We recently began preschool homeschool and my daughter has been enjoying every moment! She plays with her friends, go to gymnastics class, and we visit the library often. She is even learning to write has mailed letters to her homeschool friends in Florida. Even though we are newbie's I get asked how I got started with homeschooling. I wanted to share a few things that I did to prepare myself for our homeschool journey, check out my list below.
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1. Make the decision to homeschool! Discuss plans with your partner/ husband or whoever is involved in raising your child(ren) and decide what is best for your family. Will you homeschool for the preschool and kindergarten years, elementary school years, or all the way through high school? What style of homeschool will you use? Unschooling? Montessori? Online?
2. Check state homeschool laws. The homeschool laws for Georgia are fairly simple and can be found HERE. For any other state, check your local Department of Education website.
3. Purchase any needed materials. Are you using a pre made curriculum? Are you piecing together a curriculum? Do you have art and creativity supplies? The Dollar Tree is great for finding low cost homeschool supplies, such as writing tablets, glue, and even workbooks. I also like to order essentials from Amazon. Will you purchase new or used materials and curricula? Will you purchase items that can be used repeatedly? Some items can be purchased used to save money such as flash cards, games, and books.
4. Plan a daily routine and have a plan for each day. I like to use a teacher's lesson plan book to jot down what I would like to academically accomplish for the day as well as keeping up with completed homeschool days, and learning goals. I use a personal planner to keep track of community activities that I would like for us to attend. Does your local library have storytime? Lego or art club? What about purchasing museum memberships? Do museums in your area have homeschool days? These are all things that you should look into when planning your homeschool day.
5. Follow your favorite homeschool blogs, homeschool Instagram accounts, and join homeschool Facebook groups. If you search the homeschool hashtag on Instagram, a ton of amazing accounts will come up. Follow as many as you like and some of those accounts even write blogs about their homeschool journeys which are good to follow for inspiration. Facebook is also a great place for homeschoolers as there are many groups based on your homeschool interests, secular, religious, unschooling, local, etc. If you aren't big on Facebook, now may be a good time to look into it, I have met many mom and homeschool friends on Facebook.
6. Join homeschool communities, playgroups, or co-ops. My daughter just started preschool so we are involved in playgroups mainly. But once your child is old enough to benefit from a co-op or homeschool community, they are worth looking into. You can search Facebook or even Meetup.com to find local groups to join.
7. Have patience and don't compare your homeschool journey to others. Homeschool should be a fun, bonding experience. There are days that you may feel overwhelmed but those days will pass quickly. Your child will appreciate the time you are taking to make sure they have the best start in life even though they sometime don't show it. Everyone's homeschool journey is different, everyone homeschools for different reasons, so it is important to not compare homeschool journeys. Remember, "Comparison is the thief of joy."
I hope this post was helpful. I am by no means an expert at homeschooling as this is our first year and I only have 1 child. But I wanted to share what works for us. Are you a homeschool family? Do you have any tips you would like to share? Let me know in the comments! Until next time.
April K.