Preparing to Homeschool

Everyone else might see summertime as a break, but for homeschooling parents, especially those who write their own curriculums or who are planning to teach for the first time, summer is busy. Along with all the usual activities, we are writing curriculums and planning our dreams for the next year. Everyone wants a start-up package, so this article will suggest ways to prepare for next year. The first article is aimed at people who are teaching for the very first time.
 

The first pre-homeschooling summer can be overwhelming. You have so many questions, so many fears. You've made your decision, but now you may have no idea what comes next. Here's what you need to do:
 

1. Find out what the laws of your state are. To find resources that list this information, go to Google and type "Homeschool laws" and the name of your state, province or country. It is essential that you find the laws and follow them. Most of the time, no one will check, but you don't want to find out the hard way that you're going to be the exception. Most states will at least require you to register in some way, keep attendance records, list books and materials used, and describe what you taught. Many states also require some sort of evaluation each year. Keeping notes in a planner will give you the basic records. Near your front door, in case someone shows up-although probably no one will-keep a copy of the paperwork you filled out when you registered, and a summary of your curriculum.
 

2. If your children have been receiving special education services, or if you think they need them, make those arrangements with the public school. Homeschoolers are usually legally entitled to receive special education services from the public schools if the child qualifies. (Some states are beginning to find loopholes.) You helped to pay for them, so don't be shy about asking. If they have not been receiving them, but should: Go into the school they have been attending, or would attend, and request an evaluation for special education services. Bring a written copy of the request to give them. You should bring with you a written request from your pediatrician. You don't absolutely have to have it, but it helps. If your doctor requests it, they know they have to do it. Also bring copies of any medical evaluations or learning or physical disability records you have. Be ready to give them the address to your doctor, and to sign a release saying they can access the records. Also be prepared to give them access to any previous school records, so have the addresses with you.
 

3. Find out what your school district or county offers homeschoolers. Even if you don't think you want to use their resources, you want to know what is available, in case of an emergency. The first district we were in had an actual curriculum. They provided all the books, and we met with a teacher once a week. I was insecure about my abilities, so this gave me confidence. We only used it the first semester, and then we struck out on our own. Another district offered a similar plan, but we could also borrow the books without using their program. I borrowed some of the books, but created my own curriculum. My teenager turned in her work for high school credit each semester. Currently, my two youngest prefer to work completely on their own.
 

4. Decide how you are going to homeschool. Do you want to buy a curriculum? I have never done that, so I'm afraid you'll have to look at other sites or my message board to learn about them. Many homeschool support groups can tell you about curriculums as well. Do you want to use standard textbooks, but put them together your own way? Find out if you can borrow textbooks from the school district. You can sometimes find them used, but make sure they are fairly recent. You can also order them from the publishers, but they are expensive. Would you like to make your own curriculum from real-life resources? The library is a great place to start. Some libraries even have a homeschool section where they put books to help us teach. You might be able to convince your library to do that. The internet has lots of resources. You can also do research and write your own texts. I've done that. It takes a lot of work, but it's fun. Just be sure to supplement, or you'll never get it done! This is especially good for children who can don't read well-you can take a book and simplify it. It's also good for children who want to learn things not usually written at their level. I've used it to supplement the history textbooks, which never tell as much as I want to teach.
 

5. Figure out a budget. The first year, don't buy everything at once. For one thing, it's too expensive. For another, you'll make mistakes. Pick up one or two things whenever you're out shopping. Save the budget for the big items-curriculum, textbooks, and this year's special item. Every year there is something I can't live without. One year it was a microscope. The year before it was a globe. This year I crave a good computer program that teaches Spanish. By the time the kids graduate, I'll have a house full of great things. I don't get them all at once though. Start small. If you have more than one child, the costs go down, because you can reuse materials. I can't give you a budget, because it depends on how you want to teach and what you have. It also depends on what you can borrow or find used. I've found I can homeschool on almost any budget, and it can be almost free, if you're willing to work hard. When I started, I had a $300 a year budget, but I never spend that now. As I said, you make a lot of mistakes at first. I bought supplies from the school supply store that turned out to be useless. It took a while before I could evaluate a book and know if it would work for me.
 

6. Get acquainted with your local resources. Is there a homeschool support group in your area? Those are especially helpful when you're starting out. What books are in your library on the subjects you are interested in teaching? Are there any homeschoolers in your church or neighborhood who have things you can buy or borrow? I always hand down outgrown materials to a friend. Cultivate friends whose homeschoolers are all older than yours. Is there a teacher supply store near you? I confess to an expensive addiction to teacher supply stores. What internet resources can you find on your subjects?
 

