Homeschool For Beginners - Where To Start

have my notes give us at the water before I get started because I have a lot to say okay this is the first video of a series of videos that I'm going to do to help the homeschooling moms out there my hope is that if you already are homeschooling mom or you are considering starting this journey this year that I could be a resource for you that I can help you I can help make this easier for you so today this particular video is going to be about starting where do you start I've heard from some of you that you're considering homeschooling they share especially with everything that happened at the end of the school year last year and all of the new requirements that are gonna or could possibly happen in the fall and so you are seriously considering home-school but you have no idea where to start and I completely feel you for me when I started it was really challenging for me to wrap my head around this idea because I didn't know where to start it was really intimidating all I saw were these veteran homeschool moms who had it all together they were in their routine they had their curriculum I wanted to create this video to help the new homeschooling parents so if you have a preschooler at home and you want to start implementing more learning if you have a preschooler that's going to be going into kindergarten and you want to create more structure for them if you have a child who goes to public school and you would like to pull them out to start homeschooling I'm hoping this video will help you as well so I have my notes here because there's so much information I actually let's see here I have like six different points I want to get to in this video okay so first things first you really want to look at the laws in your state every state is completely different I live in Florida here you submit a letter of intent to your County I will put a link in the Bayeux below a site that will share all of the laws and requirements for your particular state so that's the first thing you want to do you want to look into your state guidelines figure out what steps you need to take to legally home-school your child in the state of Florida you don't have to submit a letter of intent until they're six so with Edith my middle daughter even though we did kindergarten last year she wasn't six until May and so I didn't have to submit that letter of intent for her last year so I'll be submitting it at the end of July so that she'll be right at the same time as her older sister who is at the end of July go into the site and look at what the requirements are for your state and that'll start to give you an idea of what steps you need to take to move forward next on my list is really reflecting on what's important to you so why do you want a home school is it to form a bond with your children is it to be able to provide an education that's really cater to your children and their needs is it to help them flourish in areas that they're really passionate about you know you really have to think about that as their teacher you know you have this unique opportunity that you are now going to be with your children and teach your children pour it into your children it's beautiful and it's amazing but it does require some sacrifice some research some time and I do believe in the beginning a lot of that happens alone by yourself the reading that you do and the reason that I think this is so important is because a month from now three months from now three years from now you're gonna possibly be hitting a bumpy road and it's really important to be able to look back on that why and create kind of a mission statement of sorts on why you decided to do this why you decided to home-school your children and so I definitely suggest taking the time to reflect on your mission statement some of the things I wrote down that was important for me was I really wanted to form a really strong relationship with my children especially when they're young I don't know if I'm gonna be homeschooling forever for me being with them and forming a relationship with them and building on their character when they were young was something was so so important to me so that is really high on the list of why I homeschool other reasons I wanted to foster a love of learning by creating this childhood experience where they could have a dialogue with me about what they were going to learn and how they were gonna learn it obviously we do have structure there so I do provide a guideline of what they should be learning but when it comes to things like unit studies or science or crafts I do give them a lot of flexibility that was important to me when I was deciding to home-school I really do believe that when they learn what they want to learn that they retain so much more and they really enjoy learning so another thing in this journey that I think is really important is understanding your styles so what really appeals to you when you think of a homeschool space are you looking for a more traditional setting with workbooks are you looking for a Montessori type homeschool there's also different styles like Riggio Amelia there's Charlotte Mason there's classical so I will put some book recommendations in the description below so that you can read a little bit on these different styles and kind of understand what fits you what fits your family dynamic what works for your teaching style what works for your child's learning style and I'll talk about that more in a little bit but this is so important because as you start to research curriculum they're gonna reference these different styles and so it's a little easier if you kind of know ahead of time okay I really lean towards a Montessori approach when you get to the curriculum picking section which I'll get to in a little bit you will then be able to narrow it down quite a bit now one thing I do want to say about picking the style is that that style can change and I wouldn't be so tied to this particular style because I remember when I started I was very drawn to the Charlotte Mason style and now as things have evolved I notice that I pick and choose things from different styles that really work for us so in the beginning I would feel really disappointed of my home school didn't look like that true Charlotte Mason and so just keep that in mind but I do think it's really important to understand the different styles and that way you can have a little bit of information as a jumping board as we get on through the process really do believe that the commitment that you put into this step the work that you do before you ever look into curriculum before you ever pull your kids out of school or you ever open one workbook is so incredibly important homeschooling isn't what I would call hard the way I because I really believe that anyone who wants to do it could do it but what homeschooling requires is sacrifice and it does require dedication and so you really researching and understanding your why and your purpose and understanding your strengths and what leads you to home-school is going to give you this foundation that you'll be able to build off of as you grow as a homeschool teacher as a homeschool family and I think it's really really important because you know you don't just wake up one morning and decide you know I'm gonna homeschool and it just happens like that this is definitely something takes a lot of commitment I do believe if you do the work that you can provide your child an incredible incredible education notice I haven't even gotten a curriculum yet that will come but there are some things I do feel that are so much more important than just deciding like what subjects you're going to teach or where you get your curriculum you know that so third on my list would be to find a community and this can be done several different ways you can join a group on Facebook based on your location you can join a group on Facebook based on your style like