Homeschooling How-To for the First Year

Homeschooling How-To for the First Year:
especially aimed for a first timer with a child in kindergarten


These notes were written for a friend of mine who is seriously considering homeschooling, and is based on her questions. Therefore, this is geared more towards the Kindergarten year of school for first-time homeschoolers. She is doing something I highly recommend, which is to start homeschooling the year before the child would naturally begin grade K in the public school system. During this year you can teach Preschool, Kindergarten, or a mix of both, depending on the child’s readiness level. This gives you a year to have a full homeschooling program in your home, lots of time for trial and error to see what works for you and what you like, with no risk, since your child will love the learning anyway. The next year, you’ll know how it went. You’ll know if you want to continue homeschooling, or if you want to put them in public school. Then, at least, you’ll know what’s right for your family. It’ll be a fun year. Nothing can go wrong.

For reference, here is my current homeschooling webpage. I will refer to parts of this page later in this article.


School Day Time Schedule: hours of the day, length of school, consistency

Average homeschoolers do schoolwork for about 4 hours a day at older ages, not counting extra curricular activities. This is equivalent to the amount of actual schoolwork done during a high school day. However, younger children won’t need nearly this much. For early grades, I do about three hours, but for Kindergarten, it’s more like 1 to 1.5 hours, sometimes pieced together throughout the morning or the day. In this time you could include art projects, nature walks, and other activities, though sometimes they will bring your time to a higher total. Play with other children, though important to homeschoolers, would be in addition to this total.

Consistency is nice, and appreciated by most children. However, I find that having the opportunity to change the schedule to best serve the needs of the family is one of the best parts of homeschooling. So, unless your child is one of the rare ones who absolutely needs a time schedule, don’t worry about this too much.

Every homeschool is different, but for me, I’ve found that approximate times are plenty for us. We start at approximately 10am, and go until approximately 1pm (for a 1st grader). We can start earlier or later, some days we do just the bare essentials, then go on a field trip or run lots of errands. Other days, we may start later in the day, but then we do school-related activities into the late afternoon. Most people tend to prefer mornings because the children are more calm and more receptive to learning. This you’ll have to decide based on your children’s and your personalities.

Some states have a rule of 180 days of school per year. Texas has no specifics like that in its homeschooling law, but it’s still a nice guideline. I find that I base my homeschooling calendar loosely on that of the local school district. I used to want true year-round school, but the summer months brought heat and fatigue that really encouraged a break in schooling. Now, I start a few weeks early, and either end with the district or a week or two later. I take a shorter Winter Break, and my Spring Break is usually on the “wrong” week, but we take more vacations during the year. For example, whenever we have a kid’s birthday, or the grandparents come to visit, there’s a week of no school. It’s nice to be able to adjust the schedule to the family’s needs. It’s also nice to be able to go on vacation during non-peak times, which we always do now.

Keep in mind when schooling a Kindergartener or Preschooler not to be too hard on them, not even respecting the 180 rule. This is for two reasons, both of which are based on the fact that younger children can only sit and listen so long, and that they learn so much from play and interacting with their environment. It would be a big loss to take away that opportunity from a 4 and 5 year old. Be sure to give them lots of time to investigate things that are interesting to them. They will learn more teaching themselves (through play) at this age then they will from being taught. Anyway, the two reasons are that 1) until recently, both Preschool and Kindergarten were both only half-day classes, going maybe 3 or 4 hours total, which included nap time and snack time; and 2) no state requires mandatory schooling of a child until they are either 6 or 7, depending on the state. So, those 4 and 5 year olds could easily just have school 4 days a week if you wanted, or less. There’s no need to push it at this age.

So, to sum up, the schedule is loose, and completely up to you. Some homeschoolers have certain subjects on certain days of the week. Usually this starts in 1st grade, when there are more “subjects” to cover. I tend to keep track of where we are in various subjects in my head, so I switch back and forth every few days or weeks to keep it all balanced. Plus, you never know how long your child may have to stick on one topic until it is grasped. So, I don’t like to plan the specifics too far into the future. I just plan what I want them to know by the end of the year.



Annual Curriculum and Expectations by the End of the Year

Every July, I create a list of specifics, of what I expect my child to have learned, grasped, done, or understood before I will allow them to graduate to the next grade level. I stick to normal grade level requirements based on my children’s ages, but some families with gifted students may wish to use requirements from grade levels above the child’s age level. Only the parents will know. With our children, I only require that they at least remain at grade level. They then excel in some areas, such as reading and science for Alex, while other areas, such as history and handwriting, I’m happy to just keep him at par with his peers. To me, the beauty of homeschooling is that you can do the same job as public schools, but more personalized, and in less time; and hey, if the child gets to learn something extra, something he’s interested in, such as chemistry for my son, then that’s all to his benefit. This is because, then, in addition to an education, you’ve given your child a lifelong love of learning, the knowledge of how to guide his own studies, and advanced learning in subjects that very well may become his source of income as an adult. All of these things are very rare in today’s public high school graduates.

