By Mary Joyce
One of the first questions you need to ponder when deciding whether to homeschool your child is to define to yourself what exactly is homeschooling to you. What does it mean to you to homeschool your child? If you can’t pin down exactly what your definition of homeschooling is, then you will struggle with the very decision you are trying to make. And that’s just the beginning.
You won’t be able to make clear cut decisions on the other aspects of homeschooling that need to be answered down the road. Such as: what type of homeschool curriculum (pre-packaged or non at all)? What type of homeschool teaching methodology do I use? If you can’t answer these questions then you won’t be able to determine what type of resources should I target to research or what type of homeschool materials and homeschool supplemental materials should I purchase?
Another critical question to ask yourself is how much do I enjoy being around my children? Now wait a moment... You’re probably saying… What on earth kind of question it that! Of course, I love my children! Understood, but think of that question in the context of being around your children 'round the clock with sometimes... no breaks.
If two parents are involved are you both in agreement on the decision to homeschool. I can’t tell you how important this one is. It’s huge. Homeschooling is going to affect your entire day. All of the household chores with now a homeschool schedule are going to change the way you and your family move about during the day.
Depending upon your current job schedule, think about how homeschooling your child is going to affect your income. With the family potentially down to one income, how will this be budgeted out? Crunch the numbers folks. It’s very important.
Hopefully these few questions will get you started down the path of asking and answering more and more. Have these discussions with the rest of your family and make sure that all those affected by your homeschooling decision are on board with the plan.
Plan for success and work your plan.
Mary Joyce is a former educator, successful homeschool parent, and the primary contributor to the Homeschool-Curriculum-4u website. Please visit (http://www.homeschool-curriculum-4u.com/) for a complete list of Mary's articles, resources on homeschool, ideas, and curriculum information.
Also tips guides and how-to's to help you successfully teach your child at home.
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http://EzineArticles.com/?Whether-To-Homeschool-Your-Child&id=50522
Exploring the Top 10 Reasons to Homeschool
By Julie Jackson
There are several reasons why families elect to homeschool. Each family that chooses to educate their children out of the setting of a traditional classroom has at least one main reason that they choose to do so.
These reasons may include religious beliefs, medical complications, or even simply wanting to take a more active role in the education of the child. Here, you will be introduced to the ten most common reasons in which a family chooses this educational route.
1. The very first reason why you may choose to educate your child at home is so that you can be with your family. In today's fast paced world, it is often challenging to discover time that you can designate specifically to spending time with your family. By choosing to educate your children, you are guaranteed several hours of time a day with your child.
2. By homeschooling your child, you have the luxury of setting your own schedule. You can engage in educational lessons at any time of the day! Perhaps your child prefers to go to the library and other activities in the morning hours, and likes to do school lessons after lunch. If you educate them at home, you can set up the schedule to reflect one that is more suitable for your child, as well as for you!
3. It could be possible that your child has medical conditions and learning disabilities. Seeing that you know and understand the condition, and/or learning disabilities that your child may have, you can customize your routine and lessons according to the need that your child has. You know what types of activities and lessons that your child is most receptive to, and can easily adjust your lessons accordingly.
4. When you elect to homeschool your child, you can choose a curriculum that best suits the needs of your child. There are several different types of curriculums available for the family that chooses to educate at home. You can choose one that uses a hands on approach, or one that centers around book work. You can also choose to work with an accredited distance learning school such as Laurel Springs School (laurelsprings.com) - the choice is yours!
5. The next reason that you may choose to educate your child at home is so that you can be aware of the state and progress of your child's education. Many parents often complain when it comes to the basic school system because they fail to keep them informed of the topics being covered in the classroom, and only update on a child's progress every few months or so. If you homeschool your child, you can keep track of this for yourself at all times!
6. By homeschooling, you can keep your child away from the complications of peer pressure. Peer pressure can often result in a child making decisions that they normally would not make, such as giving into alcohol and drug consumption, joining groups that are rebellious, and more.
7. If you choose to homeschool your child, you can give gifted children the attention and challenge that they need to grow personally, and academically. Many children who are highly intellectual often lack the challenge to keep them productive in the average school system. However, by educating these children at home, you can easily discover what challenges them, and what bores them.
8. You can love, nurture, and teach your child the character and morals that you value the most when you educate them at home. Schools are typically not taught to teach morals and religious values that go outside the normal state standard in which they operate. However, as a parent, you can teach your child virtually anything that you cherish in the way of morals, values, and character traits.
9. As a homeschool family, you can make learning fun and exciting for your child. You know what appeals to the child the most, so you can center your focus around this, and teach based on it.
10. As a homeschooling family, you can also make the learning experience as experiential as you want. For example, if you want to teach your children about plants and trees, you can also help them learn by allowing them to plant their own! If you want to teach them about fractions and measurements, you can build a birdhouse, or even teach them how to make a pizza or other food!
There are many benefits to homeschooling your child, and many ways to provide this education at home. Here, you have been introduced to the top 10 reasons to homeschool.
