Many parents are pondering their school options for the fall this year.  I’m 100% in favor of whatever works for you and your kids whether that is online, Public School, private school or home school. We have homeschooled for the past 11 years, so coming from that background I wanted to share some tips and resources in case you are trying to figure out your options and what will work best for you.

Getting Started

Know What Your State Requires
Before you get all stressed on how you’ll teach math (the #1 subject that makes most people think they can’t homeschool) you really need to start by researching the homeschool laws for your state and seeing how those fit with your family.  Many states make homeschooling very easy without a lot of red tape, but… there are some that make it very difficult.  The best site is the HSLDA that breaks out all the laws by state.  Find out your state requirements, then search for groups inside your state that will help stay accountable (in SC we actually call them accountability groups).

Think About Teaching Styles & Time
Be honest with yourself upfront about how much time you have to devote to school. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t homeschool, but more for you to decide what type of curriculum you want to look at.  

Tell Me What to Say – You’ll find textbooks that are just like the Public School teachers manuals that literally have spelled out exactly what to say for each part of a lesson.

Rough Guidelines – Rather than teacher and student texts, you’ll find great curriculum that you can do as a family following the lesson.  They will show you a general outline you could take and you follow as you want.

Make My Own Lessons – This is the uber teacher option, that anyone can do. Honestly though 99.9% of homeschooling families don’t go this route.

Hybrid Homeschool – There are tons of online resources and local co-ops that can take some of the teaching off your plate.  While some types could be viewed as doing what the public schools are doing, it is really far and above the online system that school districts threw together at the last minute.  (Our highschoolers do a program like this that was completely unaffected by Covid this year). 

Know What They Need
This could fit under knowing what’s required, but to me this is an entirely different step.  While you can be legal and follow all the rules, you also need to consider what classes/subjects your kid needs.  The older they get, the more this important.  Does your kid want to be a Vet?  You need to think through their highschool plan (the earlier the better) and map out the right track for them to get what is needed for college. 

If you are curious this is our mapped out plan for our twin highschoolers.  They are crazy smart so this won’t fit for everyone, but it does show what I mean by having a plan!  They will graduate highschool with anywhere from 27 to 60 college credits!!

The best thing to me about homeschooling is that you are 100% in control and can tailor what they learn to fit their needs!!

Picking Homeschool Curriculum

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