Homeschooling Questions Answered
I have a good friend who started homeschooling her elementary aged kids this past year. She sent me some questions she had, so I wanted to answer them here (with her permission) in case anyone else had similar questions.
I honestly don’t believe homeschooling is a good fit for every family, but I have LOVED our experience homeschooling, so I enjoy helping people get started if that’s a desire on their heart. And just to be clear, I will only be homeschooling our 2nd grader this year. All 4 of my older kids will be attending a Cyber School, hybrid program in our area. This means they do about half their school day on campus at a school building and half their day online. We love this school, and it has been a blessing for our family the past 2 years.
This is how long each of my kids have been homeschooled:
1st son- homeschooled until the end of 9th grade. We lived overseas until this time, that’s why this was the best option for us.
2nd son- homeschooled until the end of 9th grade as well, that was his desire and choice because he preferred homeschooling.
3rd son- homeschooled until the end of 7th grade and in 8th grade he entered the Cyber School full-time.
4th daughter- homeschooled until the end of 6th grade and will begin the Cyber School this fall full-time.
5th daughter- I will likely homeschool her until middle school.
As you can see, I am no expert in homeschooling, but I do have a measure of confidence now to give advice to people who wish to homeschool until 8th grade. My kids transitioned really well academically when they entered the Cyber School, so that was such a huge blessing to my questioning heart as to whether I had done enough academically for my kids. This was a HUGE concern to me throughout homeschooling my boys when they were young.
1) I’m new to homeschooling and I am overwhelmed by all the different curriculum options, many of which look great. How can I make sure I pick the best one for my kids?
This is a hard question to answer because every mom and kid is so different. My best answer is to find some homeschooling parents that you admire and ask them what curriculum they chose and why. Something to keep in mind are your personal homeschooling goals. If you want your children to be college ready, I would find a family that has homeschooled their kids for college readiness and ask them about their curriculum choices. Also, curriculum choices may take some trial and error. We have had to switch around some of our curriculum over the years, depending on each child. That’s one huge benefit of homeschooling, you can customize each child’s curriculum to suit their needs and personality.
2) It’s summer break, we just finished homeschooling and will homeschool again in the fall. I have a 9 yo, 6 yo and 3 yo. What should we do now?
I am a huge fan of taking a summer vacation from schoolwork. When my boys were in elementary school, I would still make them do some Math and English workbooks throughout the summer. This did NOT make us feel rested or ready when the new school year came. I used to read lots of stuff about how it’s so good for their brains to not have such a huge break during the summer, and academically they could excel more if they didn’t have that break. In my opinion, what these blogs and articles didn’t account for is our mental health. I personally think resting from schoolwork in the summer, has helped our whole family’s mental health. Creative playing with Legos, Nerf products, crafts, swimming, etc. is really good for kids. Summertime with no schoolwork refreshes us to be ready for the new school year. This is just my opinion, but kids and homeschool parents deserve a break!
3) I find myself getting stressed out with trying to decide whether to be more free flowing or firm with our daily schedule (aka start time, end time, which lessons happens at what time, etc.). What do you recommend?
I think this depends on your personality type. I used to just establish weekday mornings and early afternoons as our school time. I am a very extroverted person, so I would intentionally schedule 1-3 playdates a week in the afternoons with other families. But this would mostly only be in the afternoons AFTER we were done schoolwork. This would keep us motived to stay on task. Very occasionally, if a family could only hang out in the morning, we would switch our day around, but this was an exception. I personally could never adhere to a fixed schedule, so I gave up on that a long time ago. I give my kids a checklist of their schoolwork that they have to finish each day at the beginning of the school year. They follow that checklist each day in whatever order they prefer and this has worked out great for our family for many years.
I would try to recognize how your family is wired and customize your homeschool day accordingly. Meaning, if you are a very scheduled person, then by all means, schedule your day however you will thrive! But if you aren’t a very scheduled person and you try to fit yourself in someone else’s box, you are going to be setting yourself up for failure. I want to set my kids and myself up to succeed, which is why I can’t be rigid in our schedule. In my beginning years of homeschooling, when I used to try to be scheduled like some other homeschool moms I respected, I would inevitably start slipping downhill after 2-3 weeks and then feel like a failure for a month. I finally came to realize that I wasn’t a failure, I just needed a different rhythm than the next person and that’s TOTALLY OK as long as we are still getting our work done! Since my kids were born, I have been SUPER INTENTIONAL about NEVER comparing them to anyone else, including each other…yet why did I still struggle with comparison between myself and other homeschool moms that I read about online? Over the years, God helped me to just accept myself and how I am wired and just embrace it:)
4) As a new homeschooling mom, it sometimes feels like one day we are all loving homeschooling, and the next, we are all having meltdowns (myself included) and I’m wondering if it might not be better for everyone’s sanity if the kids went back to regular school. Is this normal? Does it get easier?
This seems pretty normal to me. If you were working outside of the home, you would likely have up and down days. Some days you love your job, other days you want to quit, but you keep plowing because the good days outweigh the bad days and the benefits outweigh the deficits. Sometimes, the kids and I would just need a break, so we would just end our schoolwork for the day, eat a good snack, I would send the kids off to play with their Legos and just do something for myself (like read a book, call a friend, eat chocolate by myself when the kids weren’t looking). We all need self-care, and taking an hour for yourself when things aren’t going the right way, will help your WHOLE FAMILY.
I have a good friend who has homeschooled her 5 kids their whole education. Many of her kids are in high school now. She has made a regular practice to hire a babysitter once per week for her to sit by herself wherever and recharge for the week. She is honestly one of the kindest, loving moms/people I know and look up to (and trust me, she isn’t faking it in front of me…her husband has also told me how nice his wife is!). I love how she and her husband both included this babysitter in their budget because they knew how valuable this time is for her. Now I know, we cannot all afford a weekly babysitter, we never really could…but maybe you could do a weekly babysitting exchange with another family?
When my kids were young, we put them to bed super early. They were in bed by 7pm every night and my husband and I were able to REST AND RECHARGE for the next day!!!!! This time was crucial for us to connect in our marriage and as individuals.
So I highly recommend finding a way to REGULARLY RECHARGE and not to feel guilty for needing this time.
Something to keep in mind too, homeschooling during the coronavirus season is a TON different than homeschooling during a regular school year. You might likely sign your kids up for sports, a homeschool coop, playdates with friends, meet up at the park with other moms and kids, in-person music lessons, field trips to the zoo and museums, etc. This is a very unusual time to be homeschooling. During a non-pandemic time, if you have other cool things added into your schedule, it helps A LOT to make life more enjoyable!
If any of my other readers have homeschooling questions, please send them my way! Blessings to all of you!
