Children often say they don’t like school, but you might not ever hear your children make that statement if you homeschool. Homeschooling has many benefits over sending your child to public school. Besides being able to attend school in your pajamas, your child will have much more freedom to learn than their public school counterparts will have.

One of the things that can make homeschooling fun for children is the ability to take multiple field trips throughout the year. Whereas most public school students are lucky to take one field trip a year, if they even get to take that, homeschool students have the freedom to go on as many as their parent or support group can plan.

Field trip possibilities are endless, limited only to by the imagination of the planner, and funds you’re willing to see leave your wallet. Some common field trips are museums, zoos, and botanical gardens. Did you know you can also make a field trip out of a trip to a Krispy Kreme Donut store? Yep, you sure can. You can also visit police departments, fire departments, and local newspapers. In fact, if you can find someone willing to allow it, you can make a field trip out of almost any business you can think of.

Besides taking several field trips a year, another thing that makes homeschooling fun for kids is the ability to learn what interests them and in a way that suits their learning style. While they will still have to learn the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics, they may choose to concentrate on robots, dinosaurs, or some composer or artist. And one of the benefits of homeschooling is that you can combine coursework into Unit Studies that enable the student to cover the basics all while concentrating on that one subject.

It seems that art and music are all but missing from public schools as educational budgets are slashed each year. If you homeschool, and your child likes either art or music, you can spend as much time on those subjects as you’d like. In fact, you can combine art and music appreciation with many other subjects. Allow your child to try something they’ve never done before. You have that option if you homeschool, and you don’t have to get permission from the principal to do so.

Many children learn best by handling items, whether math manipulatives, building blocks, or cooking utensils. If you homeschool, you can allow your child to use those manipulatives if doing so will help them to learn. In public schools, children’s learning styles often aren’t taken into consideration since teachers have to teach to a whole group and can’t address students individually. By allowing your child to learn in the way that is easiest for them, homeschooling will be much more fun for them.

While it’s unlikely that your homeschooled children will say they “love” school, there are things that you can do to help them enjoy it more. By allowing them to learn to their strengths, concentrating on subjects that interest them, and taking them on field trips, your child will enjoy going to “school” much better.

Homeschooling, while it affords you certain freedoms when educating your child, is not always easy. But there are things that you can do to make homeschooling easier for yourself as a parent. The following tips may help make your job as a homeschooling parent a little easier.

• If in doubt, look on the Internet. If you are in doubt about your method of homeschooling, use the internet to seek another method. In fact, you can use the internet to help you in regard to nearly everything homeschool related. Do you need something to keep your little one busy while you’re working with an older child? The internet has coloring sheets galore, as well as worksheets, mazes, and puzzles.
• Choose a complete curriculum. Complete curriculums will also make homeschooling easier on you as a parent. Instead of having to search through multiple catalogs to find just the right curriculum, choose a complete curriculum. Not only will it save you time, it may even save you money, in the long run.
• Cut yourself some slack. Don’t expect yourself to be the perfect teacher. Unless you have an education degree, you most likely will make mistakes along the way. Don’t beat yourself up about them. Learn from the mistakes and try not to repeat them again.
• Allow your children to help themselves. You can’t be expected to know everything, so if your child wants to learn something you don’t know, give them the freedom to follow their interests. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that they learn more on their own than they did while you were more involved.
• Seek the help from others. When in doubt about anything dealing with homeschooling, seek the advice from those who have been homeschooling for longer than you. Even though they may not have dealt with exactly what you’re dealing with, chances are they will be able to give you advice or point you in the right direction. Take advantage of your homeschooling peers’ offers of help, there might be a time where you’ll be able to return the favor.
• Online communities are available. If you don’t know people that homeschool in your local area, there are literally hundreds of homeschooling communities on the Internet. Search online for homeschooling groups or forums. They can be found in every state, and even some outside of the United States. You may have to register to join a homeschool group or forum, but you can be as active as you like and remain anonymous if you like.

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, one of the reasons most people choose to homeschool is the ease and freedom associated with it. When you have difficulty, however, you may feel as if you need help. The above tips, when followed, can help make homeschooling a little bit easier.

What are some of your tips? Please share your comments below.

Homeschooling and the Internet – many consider the two to be a match made in heaven. In fact, those who homeschool would be hard pressed to do so without the Internet. The following seven ways explain how to use the Internet with homeschooling, but there are many more.

1. Find state laws concerning homeschooling. One of the first ways the Internet can help with homeschooling is by giving parents access to homeschool laws for their state. Knowing the laws will prepare homeschool families to meet their state’s requirements so they can comply with them.

2. If you’re new to homeschooling, you’ll most likely need to have support during the year. The Internet is a great place to find support. Not only can you find online homeschooling groups, but your local group will probably use the Internet to communicate, especially if the members are spread out over a large area.

3. Purchasing curriculum is a major undertaking every year. Use the Internet first to research curriculum and compare prices before buying. Besides going to the curriculum manufacturer’s websites, look for used curriculum on places such as eBay and vegesource. If you purchase materials online it will be delivered right to your door instead of having to drive around trying to find it.

