so you don't give all your kids hard subjects at once. This will help you balance your day, keep your head sane, and most of all, you will get everything you need done, every day.

The key is balancing your life. Making sure you have time for each subject. Life as a homeschooler is busy, 24/7, but living life as homeschoolers is fulfilling on every angle. Watching our kids grow up being taught on daily basis, the right way to live, is a pleasure to watch as a homeschool parent. Happy Homeschooling!