Boost Your Efforts for a Happier and More Relaxed Homeschool

If you already homeschool your children, you will be well aware that it can be approached in many ways. Homeschool moms are all unique and different. There are as many ways to homeschool someone as there are homeschoolers, so it’s really always up to you to ensure that you are doing it in a way that makes sense for you and your child. There are also several things that will improve your homeschooling efforts, so in this post, we will take a look at some of those.

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If You Are Just Getting Started, Consider a Period of Deschooling

After coming from a traditional school or a private school, you and your child may need a period of deschooling. What is deschooling? Simply put, it is a period of time that you and your children need to detox from the teaching methods that you have learned throughout your life. Most homeschool parents have not been homeschooled themselves. New homeschoolers take several months or even a year to find out a child’s learning style, where they learn best such as a kitchen table, the family room floor, or even outside under a tree, and examine homeschool curriculum before diving into lesson plans and traditional methods of teaching. Taking this time will ensure that you, as a homeschooling parent, are ready to tackle your child’s needs. Taking this time will help you improve your homeschooling efforts.

Your Child’s Learning Style

Improve your homeschooling by learning more about your child and their learning style. Is your child a hands-on or visual learner? Read some of my book recommendations that will help you figure out how your child learns best. Starting your homeschool journey on the right food will ensure you are successful in your home education journey.

What Methods Will You Use to Teach?

There are so many different methods of teaching. You can improve your homeschooling efforts by knowing your child’s interests and selecting the best curriculum that fits their individual needs and works for you as the mom or dad.

Charlotte Mason is one very popular method. This method uses living books instead of textbooks and uses narration instead of worksheets.

Doing a unit study on something your child loves such as horses, space, trains, or roller coasters, is another method of teaching. Unit studies teach all subjects within the context of the interest. These passion projects are a great way to improve your homeschooling. However, some of these methods require more parent time.

For working parents’ distance learning or online school may suit the family better. There is also free access curriculum for families that cannot afford homeschool resources.

What Will Your Homeschool Day Look Like?

Improve your homeschooling efforts by looking at your homeschool day. Will you have a daily schedule that follows the school calendar? Some families opt to follow a traditional calendar and even take off for public school closures. Other families work through the summer break so they can vacation in off-seasons.

Will you have a flexible schedule or adhere to a rigid school day? How much playtime or socialization will you have built into each day? Will your children join sports teams or church clubs? How many children do you have, and what are their ages?

Additionally, your homeschool day may be very different than other homeschool families if you have high school students, young children, or children with special needs. Remember to go at your own pace. Every homeschool looks different.

Increase Productivity

One of the things you may want to focus on is to increase productivity in your homeschool. This would require that you, as the teacher, are being more productive, and also that your children are. There are several ways to achieve this, from ensuring that phones and similar devices are not allowed during school hours to mapping out the schedule for each day as well as you possibly can. But however, you do it, maximizing productivity is definitely one of the most important things you can do for your homeschooling efforts.

Make It Fun

Adding a little fun to the education you are providing your children will help ensure that they love learning. Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence to suggest it helps. Education doesn’t need to simply be austere, and if you are looking to make it as effective as possible then that isn’t even the best way to go. You should aim for it to be a little fun at least. To achieve that, consider allowing your kids to choose one or two activities a day, as this is going to encourage them to be all the more engaged. You’ll find the more fun it is, the better.

Also, make sure to add field trips to your lessons. Hands-on learning and actually seeing the material your child is learning is an important thing. There is nothing like walking the battlefields of Gettysburg or standing in Boston where the Tea Party happened to teach your children about American History. Additionally, learning about giraffes in a book pales in comparison with feeding a real-life giraffe in an environmentally conscious zoo.

Bring In Other Teachers

There is nothing that says you need to do all of the teaching yourself for homeschooling to be true homeschooling. Teachers in public schools often rely on others when they get in a pinch. IIn fact, there is much to be said for bringing in other teachers or experts from time to time. They will be able to bring their own unique perspective and approach, which can really help you educate your kids better. Whether that is a Teach for America teacher or whether it’s just a local tutor who specializes in a particular subject, you can be sure that this will prove to be helpful.

Use A Variety Of Resources to Improve Your Homeschool Efforts

As you move through the homeschooling process over time, you will naturally take on board more and more resources that you can use in the teaching process, and you will learn increasingly how important it is to use a wide variety of these. Homeschooling really benefits from you using a lot of different resources – that is also true for every other kind of education, after all. So make sure that you are not afraid to occasionally use something new, and you should find it really helps you educate your children so much better.

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