4. Once you have your curriculum, you may want to supplement it with handouts, worksheets, and puzzles. These are easily accessible on the Internet. And, most of the materials you find on the Internet are either free, or very inexpensive. Use common search engines like Google, Yahooligans, or Ask Jeeves Kids to find the items you need.

5. Some children are interested in music and would like to learn more about it. Resources found online would be great for this child. Not only can you find free sheet music online for nearly any instrument, you can also learn about the composers who wrote that music. There are even websites that can teach your child how to create music.

6. If your child is looking for specific information about their favorite subject? You can run to the library, or if you have Internet access, your child should be able to find anything they could ever hope to learn online. A couple of good research sites would include Discovery.com, HistoryChannel.com, and PBS.com.

7. Does your child need to learn something that you don’t feel comfortable teaching? You could either find out if there are private tutors for that subject in your area, or you may be able to find an online tutorial.

As you can see, the Internet can be extremely useful if you homeschool. These seven ideas for using the Internet are not exhaustive. All it takes is a little bit of imagination and you’ll be able to find other ways that you can use it, as well. Take some time, do some searching, and you’ll see that homeschooling and the Internet are indeed a match made in heaven.

What are other ways that the internet can help with homeschooling? Leave a comment.

Everyone who decides to homeschool their children will run into at least one person, maybe more, that tell them they shouldn’t homeschool. The decision to homeschool, isn’t an easy one to make, and often isn’t popular. However, the choice in how your child is educated is entirely up to you, so you need to decide ahead of time how you will deal with homeschooling nay-sayers.

One of the quintessential arguments of a homeschooling nay-sayer is that you’re not qualified to teach your own child, regardless if you have a Bachelor of Arts in Education or not. To this argument, I say poppy-cock! If you’re a parent, you’ve already been teaching your child since birth. Who was it that taught your child to talk, walk, and use the restroom by themselves? It was you and your spouse, of course. So, if you could teach them those skills, why wouldn’t you be qualified to teach them how to read or do math?

Besides being “unqualified,” other nay-sayers will tell you that teaching a child is too difficult. What I find even more difficult is the thought of having to teach with 18-20 five and six year olds several subjects all in one day. That is a difficult job; teaching one child to read is not. You can do it!

Another argument you might hear if you’re trying to decide if you want to homeschool is that the children need socialization. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I want my children to learn all of the things they learn at school. Of course, all of the lessons aren’t given by the teachers. Many are learned as the result of being with other children.

To this argument, I say that homeschooled children are better socialized than 95% of the children in public schools. Besides being able to deal with their peers, homeschooled children can carry on intelligent conversations with people of all ages. Public schools create artificial societies and these societies are not true to life. Besides public education, there isn’t a time at any other point in your life that you’re going to deal with people all your age. It just doesn’t happen, and it won’t happen, either.

These are just a few of the comments that you’ll likely hear as you are researching the possibility of homeschooling your child. All I can say is that it’s okay if you don’t know everything you’re told you need to know. Take that as an opportunity to learn right along side your child. Since you want what is best for your child, you will be giving them the opportunity to learn at their own pace and concentrate on the things they are interested in learning.

Ultimately, it is your choice on how to educate your child. Although the nay-sayers may be loud, be polite and listen to what they have to say. Listen, and then choose to ignore them. Give your child the opportunity to love the learning process. Learning is not a destination, it’s a journey. Let them enjoy the trip along the way.

You’ve done it! You’ve made the choice to homeschool your children. But now what? There are different methods of homeschooling: school-at-home, Charlotte Mason, classical, and unschooling, to name a few. If you unschool are you really homeschooling, or is it something else entirely?

Unschooling, as it’s often called, is one alternative to public school and even homeschooling. Also known as natural learning, independent learning, or child-led learning, unschooling is an approach that flies in the face of traditional thought when it comes to educating your child. So what exactly is unschooling, and how does it differ from homeschooling?

The biggest difference between unschooling and homeschooling is in the mindset. Where homeschooling is basically concerned with your child learning what it normally taught in public schools, unschoolers have a completely different way of looking at their children and at life. Unschooling is based on mutual trust between parent and child and in finding what works best for them.

Homeschoolers might choose to use a specific curriculum as a base for their teaching. Unschoolers, however, may not even use a pre-planned curriculum at all. Unschoolers believe that children learn at all times, and that what they need to learn doesn’t necessarily have to come out of a set curriculum.

Another term for unschooling is delight-driven. It’s not that a child is given complete freedom from learning; it means that the child is allowed to learn the things that interest them instead of what an institution says they should know. Most often those who unschool learn those things that they will be using in life rather than just what is in a book.

It may seem to an outsider looking in that an unschooler isn’t actually doing school work at all. In fact, unschoolers believe that living life is the best education a child can get, so they aren’t quite as concerned about what others think. Of course, if you live in a state that has more requirements for homeschoolers, it might seem a little daunting to prove that actual learning is taking place.

Since homeschooling can take on so many faces, it seems that unschooling fits right in after all. All homeschooling parents want the opportunity for their children to learn in an environment where they are encouraged to grow, develop, and flourish. What better way than to allow your child to learn the things that interest them? In doing so, they’ll pick up the things that traditional education believes they need to know.