With the recent rise in families transitioning from public education to home schooling, one naturally wonders, what exactly are the homeschooling advantages? One of the biggest reasons for homeschooling is the amount of control you have over your child’s education, with the following advantages at the top of the list:

Scheduling Flexibility
The first thing most people think about with home schooling is the flexibility in their child’s schedule. You can adjust your teaching schedule to your child’s natural, body schedule. Is your child most alert in the mornings? You can schedule their hardest subjects at that time to maximize their learning.

Individual attention
It is impossible for public school teachers to provide very much individual attention to their students, there are just too many students to take care of. If one or two students don’t understand a concept, it is just not feasible for the teacher to take time away from the rest of the class to individually instruct them until they get it. Homeschooling is all about individual attention.

Curriculum Choices
Your ability to select your curriculum is a huge homeschooling advantage. You select what you teach and how you teach it. If you have opted for a religious-based curriculum, you decide if it is a separate ‘class’ or if you incorporate religion throughout all the ‘classes’.

Peer pressure in school
Peer pressure in school to dress with the coolest fashions or have the newest cell phone seems to take a front seat to education. With home schoooling a lot of these frivolous competitions are put back in the back seat – where they truly belong.

Religion
With homeschooling, the parent decides if and how much of their ideologies and beliefs to teach their child. For some parents, this is THE reason why they homeschool. For others, it is just an added benefit. The debate of homeschooling vs public schooling will never end. The best decision is whatever is best for your child and your family. All you can do is learn as much as possible about homeschooling advantages and disadvantages and make an informed decision.

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Easy Record-Keeping for the Reluctant Homeschool Mom!
By Cindy Rushton
http://organization911.com

Record-keeping! Does your hair stand up when you think of record-keeping? Do you begin to grind your teeth? Did you feel like skipping this article just because it seems impossible for “EASY” and “Record-keeping” to ever go together??

Relax. I know that there is not a “one size fits all.” I know that in spite of how hard we may search, there is not a perfect system for every mom! That is OK! My prayer is that if you are in need of some ideas to make a couple areas a little easier or if you have no idea of where to begin, that you will find a few ideas as you come home with us to see how simple record-keeping CAN be. Ready for some quick tips??? Here we go…

–> Find what is mandatory. Every state and school district has differing requirements. Find other homeschool families in your area and see how each of them manages their homeschool records. Find the easiest way possible to meet the requirements. Make it as DOABLE as possible!

–> Choose what works for YOU. Every mom has her favorite method that works JUST for them whether a planner with reproducible pages… a ready to use planner… a simple spiral notebook… binders… a filing cabinet… computer… etc, etc, etc! Before you consider anything else, look at who you are. What makes you feel more comfortable? What helps you to feel more accomplishment? Whether formal or informal… detailed or not even written down… YOUR way is the best way! Decide what works best for you!

–> Document daily! Don’t let it build up. Jot it down throughout the day. When my children were little, I kept one journal for everything. I kept it out on my desk so I could just jot down what we were doing as we did it. It was amazing how much easier that was than even waiting till the end of the day. As they got older, I transferred this process to them. I had always made it easy. So, transferring it to them did not overwhelm them. I began this process by letting them keep up with their reading log. The rest was easy after that. They now keep their records just like I used to. At the end of the month and again at the end of the semester I go through making sure that everything is on target and also look to see how well they are keeping up with my overall schedule. Without good records, this would be impossible.

–> Keep all of their work in Notebooks. We keep ALL of our written work in a binder of some sort. Then, we take it further… we keep ANYTHING that can be pressed in binders. Anything left?? Yes! Then, we take pictures and keep THEM in the binders! (Hehe!) ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that can be studied can also be kept in Notebooks in some way. We keep anything that would expand a study and build a great collection of information on topics we study… great quotes, definitions about a subject being studied, diagrams, character sketches, pictures, coloring sheets, art prints, poems, Bible verses, narrations, Bible word studies, on and on! Our main reason for Notebooking in this way is that if our children are going to spend their time DOING something, it ought to be worthwhile enough for us to KEEP IT. This teaches them to value their work, do a great job on all they do, and that ALL areas of life are truly educational.

–> Scrapbook events, activities, fun studies, and projects! Scrapbooks/Yearbooks for what are REALLY doing throughout our school year is not only fun, but it helps to preserve the memories of ALL that we are doing in our family. There are just some things that our children are learning that are impossible to document without scrapbooking! Get out of the old “school” box and really document your family’s education. You won’t be sorry!

–> Use planning sheets designed JUST for homeschooling. Don’t let commercial record-keepers keep you from homeschooling with a lifestyle of learning! Look for printable pages that are designed just for the homeschool mom. You can find great options everywhere!

–> Buy resources that are designed just for you. We have an entire line of resources that we now have available through our bookstore. Check out our Make Your Own Brain-in-a-Binder Printables. It is designed specifically for the homeschool mom who wants pages designed for every area that must be balanced in the busy homeschool family. Also, check out other great resources by homeschool writers and even pages that are included in many homeschool books (we always try to include pages that we use in our books). Now, you may be like me. You may prefer to make your own planning pages. That is perfectly fine! You can tailor your pages to fit exactly with your family needs. Just be sure to use what works for you!

–> At the end of the school year, file all records together. This may seem to be a mute point, however this will save your brain! At the end of our school year, I gather everything together and add them into one big binder. I date the binder and store it away for my children’s permanent file. Be sure to pull all of your records together into a set and safe place. When you get discouraged along the way, just look back and see how far you have come—it will be a HUGE blessing!

Ok…So, Are You Ready?

