I have another post for you today in the "Back to (Home) School" series. . . This post was inspired by one of the reader questions I received after last week's post on choosing your curriculum. So I am going to back track just a little bit, as today's post truly "should" come before last week's post on choosing curriculum. After all, it is a little hard to choose curriculum to use for each one of your subjects that you are going to teach if you are not clear on exactly which classes you NEED to teach!
So if you are joining us for the first time today, you can find the first post in this series here:
Back to (Home) School Part 1
And you can find the second post in this series here:
Back to (Home) School Part 2
And now on to today's topic--how do you know what subjects you need to teach anyway??? This is an EXCELLENT question, and I wish I had thought of writing about it myself, before posting last week's post on choosing your curriculum. This is one problem with having home schooled for nineteen years like I have--I do sometimes forget about steps that I have done so long that they are automatic to me. Which is NOT a good thing when I am trying to help others who may be just beginning their home school journey! But nonetheless, I suppose this might be a case of better late than never! I hope so, anyway. . .
The very first thing that you will need to do when creating the list of what subjects you are going to teach is to check what classes you are legally required to teach in your state. This is going to vary from state to state. If you are overseas, I am sorry but I have no knowledge at all of what you are required to do or even if your country allows home schooling. But here in the United States, my understanding is that home schooling is legal in all fifty states. Keep in mind that I am NOT offering legal advice here--only sharing what I have heard and you will need to do your own research to make sure you are fulfilling your individual state requirements.
Some states are very easy to home school in. For instance, when we lived in Texas, we had a short list of subjects that we were required to teach, but we were not required to turn in any test scores or proof of home schooling to the state. Where I currently live--the beautiful state of Tennessee--it is not quite so easy to home school as I am required to either register officially as a home schooling family with our local county public school, or we may choose to register through an umbrella school. Some umbrella schools are actual brick and mortar schools, where students meet on a campus somewhere but they also have a home education program. Other umbrella schools do not have an actual physical school and are only an on-line type of program. You would then be required to fulfill whatever requirements your umbrella organization had--either for testing, classes, reporting, or whatever.
How will you find out what your state requirements are? Good question! A very helpful web site is the site of Home School Legal Defense Association. You can find their link here:
Home School Legal Defense Association
On the HSLDA web site you can find out what ages are required for school attendance in your state, tips for withdrawing your child from public school if they are already attending, as well as tons of other useful information. Some people have found it useful to actually join HSLDA, and then if they are ever in a legal battle over home schooling rights the lawyers at HSLDA will defend you in court at no additional cost to you. I have never felt the need to personally join HSLDA, so if you consider joining please know that I am not personally recommending them but only pointing out that I have found their web site to have useful information. One word of caution--oftentimes, when there is a problem with home schooling it is due to a divorce situation where one parent wants to home school and the other parent does not desire home school for their children. I have heard that in cases like this, HSLDA will NOT defend the parent who desires to continue home schooling. I do not know if this is true or not, as it is only what I have heard. So my caution is that if you decide to join HSLDA and pay them your hard earned dollars, make sure you read the fine print and know what it is that you are actually getting for your money.
O.K. So let's use the great state of Texas as an example. As I mentioned above, when I lived in Texas I was required to teach the following subjects: Reading, Spelling, Grammar, Math, and Good Citizenship. This was what the state required of me. The first three subjects--Reading, Spelling, and Grammar, all fall under the category of Language Arts. Some Language Arts programs out there will include all three of these areas in the same book. Others may be focusing on just one area. Currently, one of the curriculum books I am using with my daughter is the book "Easy Grammar." This book teaches--you guessed it--Grammar. It does not include Spelling or Reading. Another year, when I was still teaching my son, I used the Bob Jones University Press English book for the high school level. This program DID include Reading, Spelling, and Grammar, all in the same book. So you need to know exactly what each one of your curriculum resources is going to help you cover.
Now, going back to our Texas list--do you notice anything missing? What about Science? As a home school parent, it is very important to me that my children are taught Science--but it just happens that that is not one of the required areas for me to cover when I was living in Texas. Does this mean that I do not cover it? Not at all! This simply means that I add it in! I was also not required to teach Bible, but that also was an area that was important to our family. So after making sure to research and include what you are legally required to teach, you can add in whatever classes you as a parent feel are also important for your child to learn.
As mentioned above, I currently live in Tennessee. Our family has chosen to register through an umbrella school. So I am required to teach the list of classes that my umbrella school tells me I must teach. But once again, there are additional classes which I would LIKE to teach in our home school but am not required to teach. I am free to teach those desired classes--but since they are not required of me to teach by my umbrella school, when I need to report grades to my umbrella school I choose not to report grades for those optional classes. Now, this DOES mean that those optional classes will not be appearing on my daughter's permanent school record from her umbrella school. But since she is still in the elementary levels, it is not important to me that every single class that we do in our home school appears on her school record. Once she is in high school, however, I will feel differently about it and will definitely be grading and reporting to our umbrella school those extra classes which will count as "electives" in our high school credit count.
I hope this is making some sense! It really isn't as complicated as it sounds when I write it out! There really are only two steps: 1) find out what your state requires you to teach, and 2) add in whatever other classes you desire to teach. :)
So once you have your list of subjects ready, and you know what it is you are going to teach, hop back over to my previous post on choosing your curriculum and have FUN! Really! I absolutely LOVE looking through home school catalogs, reading the different descriptions. It is almost as much fun as eating chocolate!
I hope this post is helpful to someone! Feel free to ask any questions you may have, and I will at least try my best to help with whatever has worked for me. Remember that every family is unique, but it can help to ask others who have been home schooling for a while and then evaluate whether what has worked for them might work for you and your children as well.
Next post, I hope to share some of my favorite home school resources!
~Susan
