WHAT DO I NEED TO GET STARTED

 

Designate a Study Area

 

While some families make any place in their home a place to study, it is best for students to have an area they see as designated for their time of study.   This allows them the to have a mindset of when they are in that area it is a seperate place to study.  Keep an area for supplies such as paper, textbooks, reading, crayons, etc.  In our home, we used a book shelf to keep our supplies and the dinner table as our workspace.  Once our school time is done we return all our supplies back to the bookshelf.  Our table offers wide space for them to keep materials and space to work on projects.  I suggest you keep a wipable table cloth on top of your table to presrve the surface.  In addition, we also have a desk that we use for their computer time.  We leave this area open so our children can rotate their time at the computer.  How you set up your areas is really up to you, but we encourage you to take steps to ensure your learning environment is an easy cleanup, access, and visible to you at all times.  Keeping children where you can keep an eye on them and be available for their needs is the optimal choice.

 

 

CHOOSING THE RIGHT CURRICULUM

 

If you have little to no experience with this area it can seem confusing where to start choosing the right material for your schooling.  The internet offers some hope with the wide range of sites offering a good source for materials in each subject.  However having too much information can also make it too taxing to choose the right one for your family.  Children are very different and the formula for school may not be the same as that of a dear friend.  

 

You might also enjoy these that we’ve selected.

 

• The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Homeschool Curriculum

• Vicki Bentley’s Home Education 101: Mentoring Program for New Homeschoolers

• Homeschooling 101: A Guide to Getting Started

• FREE HSLDA Membership for Families of Preschoolers

• Homeschool Made Simple by Compass Classroom

 

 

You might also consider unschooling, Virtual School or travel as a form of schooling your children through real world experiences.

 

 

Avoid Pitfalls by Asking Yourself a few Questions First

 

• Is it within your budget (if not, move in, there are lots of other great programs)

• How much teacher prep does it involve? Is it “open and go” or will you need to gather supplies, schedule activities or spend the afternoon cutting and assembling?

• Does the child work independently, or are you teaching the whole program? How much time will it take? Do you have time for it?

• Does it fit your child’s learning style?

• Is it complete, or are there gaps you will need to fill with another product?

• Is it in a format you can teach- is it scripted, or does it give you guidelines? Take a close look at the teachers manual to make sure it’s a good fit for you.

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Organize some folders for each subject, labeled appropriately.  Science, Math, English, Language Arts, Music, etc.  Keep sample sheets and projects inside each folder.  We typically have two sets of folders.  In one we place worksheets for the year and subjects we want them to master and in the other we place all their work.  Again set up is half the journey.  

 

Organize and Keep Track of Student Grade

 

Keep one folder per class and place any testing materials that you have for your child per class.  This makes it easy to draw up a report card by averaging the grades and giving them a final grade for the year in each course.  You could always use S for Satisfactory, I for Improvement of U for Unsatisfactory.  We encourage you to actually give grades that are averaged at the end of the year.  This is a more accurate assessment of your child's ability compared to their peers within the same age group.  Here is a guide on grading:  https://www.hslda.org/highschool/docs/GradingGuidelines.asp

 

Keep a Reading List

 

Before you have your child reading for the year make a list of the books suggested reading for them to read by grade level.  There are thousands of online resources for you to find material online or your local library.  We recommend you use a an such as kindle to have them read on the go or a free library online.  Make your list every year and follow allow weekly or monthly.  Having a book list preplanned makes the effort less work weekly.  The favorite part of using the online resources is that they not only keep a log of your child's reading material but the date they actually read it.  You can't imagine how beneficial that is to just print out at the end of the year.

 

Formulate a Report Card

 

While you can do this weekly, monthly or yearly this one will take some careful sorting through your child's records.  We suggest you make a monthly grade calculation for all the cumulative work to help you out.  If you did a daily one as your child worked his assignments you would just tally them up and divide how many assignments and it will give you an average.  Calculate every three months to arrive at a grade per quarter.  You should have a total of 4 quarters in which you can repeat the process for a final grade.  If you choose to go simpler you can do one final grade or divide into two quarters.  There is no wrong answer.  However, we suggest you keep it in quarters so if you choose to re-enter your child to a public school setting they will require grades for each semester.

 

Digitally Track your work

 

Keep a digital camera or phone to take lots of pictures.  We really can't stress how useful this can be.  Taking quick shots as your kids work on a project or while on a particular outing not only builds family memories but documents your activities flawlessly.  While keeping their project might be tempting after some time they all seem to fall victim to the trash or misfortunate accidents.  Keeping your images in a folder on your computer with safe backup storage or printed into a flip book keeps are your treasured moments through the years.  This will also serve you come time for your evaluation to demonstrate the extra curricular activities you participated in with your children.  Document every moment.  Whether you are at the beach, park, zoo, in the yard, visiting family your scrapbook can be busting at the seams with memories.