So standard disclaimer, I’ve only been homeschooling officially since 2007 and I only have four school age kids and none of them are grown to verify I’m capable of raising a civilized, kind, well educated person so take what I say with a grain of salt!

I’m chatting with more families exploring this wild and crazy world of school at home. If you are considering homeschooling or you’ve decided and you’re wondering what it entails, here’s my personal take on getting started.

First, kindergarden is optional in Texas and school isn’t mandatory until your child is six years old. The beauty of homeschooling is that it’s custom fit for YOUR child so if you have a kid turning six in January (as I did this year) then you don’t need to worry about “starting” homeschool with the academic year or starting right at five years old. Start when your child and you feel ready! There doesn’t have to be any official kick off, though start of the school year traditions can be fun and here are some of our ideas – link. Play around with your schedule and do what feels best to you! Do you want lessons 5x week, 3x a week, standard school year, year round, six weeks on and two weeks off? YOU get to decide!

Second, you’re going to start some things that seem wonderful and buy some books you’re sure will be perfect and then you’ll find out they are NOT perfect and things will flop and you’ll kick yourself for the time and money invested in them. DON’T KICK YOURSELF. Homeschooling isn’t just about your child learning, it’s about YOU learning. Along the way we will all make mistakes and bad purchases and grand plans that fall flat on their faces and that’s okay. Laugh, pick yourself up, share with your child the learning process, and move forward. Don’t feel bad if something doesn’t work out, just adjust and keep going. It’s all a learning process.

Though this is why I highly advise you to talk with other parents about what programs or books they are using and explore them yourself if at all possible before you invest your money. Or purchase from places with friendly return policies. This post has some of our curriculum ideas for K and 1st grade (though we use many of them for all grade levels.)

Third, remember that your child’s learning style and your teaching style may not be the same and there’s going to be some bumps along the way as you find a good style that works for you BOTH. What is perfect for one child may also be a bore to another, so when purchasing curriculums consider if it’s adaptable to a variety of learning styles (auditory, visual, etc?) and if it can be used with more than one of your children. There’s a learning curve, so take your time and explore what style fits you both best.

Fourth, children in school do NOT spend the entire day sitting at a desk learning and your child shouldn’t, either. Think about how much time is spent with crowd control, moving between classes, sharpening pencils, listening to instructions, discipline, waiting in line at the bathroom or fountain, lunch, recess, worksheets or busy work, etc, etc. Even adults at work don’t spend the entire time actually working, so don’t think that homeschool means hours a day sitting at a table reading and writing. Homeschooling is happen all day, whether you are sitting at a desk with a book or not.

Fifth and along those lines, learning happens with our entire body – not just our eyes and ears. Your child learns through movement, through touch, through exploration with all of their senses. The younger the child the more crucial this is that their whole body be able to engage. Especially for kinesthetic learners! One of my kids memorizes best when he’s sitting on a yoga ball bouncing in place. If he has to sit still at a desk then all of his energy is focused on that task – sitting still – and he’s not able to learn as well! Sometimes we do need children to sit and focus and we practice that as well with certain tasks, but little ones need to MOVE! Be flexible in your approach and let little ones wiggle, it may just help them focus better!

Sixth, Texas requires students to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and good citizenship. There’s no testing, no reporting, no submission of work. It’s delightfully open, and I presume you are teaching your child good citizenship whether you homeschool or not. For our family we consider language (writing, reading, grammar, speech, etc) and mathematics to be our core and the kids do each of those three times a week. Though really, we’re reading to them/with them every day! But for official sit down language lessons and math it’s 3x a week, going up to 4 or 5 times a week by later elementary. But so long as you teach your child reading and writing (and to be kind!) then you’re doing great. Everything else is a bonus! Not that you should ignore the rest of those things, but you’ve got time to add them in as you find your rhythm.

Our “specials” we do one a day – art, music, literature, science, social studies. Those again will increase as the kids get older and piano lessons are once a week, with daily practice. Throw in things like therapy (speech & OT 2x week) and adaptive PE (2x week) plus swimming (1x week) and cub scouts & activity days, plus our weekly co-op and you can see the schedule fills up fast! We also like playdates with friends and park dates and going to see cousins and suddenly fitting in those three days a week of basic lessons can be tricky. 🙂 (Which is why we laugh so hard when someone asks if we’re worried about whether our kids will get socialization if they’re homeschooled. I’m worried they’re socializing so much we’re not getting any book work done!)

Seventh, homeschooling does not mean textbooks. We do use textbooks for our math (Saxon) and we’ve used a variety of programs for language and history, but we try to avoid standard school type books. We want the children to learn about the world through a variety of sources and children engage with a library book and (as Charlotte Mason says) “living books” more than they do with a dry school book. Which means watching that Billy Nye the Science Guy DVD and then having them explain with great glee about the gross bugs does indeed count as a science lesson, especially when they run outside to dig in the yard and try to collect their own bugs! Spending an hour at the table finger painting IS an art lesson, calculating how many scoops of sugar to add to the cookies while reading the recipe is math, tracing the continents on the globe with their finger is geography. So at the end of the day when you feel like you didn’t sit down and formally teach them something from a textbook remember that they were already learning. Children are always learning. Fill their home with books and supplies for imagination and exploration and they will learn!