So, what about you? Still scared about Record-keeping? Why not think through YOUR OWN way? Try your spin. Use what is easy, simple, and will give you more time with your little ones while helping to keep things in place for you. Most of all, find a way that can capture all of these precious memories of these days for you so you will have them to look back upon tomorrow! Have fun! EVEN with Record-keeping!

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Many parents think they cannot teach their child because they don’t have the necessary teaching credentials. This is just not true. If you have the desire and complete commitment to help your child succeed, you can ensure your child has the education needed to become a productive adult.

One of the many advantages of homeschooling is that you determine your child’s curriculum. You have the control to incorporate your own religious and moral beliefs into your teaching agenda. You, therefore, have more control over shaping your child’s core values.

However, successfully homeschooling your child demands the following two requirements from the parents. First, a true desire to teach your child. Second, a willingness to put forth the effort to make it happen.

The worst reason to home school your child is out of a sense of duty or sense of religious obligation. Although both are morally good reasons, without a true desire to educate your child, homeschooling will not succeed. Without desire, a parent will not have the determination to put forth the extra effort when times get tough.

With the many different learning styles and discipline problems, a public school teacher just cannot spend the individual time with each child that is necessary to bring out that child’s best. Homeschooling can help children to blossom and bring out a child’s full potential like nothing else can.

A distinct disadvantage to public schooling is that everything is preplanned, from the curriculum to the amount of time devoted to certain subjects. If students are intrigued about a certain area, very little time can be expended to go more in depth. On the other end of that, if students don’t understand a subject, very little extra time can be devoted to ensuring the entire class understands.

On the other hand, homeschooling allows you to adjust your teaching schedule and curriculum to your child. Need more time to understand a concept? No problem. Did a particular teaching style not work with a concept? You have the time to try another one, and another one, until your child understands. Or did you find a subject that truly intrigues your child? Let them explore it longer and just adjust your schedule. Or better yet, find a way to bring in other subjects based on what is interesting to your child. Does your child like spiders, but is not too fond of reading. Find books on spiders that they will enjoy reading and learning about.

So are there any disadvantages to homeschooling? Of course there are. The biggest is probably the amount of time you must devote to it. It is up to you to figure out your child’s curriculum, for record keeping, and for learning and applying different teaching styles. But the education that your child will receive will be well worth all the effort.

Learn all you can about homeschooling vs public schooling, and then make the best choice for your child and your family.

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The parent decides what religious ideologies, if any, to present to their child and how to roll that into the homeschool curricula. With some curricula, religion is woven throughout every lesson. With others, it is a separate subject.

Do you believe God created earth and man? Or Darwin’s theory of evolution and the big-bang theory? Whatever your belief, with home schooling, that is what you can teach your child.

Religion probably gets the most attention with the homeschooling vs public school debate, with socialization running in a close second. Although some argue that parents are not allowing their child to interact with children of other faiths, and thus develop tolerances to other types of people, homeschooling with religious-based curriculum is really no different from parochial schools, with those regards.

Another argument is that the education will be more narrowly focused, and not allow for free thought and exploring other avenues of possibilities other than religious. And perhaps this can be a problem for a very small percentage of families. But that is true of just about everything. There are always going to be extremists – in education, religion, politics – and really nothing you can say or do will change their intense feelings. Just because a very small percentage of a group, for example, animal rights activists, go to the extreme in some of their protests, does not mean the group as a whole is not worthwhile and fighting for a worthy cause. So is the same for homeschooling.

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Classroom curriculums in public schools are based on the average child. By definition, this means that while half the class gets ‘it’ in the alloted time frame, the rest of the class is either bored (because they got ‘it’ a long time ago) or frustrated (because they just don’t get ‘it’).

So some kids will never fully understand the material, while others get so bored they lose interest. With home schooling, your child has your individual attention (or divided amongst their siblings) and you can take 5 minutes, 5 hours, or even 5 days to work with your child until they understand the material.

So if your kid gets ‘it’ right away, there is no need to labor over the concept – just go on. If they don’t, you can try a different approach or different teaching technique, and no one else suffers.

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First, you have total control over the curriculum being taught – you select the desired curriculum, be it religious-based or not. From there, the freedom that homeschooling provides allows you to customize that curriculum to your child.

If your child loves everything about the sea, for example, you can tailor the curriculum all around the oceans and seas. Have math correspond to things about the ocean, from counting sharks for early elementary years, to calculating SCUBA dive time tables for older kids. If you really think about a subject, there are so many ways to incorporate several subjects.

The trick is finding something that grabs their interest and explore it as far as you can. You can incorporate in your child’s reading, dive into some history of the subject, perform science experiments around their interest! Who doesn’t love to learn about their passions?

Second, you decide how to teach your curriculum. After all, you know your child better than any teacher ever will. You know their strengths and weaknesses. Home schooling allows you to adjust the curriculum schedule to your child’s advantage – something that is just impossible in public schools.

If your child excels in the math concept you are teaching, but is having a hard time understanding a language arts concept, you can adjust their schedule to allow for more time on the struggling concept. Or, at the other end, while they are easily grasping a subject, delve deeper into that concept.

The freedom of your curriculum is just another of the great advantages of homeschooling, especially with children who are struggling in a subject – it is much easier to learn something if you are interested in something about it.

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This also means if your child participates in an outside activity, be it sports, music, theater, etc, you can adjust their academic schedule around this activity.

Another way in which schedule flexibility comes into play is if you decide to take a field trip to learn more about a subject. And while on that field trip, you can explore deeper things your child finds interesting – thus further increasing your child’s thirst for knowledge. You are just not kept to such a rigid structure as your child would be in public school. The structure is yours to control.

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