My list of specifics and expectations starts with Rebecca Rupp’s book Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool through High School. Also, here in Austin, you can get the Curriculum requirements per grade per subject for AISD at this website. I take these lists and modify them as needed, removing things my child already knows, adding things I think they can understand this year and will benefit from knowing, and also adding other things, such as social skills, religious learning, and personal milestones such as bathing, brushing own teeth, etc.

For the first semester, I don’t worry about this list too much, since the books and other sources of learning we will use will naturally cover most of this. Around February, I’ll start checking things off the list, to make sure we are sure to cover each of them. When the books and this list are done, around May, then the school year is done. To see my personal expectations lists for my kids, go here for Kindergarten and here for Preschool. The list I prepared of resources for Kindergarten one year can be found here.


Subjects

At younger ages, which subjects to teach is a little more vague than you would normally think. Here, you can use the curriculum lists mentioned above as a general reference. For kindergarten, they are generally: phonics, reading comprehension, beginning handwriting, listening and speaking, math, measurement, basic history and geography, basic earth science, art and music, and physical games and sports (physical education).
I find that I spend much longer at these earlier ages on the basics of pre-reading (phonics, letter recognition and letter sounds) and early math (counting, sorting) than I do on some other things. But in this grade, everything is so hands on and down to earth that it’s easy to do one thing with the child and have it count for many subjects.

I don’t think anyone covers all subjects every day, or even every week. I tend to cover things like reading and math regularly, with science, geography, story retelling, handwriting practice, and art happening at semi-regular intervals.

Science at this age can be pretty much covered in nature walks and kitchen play. I tend to spend a while planting seeds, talking about what a seed needs to grow, and then watching it grow while caring for it. Prisms and rainbows are good, gravity and weigh, light and heavy, light and dark, cold and hot, thermometers, ice turning into water. Names and details of some animals, with pictures and action and sound effects. Basic weather such as sunny day, rainy day, cloudy day, and how to dress for each. Seasons are good to go over, though I find they won’t remember the names of the seasons until they are almost six years old, but it can’t hurt to try. That’s it. Cover those things slowly, in the afternoons perhaps, throughout a whole year, and you’ve done science. J


Budgets

The cost of homeschooling, is, like everything else in this job, widely variable and different for every family. For us, it is an expense, but not a large one. Our main costs are internet-purchased workbooks, reading books, internet subscriptions, music lessons (if any), field trips (though mostly free), and the three or four annual trips I allow myself to the school store Teacher’s Heaven. I have to pace myself and not go too often. Most books and workbooks and paper and supplies I buy in July for the new school year, totaling at, for two kids, about $150-$250. It was at the higher end the first year, since we were just getting started, but since then it’s been a low lower. Lots of supplies can also be found in good but used condition from other homeschooling parents. Then, throughout the year, we have monthly fees to whatever, and occasional trips to get more math manipulatives, posters ($2 at Teacher’s Heaven), or books to read (Borders will give you a 20% discount card to use for a year if you tell them you are a homeschooler!). There are yahoo groups of homeschoolers selling used supplies which is a great source of useful stuff you don’t have to go find. In Austin, the group on Yahoo is called UsedHSStuff. So, the monthly fees for homeschooling two kids are usually below $50. Though, I bought hermit crabs one month, and with supplies that totaled at $100, we blew the budget that month. J

Music lessons are probably the most expensive thing you can pay for in homeschooling, I’ve found. They are usually $20 for 30 minutes. So, now you’ve been warned.

We like to use two websites to help in our schooling, and we have to pay fees for them. Time4Learning.com is something I found a few months ago and is helping us out a lot. The only downside is that K is the first grade level they have, so for a preschooler, it’s about half something they’d use and half something they don’t truly get. I’ve had Sam on this program for half a year now, he being a preschooler, and he’s understanding it all, but I know he’ll forget some of it due to his age, so I’ll probably have him do it again next year when he actually is in Kindergarten, no loss. Alex, being in 1st grade, loves his work. The math is at just the right level, and the reading is usually too easy, but I have him do it anyway so that he can learn those little phonics tidbits I may have forgotten to teach him. You can adjust the grade level for your child at any time. This site is (if I remember correctly) $20/month for one child or $35 for two.

The other website we love is actually two sites: BrainPop.com and its new little sister BrainPopJr.com. We’ve subscribed to BrainPop.com for three years now, and we’re about to sign up for next year. It’s a wonderful site in which they made animated but smart mini-videos on every school subject. They are so informative, and so easy to understand. It’s an amazing resource. BrainPopJr is new so is still free until May 1st, 2007, at which time they will begin charging for it. Be sure to check this out before the free trial time is over! These sites have a one-time fee which allows a full year of access. Because the number of videos available has grown so large, they just raised the prices for these sites. A year of BrainPop Jr. this year will be $95.


