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How Do I Get Started?
The first thing that we suggest is that you find out the homeschool laws for your state or region. You can do this by visiting our homeschool laws page. If you are in England please click here.
We stress the importance of working with your state education office. This will ensure that you are abiding by current laws and avoid potentially sticky situations. If you need help finding your school district office just click here.
Some good questions to ask your school district office are:
What kind of records need to be kept at home?
What are the attendance requirements?
What are the mandatory subjects that we cover?
Do you offer texts for rent or for free?
Can my children take part in extra curricular activities offered at school?
Do I re-apply yearly for attendance exemption?
Are any tests required? If so, how often and where do we go to take the tests?
These are just a few crucial questions that will ensure that you are doing your part to provide the best odds for your child.
After you get the legalities figured out then you can concentrate on what kind of curriculum or structure (or lack of) you would like to use at home. Some methods of homeschooling are:
It is not necessary or important to take just one approach. When I first started I felt the need to have a "boxed" curriculum that offered everything I needed. I chose to go through Calvert Schools for this and I was glad I did. This year we are taking a more relaxed approach which is working well but I miss a little of the structure just because it is so outlined from Calvert. They have daily lesson plans. I am contemplating going back to something similar for next year. We will see how this works out. This is such a personal choice and varies depending on your child's temperament.
If you are interested in books on homeschooling please click here.