7. Decide what subjects to teach, and what part of each subject you want to teach. You will probably want to keep up with the public schools in math and reading-or get ahead. This will make sure they do well on any required tests, and let them go back to public school if your needs change. Borrow a book from your local public school-they will probably let you look at it. You might also look over the books the children in your neighborhood are using at school. The homeschool office of your district should have that information too.
 

a. Copy down what is on the test at the end of each math chapter, because those are the parts of the book the publishers felt were really important. Failing that, you can simply get a good math book from a school supply store. Look for the ones that look like real textbooks. The ones in the grocery store are usually meant to supplement a school book, and skip too many things. Math books are the one thing I always buy, either from the publisher or from a teacher supply store.
 

b. Other subjects can be taught based on your interests if the children are younger than high school. Every state or district teaches those things differently anyway. I teach my history chronologically, because it makes more sense. School districts tend to do it geographically: kindergartners through second graders get holiday history (the stories behind the holidays), social studies lessons about community helpers-firemen, policemen and so on, good citizenship and simple geography. By second or third grade, they are learning about their town, and doing more geography. Fourth graders almost always study the state they live in. Fifth graders do American history up to the Civil War, and sixth grade seems to vary by state or fad. Some finish American history, others study a foreign country, and some do ancient history. Decide how you're going to do it. You need at least a globe and a map for this class.
 

c. For science, you might want to try monthly themes. You could, for example, do a month on dinosaurs, and then a month on weather. This is your fun class, so consider spending a good portion of your budget for hands-on materials. You should at least have a magnifying glass for this class. Microscopes can be had for very little if you want one. (Try a toy store.) Library books are more fun than text books, and Jan Van Cleave's books (Biology for Every Kid, Physics For Every Kid....) are great for hands-on activities and good explanations.
 

d. Reading. If the children aren't good readers yet, this should be your top priority. I would use a text book with children who aren't reading at a second grade level. After that, they can use real books if you'd like. Once my children are good readers, I don't worry much about formal reading instruction. We do tremendous amounts of reading in all our subjects, and I choose literature to go along with what we study. There are stories, plays and poems on everything these day. Ask your librarian for help. Many teacher supply stores have activity books based on classic novels or picture books. They have worksheets, vocabulary lists, and activities that relate it to other subjects. Make sure you give them reading comprehension questions sometimes, so they know how to take standardized tests. You can buy books on those, or pick up old reading books in thrift stores. (This is one place where old books are acceptable. The books I used were written in the 1950s.) After a while, you'll know how to make your own. If you have high school students, introduce them to Cliff Notes. We use those as textbooks. My links page has great resources too, including pages that have lesson plans.
 

e. English. I am old-fashioned and think English is highly neglected in many schools. Children need to study grammar in order to be good writers. You can make your own worksheets or buy a book in a thrift store. In this case, older books are often better. I even teach diagraming-there is no better way to understand a sentence. Don't forget to write lots of reports and stories.
 

f. Spelling: Another neglected subject. Here is how I teach spelling: Some years I start with a spelling book, if I happen to have one. The other way to get words is to take the words your child misspells when he writes. You can also take them from his other subjects. Focus first on words he uses every day. I start testing him from my list until he misses five words. These will be his first spelling words. (Five isn't many, but this is self-paced, so we're not talking only five words a week. Also, the goal is to learn every word perfectly, not just until the test, so you don't want too many.) I assign him to learn those words. There are lots of ways to learn a word. You can write it five times. You can spell it over and over out loud. You can fingerspell it using the sign language alphabet. (Somehow the fingers learn words faster than the brain, so this is good with learning disabled children. My links page lists a site to learn the alphabet.) You can write it on a big piece of paper and trace over it in lots of different colors. You can cut the letters out of magazines. You can spell it with tiles from a Scrabble(TM) game, or with plastic refrigerator magnet letters, or with letters from a breakfast cereal that has alphabet letters in it. It doesn't have to be boring. The next day, before they've looked at the words, I give them those five words. If they get one right on the first try, I put a check by it. I will add one new word for each word that gets a check. (Remember to get the new word by testing. You are self-pacing, so there is no need to use words they know already.) At the end of the day, I tell them to choose the two hardest words, and practice them. When a word gets three checks, I only test on it once a week. When it gets three more checks, I test it once a month. When it's clear they won't forget it, I put it on a review list to check up on once in a while. I do the testing orally until we get about ten words on the once a week list. Then I give a periodic written test. The reviews are done orally, mixed in with the testing. I start with the words on their list, and if I need to add words, I keep going. If they miss a word, I give it to them over and over. If we had these words: dog, cat, house, bird and sit, I would give them the first word. If they knew it, I would go on to cat. Say they miss cat. I would add it to the list, and then tell them how to spell it. Then I would give dog again and then cat. I keep starting over to help them learn the words. On good days, you can test ahead. g. Physical education: Kids get plenty of exercise if they don't watch a lot of televison. I never do this during school hours, although I count the time on my timesheets. Count lessons they take, teams they are on, bike riding, rollerblading, walking to the grocery store....
 

h. Electives. Be sure to teach something fun, or something that interests you. If you like to garden as a family, make it a class. Fun things like art and music get done outside of school hours, but it counts. In homeschooling, most good things count.
 