Online Resources

Other websites I wanted to mention include local groups and Enchanted Learning.com . this link will take you to the non-subscribers’ site. This site is only $20 a year and provides literally tons of informational and graphic printouts. Subjects range from animals, to science, to holidays, to seasons, to presidents, to cultures, to maps, to letters, to nursery rhymes. It’s a wonderful site which I recommend for any hands-on homeschooler.

In Austin, there are Yahoo groups that can set you up with other homeschooling families in the area, which is a great resource. Austin Area Homeschoolers’ groups are aah-announce, and AAH-Newsletter, and aah-discuss. Hays Area Christian Homeschoolers (HACH) is titled in Yahoo: HACH-Hays_area_Christian_homeschoolers. Personally, I stick with HACH instead of AAH because their meetings in Kyle are closer to me than AAH’s meetings in North Austin. HACH has a great monthly meeting called Smoothing the Way which is created to help new incoming homeschooling parents. What a great resource. They also have a weekly park day, quarterly mother’s nights, occasional curriculum exchanges and sales, occasional group free exchanges of clothing and toys at the park, and a monthly field trip club. The email list can also be used to hook up with sports, music, foreign language, dance, and any other extra-curricular training you may want for your child. On a full day, about 40 families show up to this park day; it is a large and well-run group full of wonderful people. I highly recommend signing up for this group and watching for a while, you can use me and Misty and Jessica as references.

Here’s what my friend Lindy Hayward of HACH says about Smoothing the Way:
Smoothing the Way is an organization I have been involved for several years as a mentor and as a leader. To us leaders, STW is a way to minister to others as they learn to serve the Lord and their families. The whole reason for STW (for those who are not familiar with it) is to provide assistance, support and training to new homeschooling families. Personally, it was invaluable to me and my family as we started in this life-style years ago. I highly recommend it and would love for as many people to take advantage of this opportunity.


Some Popular Curriculum Resources

There are, you’ll find, hundreds of places to buy school books and supplies from. I think this is a good thing. Our capitalist society will sell what the public demands, and it’s clear right now that the public wants great homeschooling resources because companies are producing it more and more every year. Some popular companies that my homeschooling friends and I have used are: Sonlight, Five-in-a-Row, Singapore Math, Apologia, ETA/Cuisenaire, Horizons, Usborne, and Explode the Code. Of course, don’t let me limit you, new products are coming out all the time. I like to take a break from school in the summer and spend a few weeks shopping for what I’ll use in the coming year. The best stuff is online. I only go to local stores for physical supplies, posters, and maybe the occasional workbook, but the good stuff is found online.

I have always combined learning resources from various sources. Sometimes I stick to one source for one or more subjects, but so far I’ve never had just one source for everything. Maybe some people have, but if so, I haven’t met them. Everyone I know combines the best of all worlds in compiling a curriculum.


Husband Involvement

This is a good question, that being, do I have to do this all on my own, or what can I get my husband to do? Most husbands are gone much of the day, but this doesn’t mean they don’t have a responsibility here. Homeschooling is and should be a two-parent decision. Both must agree to do it. It is quite common for one spouse to be reluctant, but then to be turned around in about the first six months. But, I wouldn’t want to go it alone for much more than that. J

I don’t know how too many families do this. I know one family who has school very early in the morning, and on Saturdays, so that the father is there for about half of the schooling. We thought this was great ideally, but it turned out we weren’t that devoted. Our homeschooling has taken the other route, in which I, the wife, am actually in charge of most of it, and I delegate out. I pick usually two specific subjects or topics per week, and tell him to teach them to the kids sometime this week. If there’s nothing of his specialty I need taught that week, I’ll just tell him what we’re doing, and he’ll just go over it. This is nice because it allows the kids to hear it from another source, and from a person with a different perspective and different way of looking at learning that information. Different is good.

I update him at least once a week on how the kids are doing in various subjects. He has meetings with the kids and reviews that information with them at his convenience. Sometimes, we’ll cover something in school that I didn’t understand well, so it was glossed over. This is a perfect time to use that pitch-teacher to fill in and make sure the children get the full knowledge base for that lesson.

In addition to supplementing as needed, there are some categories that are entirely his domain. These are chosen based on the abilities and knowledge of each parent. For example, I get to teach science and reading, which I know inside and out, and he teaches electricity, circuits, and a lot of the math. He’s also completely in charge of cub scout (outdoor) activities such as building, camping, and bike riding.


I hope you’ve enjoyed this little starter course. Have a great first year!
Brooke Hack