weshop's Blog

There are many benefits to homeschooling children: as costs of private schools continue to climb, homeschooling is a more affordable option; homeschooling allows more educational flexibility and can be scheduled conveniently around other family activities; and the curriculum and learning environment can be tailored to suit your child's individual needs.

When you decide to homeschool your child, you must have a clear curriculum, plan and goals. Homeschooling allows you a great deal of flexibility, in that you can teach a child something in many different ways, and teach many different things for a given subject. However, this very flexibility can also be your downfall if not handled properly, as you run the risk of providing an inconsistent and sub par education that leaves your child lagging behind his or her peers.

Setting a clear educational plan means you have a better chance for effective homeschooling. To set your plans and goals, it is a good idea to first take a look at your child's standard curriculum for his grade in a public or private school. See what the standard expectations are for a given subject level, then set your targets, timeline and curriculum for your child. Once you have decided what your child is going to learn, you can allow for some flexibility in how your child will learn best.

Homeschooling also requires discipline, as it can be difficult drawing a distinction between home and schooling at home. There are plenty of distractions in any household and when you get busy you may be tempted to try and multitask, that is, to educate your child and also do some other chores at home. Parents may even be tempted to give an assignment to their child and then leave to complete some other activities. By doing so, you are sending a negative message that his schooling is not a high priority for you, and this will seriously undermine the child's attitude towards his own education. So make sure to do household duties 'after-school' hours and when 'school is in,' you and your child are both focusing 100 percent on learning. This will communicate to your child that education is important and top priority.

Homeschooling not only allows you to tailor education to your child's individual needs, something that is lacking in both the private and public school systems; it also allows you and your child to learn together, thus helping to create a valuable learning experience, and also to strengthen family bonds.

Regardless of what methodology you normally use for your homeschool, unit studies can provide you with a nice break from the norm sometimes. They are especially nice whenever you're trying to teach your child(ren) to think a little more about how the different parts of life actually fit together, and they can also give you a break whenever you're faced with the doldrums.

So, how do you decide what subjects to persue whenever you're ready to do a unit study? Well, take a look at your child and see what he/she is deeply interested in. Those are the subjects to pursue with your unit studies. Another way to decide what would make a great unit study is to look through your year's studies and notice if there are any 'holes' in subject matter that you think should be filled. Once you find that 'hole,' you can find a unit study on that topic, and take a week or two to teach it. For instance, if your child finds black holes fascinating, but your science text book covers them in just a paragraph or two, then there is the perfect opportunity to do a unit study on astronomy.

Once you've figured out what you'd like to do a unit study on, all you need is a little time and creativity, and you can create your own unit studies. Assembling your own curriculum around one topic sounds difficult, but if this wasn't the case, then educational companies such as 'Teacher Created Materials' wouldn't publish and sell as many great unit studies as they do.

There are 2 main drawbacks to designing your own unit studies. First of all, it takes time. If you're a busy parent, this could be enough of a reason to take a trip to your nearest teachers' supply store with your credit card in hand. Secondly, it may require access to a couple of grade-level subject books (ie science, language arts, or math) so that you know which skills are typically covered at a particular grade level. If you have a good library with an educational books department, then you may also have the perfect excuse to spend a long Saturday with a pocket full of change at the library with a stack of books. Another idea is that if you have a good set of Internet research skills, you can spend your Saturday tucked away at home.

Now that we see the drawbacks, what are the benefits of a unit study? You can teach whatever your heart desires. Plus, if you decide to create your own unit study, you'll find that it is cheaper and more economical than tracking down a pre-made unit study. Furthermore, nobody knows your child as well as you do, and therefore nobody can prepare a unit study for your child as well as you can.

Whenever you're creating your own unit study, you need to keep in mind that your unit study needs to cover all of the subjects that you'd normally teach, unless you plan to skip a specific subject and keep working through your regular curriculum for that subject. However, to create a complete unit study, you need to include the first 2 subjects from the following list and as many of the other subjectss as you can logically fit in there too. Now for the list:

(1.) Math - You need to create math problems at your child's level. For instance, if you're working with a young child on a unit study about baseball, then you can practice addition with bats and balls, write a story problem that talks about number of pitches thrown until the team reached the final out, etc. However, older children would need something that is more on their level. For instance, you may discuss the speed of the bat, distance the ball travels, or the number of hot dogs that individual team fans eat.