8. Set a schedule. I find that if we don't do it every day at the same time, it doesn't get done. Our school hoursm when the children were young, were from 8 to 12, with a fifteen minute recess. We do other fun things that count, so we get far more than the required hours. Get ahead at the start-or include the educational things you're doing this summer. Then if you get sick, or things get chaotic, you can take a short break without getting behind. Now that my children are teens, they attend an academic religion class at 5:30 AM, which we count in our school hours. Then they come home and do three more hours, and do one hour later of something they enjoy.
 

9. Start planning. Begin by writing out a general outline of what you want to cover: your science themes, how much history you will teach this year, and so on. Then just plan the first two months. Start with the subject you feel most comfortable with. Suppose you've decided to plan history first. Look at the first chapter in the history book, or decide what will be your first unit if you aren't using a text. (NOTE: This section was written when my children were in grade school.) We are starting with the Civil War this year. (We did it last year, but everyone had whooping cough, of all things, so it got short-changed, and we're doing it again.) Since I have a textbook, I will have the children read the chapters there and answer the questions just for practice. I will check the book to find out what material is missing from the book that I want covered, and start looking for internet and library resources to teach those. I use James Leuween's book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me" to look for mistakes in the book. This book took ten high school text books and found where they made mistakes. It also tells how history books get written, so it's very enlightening. It can be interesting for older children to look for false history taught in their books, and to go back to original resources to find out what really happened. I'll also look for fiction based on the Civil War and try to come up with some hands- on activities-making maps, creating a game, cooking food from the time period.... A fort near us has re-enactments, so I'll get a schedule of those as well. I'll make an outline of the material the way I want to teach it. For example, I'll list the first chapter, and the materials or activities I want to go along with it. When I put together my curriculum, it will all be organized.
 

10. Put it all together. There are lots of ways to do this. One way I've found successful is to have notebooks for each month. I pick them up at thrift stores. You only have to have two for each child, however, one for the current month, and one you are preparing for the next month. You can either divide the notebook by subjects or by date. If you are doing it by subject: Simply put all the material and lesson plans in the notebook in the order you want them done. You can include a check-off list at the front where they can mark what day they did each thing. That will be your record if you need one. Our school district's check off sheet also includes a place for the child to decide whether he made outstanding effort, average effort, or poor effort. Number each assignment to show how much should be done at one time: Number one might say to read the chapter and answer the questions. Number two might say to make a vocabulary list for the chapter. As they get older and more experienced, you can give them more control over the scheduling. If you want to do it by day: Buy or make dividers for each school day of the month. At first, you may not really know how much can be done in one day, so you may have things left over, or you may finish too soon-which is why you want to be at least a month ahead. Just move extra packets to that notebook, or add some to next month. Label the first one: Step 1. (Don't put a date on it. If you get behind or ahead, you'll be totally confused after a while. Put one assignment for each subject in that section. When they finish that section, they move to step two. This is good if you are trying to tie subjects like history and science together. The plan is to make step one last one day. If they finish early, they can either put extra time into a long-term project you have going, like reports or web pages, or they can go on to the next round. If they take too long, they can finish the step the next day. At the end of a month, they will hopefully have done everything in the notebook. Give them the next one. Take the old papers out of the first notebook and stash them in a box. This is your proof if you need it. Refill the notebook with the materials for the next month. (You will always have one notebook being used, one waiting, and materials being gathered for the month after that. These can be kept in big manilla envelopes until needed.) Always have a project you can toss in if you get the flu and aren't up to teaching. An emergency curriculum is essential.
 

11. Line up your resources. Collect a list of people you can call if you get stuck. I knew two professional teachers when I started, and they both promised to give me advice if I needed it. I also made a point of knowing which teenagers at church were really good at math, just in case. Check around your support groups for people who are good at certain subjects, and know who the experts are. We knew a real Native American who was very interested in her culture. She was more than happy to share her knowledge with us. This year, we had a friend of mine who is an author to dinner. She was primed to discuss writing with the children. They all have autographed copies of her books, and they listen to her better than they listen to me.
 

12. Have fun. It really is fun, and not as hard as it sounds. This time next year, you'll be excited to put into practice all the great ideas you have, and you'll be an old pro, giving advice to other novices.