Back to (Home) School Part 3-How do I Know what Subjects to Teach?

Good Morning Everyone!

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

Back to (Home) School! Part 2-Choosing Your Curriculum

Good Morning Everyone!

Time for our second post in our "Back to (Home) School" planning series!  I am not exactly sure how many posts will be in this series, but until I run out of things to share I suppose. :)  Or get too busy--whichever comes first!

To recap, in the first post I shared about how I plan our home school calendar, and a little bit about why it is important and how to personalize your school calendar to work for YOUR family and YOUR unique needs.  If you missed that post, you can find it here:

Back to (Home) School! Part 1-Choosing Your School Schedule

I did have a reader request if I knew of a free program, printable, etc. that could be used for keeping track of required attendance days.  (Thank you for your question!  I love hearing that a post was helpful, or being given the opportunity to share helpful information!) In my state (Tennessee), I am required to keep track and report my attendance of 180 days, but the specifics of what I use to keep track of those days is up to me.  You could circle "school days" on your calendar, mark down in a notebook, etc.  All I need to do when I turn in my grade reports each semester is report our starting date, finishing date, and how many total school days.  With that being said, I do like to have all that information handy for me on one form that I can keep in my home school planning binder, so I use a form like this free one here:

Printable Attendance Form

Using this attendance form, I simply put a check mark or X in each blank if we did school on that day.  This form is just for my own personal use, but it keeps track of the information I need and is a good visual reminder for me to record our school for that day.  If you have an older student you could even pass this job over to them and let them do the record keeping.

O.K., with all of the above shared, it is time for the topic of today's post--choosing your curriculum!

1). Choose Your School Schedule

2). Choose Your School Curriculum

***As we saw already in choosing your school schedule, the very first thing you are going to want to do as you move into choosing your school curriculum is PRAY.  Remember James 1:5, read it again and claim God's promise to grant you HIS wisdom!  Ask Him to reveal to you the ways that your children learn best, and to open your eyes clearly to materials that will work well for that type of learner.

***After praying about it, spend some time simply pondering.  Think about each one of your school age children, and ask yourself how they each learn best.  Do you have an active little boy who loves to tinker and take things apart to see how they work?  If so, a curriculum program that centers around filling in workbook pages is probably not going to work the best for him.  On the other hand, some children--usually a girl--absolutely LOVE filling in workbooks!  Think about what type of learner(s) you have, and whether you will need programs with auditory components to them so your child can listen to their textbook being read to them, or unit studies where they can do a combination of research, hands on projects, and other "outside of the textbook" learning.
If you are not certain about what type of learner your child is, there are numerous free assessments you can look at to help educate yourself on the different learning styles.  I found this link that looks helpful if you want to read more:

What is the Best Way for your Child to Learn?

***Now that you have in mind your child's learning style, it's time to take inventory!  What are the resources that you already have?  Maybe you have never homeschooled before, but you have a relative who has--can you ask about possibly borrowing or purchasing some books that they are finished with?  If so, first make sure their books are ones that are going to work for your family.  Did you already homeschool an older child and you still have some of their books and materials in the house that could be recycled and used again for the younger sibling?  Maybe some materials may not work for your current homeschooler, but some of them can.  Each child will have their own learning style so you cannot automatically assume that what worked great for one child will automatically work just as great for the next--but on the other hand, don't throw out the baby with the bath water either!  For our son, he is an auditory learner so when it came to high school Algebra I ended up investing in a very expensive program that had daily video lessons.  It worked wonderful for him, and I was blessed to be able to purchase it used from a friend.  When our daughter was ready last year to start Algebra, I automatically assumed we would be using the same program with her.  After all, it was a high quality program, and it was already paid for and living in our house!  Well, she started into the program, but I realized after a while that it just wasn't the best fit for her.  I went ahead and purchased for her the Algebra book in the same curriculum series she had previously been using, and she has been happy as a clam with math ever since.  Oh the other hand, the same Science textbook that her brother used in middle school is working great for her as well.