(2.) Language Arts - This area includes reading, comprehension, grammar and writing skills. While you don't need to include every one of these items in every unit study that you write, you should have your child write something about the topic. A great suggestion here would be to have your child read a book about the topic then write a narrative telling you about what he/she read in the book.

(3.) Science - Sometimes a unit study lends itself quite easily to science, but other times you'll find yourself having to work a little bit harder. For instance, a unit study on bugs will let you off the hook since the entire unit study is about science. However, if you are doing a unit study about ancient Egypt then you may need to take some time to look at the creations of the Egyptian engineers, study mummification, think about ancient medicine, or consider the tools that the Egyptians used to do their work.

(4.) Social Studies or Geography - This may be your main topic, but if it isn't, then you'll need to work some information into your topic. Some questions that can help you here include: Where was your topic first seen or invented? What culture surrounded the time or event? Where did this take place? You may also want to learn more about the people of that time period and place.

(5.) Art - Take time to draw, build, act, design or create. You could design a Roman mosaic, sketch an insect's genetic makeup, build a temple from clay or LEGOs, create a tapestry to illustrate the unit that you're studying (felt shapes work for quick tapestries when needlepoint takes way too long), or paint the flowers that you're learning about.

(6.) Music - Sometimes music fits into a unit study nicely. For instance, you could always listen to some folk music while you explore the civil unrest of the 1960s. However, if you're studying something more scientific, then you may need to work a little harder to fit music into that unit study.

(7.) History - Adding history to a unit study should be relatively easy, regardless of the topic. You could simply research when an event began or an item was invented or you could talk about the events and times that affected an item's inventor.

(8.) Physical Education - Here again, you may need to be a bit creative. However, when you discover that physical education fits into your unit study, then you should definitely use it! For instance, if you're studying the ancient Greeks, then you could run footraces like they did.

If you're still not certain what to do for your very first unit study, try 'following' your child(ren) around for a couple days and watch what they do. For instance, if your child spends all of his/her time engrossed in books, then think about a literature-based unit study (ie how books are made). On the other hand, your child may spend his/her time outside digging for rocks. Then why not do an archeology or rocks and minerals unit study?

Of course, there are some topics that you can use numerous times as your child(ren) grows older. These include:

(1.) Animals, horses, or mammals

(2.) Baseball, basketball, fencing, or sports in general

(3.) Cooking or catering (which may include business and economics information)

(4.) Kites

(5.) Flight

(6.) Transportation

(7.) Weather

(8.) Historical cultures (ie medieval history, ancient Egypt, etc.)

The spark of a unit study is lit whenever your child(ren) mentions an interest. Whenever they do, you need to write it down somewhere. Keep a running list of interests and you'll soon have more than you'll know what to do with. However, even if your child only shows a deep interest in one or two topics, you should take time to explore those. You may discover that you're able to create several unit studies based on the first one as new interests are developed.

About The Author
Reverend Brenda Hoffman has been delivering holistic health and wellness advice for over 7 years. As a home-based professional and mother of 1, she operates a holistic wellness and homeschooling network. Learn to enjoy a healthier lifestyle and richer relationships with your homeschooled children through the range of resources at http://www.yourhealthyfamilyhome.com/.

Contrary to most people?s opinions, home schooling is not just limited to primary school students. In fact, there are many home schooling courses available for college students as well both offline and online.

Home schooling has been gaining more popularity in recent years because parents wanted more control over their child?s education. Parents wanted to oversee what their children is learning and teach them the right way.

For higher level college education, there are several types of home schooling programs available. It depends on the type of education you prefer your child to undertake.

One type is religion college home schooling. They have home schooling curriculum that have religious studies as part of their education.

Another type focus on the science while another focus on the arts. It can also be a combination of the above since college home schooling is quite flexible. You can cater your home schooling curriculum based on the interest of your child.