Eight – make peace with the mess. It’s not going to go away until the children grow and leave and then we’ll be sad and miss them and their messes. Change your expectations of a clean home, remember that teaching them how to do chores is part of “good citizenship” and realize you’ll only have them with you a short time so don’t stress the chaos. You may find that when you begin to homeschool you are forced to become more organized than you have ever been before. It’s a blessing! You’ll also find your priorities shifting as you decide what deserves energy and attention and what can be let go.

Ninth, connect with others. Whether it’s through online support groups, local co-ops, a homeschooling friend across the country, connect with others. There will be days you wonder what in the world made you think this was a good idea and you need a shoulder to lean on and a friend to cheer you on and let you vent. Ideally you’ll find others in your community to be friends for you and for your children! Reach out of your comfort zone and go find them. When we began our homeschool journey we were in a new city and knew no one. We prayed to connect with homeschooling friends and opportunities presented themselves. Sometimes it was hard to go attend meetings and find other families when I’m not an outgoing person! But we made friends that have become family to us and I’m so thankful for them!

Tenth, and final suggestion! Your child is young, and you have MANY years of school ahead of you. You do NOT need to cram it all in during the first year. What do you remember from your kindergarden curriculum? Do you remember what you were taught in third grade? Chances are you know you learned the basics of language and grammar, you learned arithmetic, perhaps you recall some specials you liked (music, art, history?) But no one expects a child to have perfect recall from elementary school, which is why you cover all of those same materials again in junior high, then again in high school, then again in college. Some curriculums are designed this way, covering the same topics over four years then rotating through them again in greater depth. Think of it this way – K through 4th, 5th through 8th, 9th through 12th. If your child is in that first age group then you’ve got two more rounds to cover any topic you forgot! You don’t need to cover the entire history of the world and the scientific method and biology and chemistry and physics and art history and music appreciation and… you get my point. YOU HAVE TIME. Focus on the basics and the rest will come.

Here are some ideas for Circle Time & Activities for Little Ones.

I do not love Texas summers, but I sure love the fall, winter and spring weather! Our summer is like winter in the north, everyone gets cabin fever from being inside! We avoid trips out after 9am (seriously, we shop painfully early in the summer) and we consolidate trips and avoid getting the kids in and out of the car because it’s dangerously hot. It’s all about inside activities, and we get a lot of lessons done!

But then autumn comes with this gorgeous weather AND our swimming, PE program and co-op all start again. Things shift around with our schedule and lessons happen less consistently. We’ve been back in our new school year (which really means nothing as we school year round) for about a month and we’re already having a week of virtually no lessons (due to Mom’s appointments and kid playdates.) I was feeling bad about it until I reminded myself this is just part of the natural ebb and flow of our year, and it’s another reason we love the flexibility of homeschooling!

Though to make myself feel better and recognize we ARE getting work done I looked at where they are in math: C’s on Saxon 65:79, Mo’s on 3:42, B’s on 1:89, and E’s on 1:23. (So B’s finishing up the first grade book while E’s starting it.) So technically they are all just where they should be (or further ahead!) seeing as they have only just begun grades 4, 3, 1 and kindergarden. We’re on chapter 4 of our Story of the World II, we’re working on a Shakespeare play and Black Beauty and about to start Sarah, Plain and Tall with our co-op. The kids were at the science museum IMAX to see a dolphin movie and we’re watching science movies, reading books, and most importantly they are spending tons and tons of time in the yard exploring! We are loving our new Great Musicians book/curriculum (comes with CD and poster!) and our Great Artists Explained, piano lessons are going well, and the kids are making their own art.

We’re spending some time refining cursive handwriting and introducing it to the younger ones, and at their request we’re also working on Kid Power program. We are reading a ton, as always, with frequent library trips and the kids working on their Braum’s and Pizza Hut reading programs. C’s working on journaling and his blog, Mo and B are learning/reviewing their parts of speech and grammar. Everyone’s getting time in the kitchen helping with meal planning, cooking and chores. Add in the therapy schedules, PE, swimming, co-op, and playdates and it’s a pretty crazy week! But a good reminder to me that we are getting a LOT done, even if math and language lessons may not happen as frequently. 🙂

I think my issue is that I feel like mathematics and language are the main subjects and if we’re not doing those at least 3x a week I feel like we’ve not “done school” – which is silly, as the kids are doing math and language every single day even if they aren’t sitting down with textbooks. Reminding myself they are learning and it’s okay to skip lessons sometimes to go outside and enjoy the weather. On that note, putting slippers on the baby and heading into the yard to join my kids who wisely are already out there enjoying the sunshine!