***What "non-curriculum" resources do you have the can be used?  In our house, I have quite a collection of biographies.  Although they may not have been written specifically as school curriculum, we will be using a handful of them this year as a core component of our Geography class as well as using them for literature in our English class.  And don't forget your local library!  I live in a very small town, but can still go online and reserve scores of library books on topics we are going to study in our homeschool.  The wonderful librarians receive my requests, pull the books off the shelves, and hand them to me in a large stack when I show up later at the front desk!  :)  I can even access free videos that stream from some big library source in the sky straight to my computer!  I don't know how it works--I just know it works GREAT for our homeschool.  When I stream a video I don't even need to remember to return it--it just disappears from my library account when it reaches it's due date.  No late fees--yea!

***Write down the classes that you have materials for already.  We THINK that we can remember it all in our heads, but we can't!  And it's a sad feeling to find yourself half way through the school year--or worse, all the way through the school year, and then you "discover" lost on your book shelf somewhere the fun book you WERE planning on using with your child that year.  Don't ask me how I know this--it isn't a happy story!  You don't need a fancy form--a plain old piece of paper will do just fine.  But if you happen to have an on-line planner of some type, of course you can fill in a specific form if you want to.  The important thing is to simply start listing the materials you have already and identify what specific class they are going to be used for.

***Now that you know what you already have, you can see clearly where you have some holes that you need to fill in.  Decide HOW you want to meet that class in your homeschool.  Remember that not EVERY class needs to be taught by you.  When our daughter was younger, I taught her music class simply by singing with her and teaching her to use simple rhythm instruments.  Now that she is older, we pay a professional music teacher to teacher her private lessons.  When she was young, we paid for group swimming lessons--and now that she is older she no longer needs someone teaching her how to swim.  Today, there are swarms of options for homeschoolers.  There might be a co-op near you that you are going to join and the classes will fill in some gaps that you have in your plan.  Or you may have several classes that you are simply going to purchase a curriculum textbook to meet that need.

***Last of all, after you have prayed, assessed the learning style of your child, taken inventory of what you already have or have access to and have written DOWN what you will be using for specific classes it is finally time to purchase what you need.  I strongly encourage you to check several resources for each item you are planning on purchasing.  It is amazing what price difference you may find!  Or while the prices may be the same with two companies, one may offer free or low shipping costs and the other one might require a higher purchase before offering free shipping.  If there is one thing I dislike, it is spending my curriculum dollars on shipping!!!  I want to spend it on curriculum for my child instead! So compare, compare, compare!  And once you have decided which company you are going to order your materials from, don't hesitate to order it!  Not only is it easy to forget to order, but companies get really swamped with orders the closer to Fall that it gets.  Besides that, you need to get those books into your hot little hands so you can keep your planning going. :D

Well, that wraps up all I can think of in choosing your school curriculum.  I hope you have found some helpful ideas here, and I would love it if you would share in the comments the one curriculum/book/resource you are most excited about trying this year and why.  Just ask my hubby--I LOVE curriculum!

~Susan

Back to (Home) School! Part 1-Choosing your School Schedule

Hi Everyone!

Are you enjoying your summer???  I am!  But it truly is flying by very fast.

Yesterday I found myself in Staples, and they had a whole front page of their "Back to School" sales on school supplies!  Staples happens to be one of my favorite stores to find good school supply deals, but that is a post for another time. :)

Today I want to talk about something that many homeschoolers would prefer to simply ignore--planning your school year during the summer time.  I know, I know.  I can hear you now! "But it's SUMMER BREAK!  Why do we need to spend it planning school?"  Trust me--it won't be nearly as bad as you think it will be, and the small amount of time you put into your planning now will pay off HUGE later on.  After all, how can you know that you are being successful in your home teaching if you really don't have a goal in mind that you are aiming for?  If you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you have arrived there?

As someone who has already homeschooled a child from Kindergarten until college (and lived to tell about it!), I have been around this block once already.  And even with all of that experience, I am STILL needing to take the time this summer to sit down and plan out our next homeschool year.  I "can" wing it--and some seasons that is exactly what I have had to do, but trust me when I say that EVERYTHING goes better if it is planned out ahead of time!

So I thought as I go through my planning this summer, I would try and bring you along with me.  "My way" isn't the only way to do this--it is just what works for me.  Take what is helpful for you, and ignore the rest.  Change things to fit you and your family.  After all, that is the beauty of homeschooling.  You DO have flexibility and can arrange your homeschool to best meet your family's needs.