One thing all these college home schooling programs have in common is that they can be taught at the pace your child is comfortable with. Since each child learns differently and at different pace, the college home schooling program can be altered to suit each child?s learning progress.

There are also college home schooling programs offered in your local area. Some are theme based while others are focused on a particular subject. It will help if you can find yourself aligned with a home schooling group in your local community, if not you can do it online via the numerous homeschooling forums

Fortunately thanks to technology home schooling is becoming easier and easier for those parents in United States of America who have chosen to take their children out of public schools and to start teaching them at home. Additionally home schooling associations and groups are getting better and better and bigger and bigger and this provides them with economies of scale in order to secure the technological assets they will need to teach their children better.

If you consider high-speed Internet, videoconferencing, online video and all the online encyclopedias, white papers and research available you can see you just how great it is and how much easier it is to teach a child at home now than it was 10 years ago. Have you consider home schooling your child? If you have been you might be glad to learn of all the technological advances and all the different programs available online, as well as all the consultants and advisers who can help you all via the Internet.

Additionally with more and more shows on the Discovery Channel, the animal channel, the science channel and the history channel kids can learn by watching TV and they have a much better chance of learning history this way then studying it in a book and then taking a multiple-choice test. It is great their government has been working hard to pass such legislation as The No Child Left Behind Act, however this does not seem to be good enough considering that most schools have now turned into a babysitting activity for behavior challenged hard to deal with children. Perhaps these are some of the reasons you have or are choosing the home schooling option. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Once the decision is made to homeschool, the next major issue is which curriculum or methodology to use. While there are pros and cons for every option, this article will focus on homeschooling with a packaged curriculum.

A packaged curriculum will usually include all the books, lesson plans, and scope and sequence planning needed for an entire school year. Some providers also include additional services for enrolled families. These services can include counseling, grading, report cards, and even diplomas. While this path is often more expensive, there is the advantage of having everything already planned out in advance. This alone is a great time saver, which becomes more of an issue when there are several children being homeschooled in one family.

Another point to consider is accreditation. When a program is accredited, it means that it has been reviewed by an outside agency or committee and has been determined to meet certain standards. Why would this be important? This will help greatly when time comes to apply to college. If the student has a high school diploma from an accredited high school, there should be much less difficulty proving to admissions offices that a high school education has indeed been completed. Also, credits may be more easily transferred to another school if necessary.

When we first decided to educate our children at home, I was faced with researching and planning what to cover in a school year for four children - grades 6, 4, 2, and preschool - with about a month to have it complete. The packaged curriculum I chose from Seton Home Study School proved to be invaluable. As I was brand new at this, I honestly did not know where to start. The more I read about the various educational methodologies and the limitless choices of textbooks, the more I realized it would make more sense to enlist the help of a company with many years of experience.

By using a prepared curriculum, I can be assured that each child is covering all the most important topics and acquiring the necessary skills. The lesson plans do just that - plan out each lesson for us, including many suggestions for additional activities and enrichment. They also include many recommended resources, especially pertinent websites for further study.

One of the chief complaints about packaged curricula is that they are not very flexible, and tend to be quite rigid regarding what to do when. Our experience thus far has not been so. The program we use emphasizes that parents should adjust the program to fit the child, not the child to fit the program. In reality, nothing is actually ?required.? We can use or skip any suggestions we choose. The only true requirements exist only if you want an actual report card or diploma. Certain assignments must be completed and submitted in order to verify completion of the material. I find that keeping a portfolio of work that has been graded by an outside party is a good ?insurance policy? against the regulations imposed by our state.

While I readily admit that not everyone will work well with a packaged curriculum, this option does provide many advantages. For anyone who is just starting out and has little or no experience working out a plan of study, a prepared curriculum provides a solid beginning and helps the parent learn more too. Many families will start with a complete packaged curriculum, and then as time goes by, they start making modifications and adjustments as they gain experience and confidence. As can be seen, the many packaged curricula available today can prove to be a very useful tool for many home schooling families.

Cynthia Brandolini has been educating her own children at home since 2000. Her homeschooling informational website can be found at http://www.BestHomeSchool.info