About Laurel Springs School
Laurel Springs School, founded in 1991, is an accredited, college prep private school offering distance learning programs and teacher services for students in grades K-12. Located in Ojai, California, Laurel Springs serves students across the United States and in 43 countries. Current enrollment is 3,000 students, with more than 2,000 students enrolled in the online high school program. Laurel Springs uses web-based communication tools, a standards-based curriculum, and personalized instruction to offer students the highest quality home education experience.
http://www.laurelsprings.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Julie_Jackson
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Homeschool Education - Is it a Radical Or Right Choice?
By Cyra Miles
Is it really a radical choice for parents to decide homeschool? Or should we applause these parents for making the right choice about their children's education?
Some parents nowadays are thinking-out-of-the-box to make sure that their children don't have only the best education but possess also the right values, principles and attitude towards life. There is an apparent increase in the number of homeschool students. According to U.S. Department of Education, there is approximately 1,096,000 students who are educated at home in spring of 2003.It is a big leap (approximately 29% increase) compared to spring of 1999 which has only an estimated 850,000 homeschoolers.
Let us delve as why more parents are now taking the radical choice of opting for homeschool education for their children.
Away from school bullying . This is one of the primary reasons cited by parents who homeschooled their children. School bullying is very prevalent nowadays. The National Youth Violence Prevention stated that there are over 5.7 million youth who are bullied at school. It is about 30% of total youth population in the United States.
It is a disturbing situation with a negative impact to children being bullied at school. Bullied students live a stressful life as they become fearful with possible bullying incidents again. They are scared to be alone like being in the bathroom or in the hallway. Victims will have less interest in attending school also and even the task of riding a bus becomes a terrifying activity.
This results to depression, low self-esteem, physical illness, loneliness and in worst cases, suicidal thoughts.
Most bullied children also find it difficult to learn at school as they struggle coping up with their fear and anxiety. They can hardly focus in the classroom.
Other Safety Concerns. Homeschooler parents are worried about the safety of their children in the traditional school. Safety concerns include drugs, negative peer pressure and accidents. Some isolated cases include children being gunned down or murdered at school. Children's safety at school is unpredictably at stake.
Some homeschooler parents perceived that homeschool children are safer compared to children attending a regular school.
Quality Learning. Parents are the primary teacher and models of the children. A ratio of one teacher to two or three students makes a huge difference in the quality of education delivered to a teacher handling 30 to 40 children in a regular classroom.
Also, the fact that it is their children, education is more personalized and the result is far better. Schedules for homeschool are flexible also so children are not forced to wake up early to catch the school bus and options for what the children want to learn for the day are possible.
Better Person. Parents always want to instill good values to their children. It is one of their intention and hope that their children become a better person but when children attend a regular school, parents can no longer control the other factors such friends, schoolmates and school environment. These are external factors that can influence the children either positively or negatively.
Oftentimes children acquire attitudes from their friends at school. Children are vulnerable to adapting certain manners or attitudes which are relative to the kind of friends or clique they mingle and hang out with. On some occasions, they are negatively influence because of peer pressure. For the child to be part of the group or to be labeled 'cool' at school, sometimes they do things out of their way.
Parents of homeschoolers prefer to train and raise their children the way they would have wanted them to be. They believe that they are more effective in instilling moral and religious values.
24/7. This is the best advantage of homeschool. Parents are with their children 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Experience parents always encourage new parents to spend as much time as they can with their children especially in their growing years. This is the stage where children are still dependent to their parents. Once they reach puberty, they now prefer to spend time with their peers and once they reach adulthood, they will spend more time with colleagues, friends and at work.
Strong bond. As parents and children spend more time together than the average parents whose children are attending a regular school, the opportunity to develop profound bond and strengthened relationship is inevitable.
Homeschool reinforces the value of family.
Flexibility. There are parents who are always mobile because of work related issue. Some parents find homeschool very convenient because it allows them to travel without much constraint. Travelling can be planned anytime as there are no worries of missing the classes or interrupting school activities.
It indeed gives more flexibility to parents and children to travel.
Without doubt, homeschool education offers many benefits to your children and to you as parents though critics always question the socialization life of the homeschool children. Are they really being deprived of their socialization skills?
Homeschool curriculum nowadays have supplement activities like pottery classes, museum visits, karate classes and so on. There are many institutions also that offer and organize different activities for homeschool children. If you can just do a little research and get connected with the right network or community of homeschoolers, you will be amazed with the available socialization opportunities for homeschool children.
Socialization is not limited at school only. There are so many venues that children can develop their socialization skills.
So, is it really a radical or right choice to homeschool? Parents know their children better than anyone else and so does the answer to this question.
Statistics Resources: www.safeyouth.org, www.ed.gov
Cyra Miles is a part-time freelance writer living in Abu Dhabi, UAE and her areas of interest are travel, events & holidays, health, culture & society, human interest stories and education.
Visit her at http://www.cyramiles.com/ or take a peek inside her mind at http://www.anintimateconversation.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cyra_Miles
http://EzineArticles.com/?Homeschool-Education---Is-it-a-Radical-Or-Right-Choice?&id=2100353
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