Today I will simply share with you the first step--that isn't too intimidating, is it?  I hope not!  It is a simple step, but do not skip it as all your other planning will depend on this one.

1) Choose Your School Schedule

This is crucial--more important than ordering all that shiny new curriculum.  More important than those lovely school supply sales at Staples.  More important than setting up your homeschool area in your home.

***Before beginning anything--PRAY!  Claim the promise that if anyone lacks wisdom God will supply our need (James 1:5).  Thank God that you can come to Him for wisdom.  Acknowledge that He is the One who created your children in the first place, and therefore He knows best how each one of them learns.

***To start choosing my school schedule, I first print out an Academic Calendar.  These are available  online on several sites.  You don't need a special or fancy one--just a paper that shows the months of the school year all on one page.  I used this free calendar here:

2017-2018 Academic Calendar

***After printing your calendar out, it's time to consider your personal family schedule.  Does your husband have specific dates off as vacation from his work?  Do you have an older child who attends school and you want to match that school calendar?  What about Grandparents coming for the holidays?  Take your calendar printout and grab a colored pencil, marking out days or weeks when you KNOW you do not want to be doing homeschool.

***Now that you have your firm vacation days planned, think about other things--such as when you want your school to be out for the summer! Is there a certain month you want to be out by?  Since my hubby is a college teacher, I always like to be done with our homeschool by the graduation date of his school.  Let's just say it is a LOT easier to run our homeschool when daddy isn't home and offering to take us places, run errands, or starting in on a home project!  Therefore I know that every year I really want to be finished with our school year by the early part of May, even though other area schools all go until the end of May or even sometimes into June.  Yes, I know we are always learning even on "non school" days.  But in my state, I am required to report attendance days, so I do keep a record of our "official" school days.

***Once you know when you want to be finished by, it is a simple matter of working your schedule backwards.  I like to make sure we have some time for special things, such as Field Trip days and even special activities at home which are educational but are not necessarily doing "Book work."  Find a flow that fits your personality and go with it.  I like to have a term--usually six weeks (though this might vary) of concentrated book work time, and then we have a break week from our books and do other things.  You know--those things that you always want to do with your child but they get squeezed out of day to day living.  Actually stopping the book work and allowing TIME for these special activities is the only way they happen in my house.  For us, these are things such as concentrated time on Home Arts, for example, cooking, baking, sewing, embroidery, crocheting, quilting, etc.  All those fun, hands on activities!  I have four weeks of these planned in my school year, two weeks each semester.  Having these types of "Home Arts weeks" gives me a rest from the book work and makes me so happy that I am able to teach these types of activities to our daughter. :)  And yes--they "count" as school days!  I strategically place these weeks in our schedule when there are not other vacation days coming soon.  For our first semester, we will start our homeschool in early August and then have a "Home Arts week" in September.  By late October, we will have another Home Arts week, and then November has a built in change with Thanksgiving week and December has the same with Christmas.  When we get to second semester, we do take off for a Spring Break in March, so our two break weeks are placed in February (EVERYONE needs a break in February, in my opinion!) and in late April.

***Add up your school days to make sure you have what you are required to have.  I also evaluate what type of day each school day will be--whether it is a "Book Day" or a "Home Arts" day.  Then I also look at official "Field Trip" days, and see what my total for the semester is, adjusting as necessary.  In my state, I need 180 total school days, so I aim for 90 school days in each semester.

My Academic calendar gets filled with notes and "chicken scratching," as I count the weeks in each term, mark out our vacation days, and put slash marks through our Home Arts weeks.  Then at the bottom I add everything up, counting how many weeks we are going to have of "book work."  Knowing the number of weeks we are going to be sitting down and doing actual book work will be crucial in your Home School planning a little later down the line.

But first--now that you have your school schedule set, it is time to choose your curriculum--my favorite part of home school planning!  Watch for Part 2-Choosing your School Curriculum (hopefully!) soon!

I hope this has been helpful!  If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will try and help out.  Don't be intimidated--you can do this, and God has promised to lead you in each task He brings you to!  So have fun--and jump in!

~Susan