Charlotte Mason style you can research just from like a simple Google search or and Facebook groups different coops in your area we do attend several different coops we have a co-op that meets once once a month for a full day of learning and the parents kind of take different responsibilities and teach different lessons and that's really fun because not only do the children get to interact but the other homeschooling moms can interact and then my children also go to a drop-off style co-op where they attend theater classes performing arts and music classes for several hours a week and so if you look into it there are so many resources for you you wouldn't even believe how many resources there are you you essentially could find a co-op for anything and you really have to determine what your needs are and what you want your day to look like because I know for me when I first started out it felt a little bit intimidating and overwhelming to kind of join into these groups I was getting pulled away from home every single day where I really needed to focus on building the structure and routine in my home so you really have to figure out what is important to you but my main advice would be to find something even if it's just an online group even if it's just to other moms that you meet with once a month without any structured lessons or play it's important for your children to have those friends that they meet with continuously and I would argue that it's even more important for you homeschooling can be a very isolating journey but it doesn't have to be that's your choice so I would advise you to find a few homeschool moms that you can confide in that you can ask questions that you can talk to and open up about your struggles open up about your successes having the community that comes with a co-op or joining a group or having homeschool families other homeschool families that you're friends with it's not just about socialization there's so much more that comes from that support that comes from that type of relationship there is accountability that comes that type of relationship and all of those things really really help you be successful when it comes to homeschooling so make sure that you go on to Facebook or you Google search or you find people here on social media that can be your support system as you start off on this journey we're at number four and we're finally getting to the part about how you pick what you're going to teach how you choose curriculum how you figure out what's gonna work for your family now notice this is number four on my list because those other things are so so important and it really speaks to homeschooling and what it means to me and that yes it is important that my girls learn to read and write and understand math and have a very well-rounded education but it's so much more than that and so that's why the curriculum choosing comes at number four on this list and you might feel differently other homeschool moms watching this video might feel differently that's how I feel that's just my personal opinion and so I just feel that this is kind of the way you have to look at it when you're starting to plan it out but now here we are this is probably what most of your questions are about what am I going to teach my child know that I am homeschooling so the first thing that you need to think about is what type of learner your child is so I'll put a link in the description so that you can go and assess your child your children because all of your children might be different my children are very very different and you can see what type of learner they're and when I say what type of learner I'm talking about a kinesthetic learner so like a child who likes to do things hands-on versus an auditory versus a visual so the reason that's so important is because there are literally thousands of different curriculum out there thousands and I think that's what makes it so intimidating when you start to look into homeschooling expose you're like where do I start like there's so many options and so buy one going back to what I talked about before in the video understanding the goals of your home school and what you want what style kind of works for your family dynamic and then incorporating your child's learning style you can really narrow that down to different curriculums and what would work best for your family and for your children for example if you're looking at math curriculums and you have a kinesthetic learner you're gonna want to look for a math curriculum that has a lot of manipulatives if you have an auditory learner it might work best if you have a math curriculum that's more literature based I tell stories and they learn through stories because they like to listen to those kind of things and more visual learners might really thrive on a workbook style setting because they can see it it's very clear simple to the point so that's something that you kind of have to determine first before you ever look in any curriculums website and you determine what curriculum you like it appeals to you and that could be great but if it doesn't work for your child's learning style you could be doing way more work than you need to you're gonna use the information from understanding what type of learner they are and then the information about your goals of homeschooling and that hopefully will help you pick a curriculum that works well for your family now in my future videos what I hope to do is share some of the curriculum that we use and to give you a really in-depth look at those curriculums so that you can decide hey this really looks amazing and this could totally work for me and my family or this might not be the best fit and really what I'm looking for is something that's a little different so stay tuned for those videos coming up so next I want to talk a little bit about implementation so this is more about the structure of your day your routine your schedule you know how you're really going to implement homeschooling and start right so I I start off by thinking and this is at the beginning of every school year because as kids get older and they change as people what your day will look like will change it's just natural and that's okay and so I want you to really think about what you want your day to look like do you want to be sitting snuggling on the couch as you guys read more books in the morning or would you just rather have like a quiet morning where everyone kind of gets to do their own thing and then you meet together in the afternoon to get your schoolwork done you have to think about what's gonna work for you and a lot of that requires trial and error I have gone through so many different schedules and so many different routines before I found one that worked and then it'll work for six or seven months and then I'll have to change things up and tweak it that's just part of the journey and it's really what's beautiful about this journey because you can change it you can there were times that I change it because it was best for my children and there were other times that I changed it because it was best for me and my mental health and what I needed and so that's what's really beautiful about this journey is that you can change it and do what works for you you really have the flexibility to create anything that you want and some people prefer a more structured day with time blocks and schedules and to-do lists and that works for them and some people are like totally not like that at all and that is 100% okay that was something that was really hard for me in the beginning I had this idea of what it should look like I think I based a lot of that of my own public school experience and the structure that needs to happen in a public school to be able to teach twenty children in a classroom and you just don't have to do that at home if you want to great if you are about that and your kids thrive in that environment that's great for me I felt a lot of guilt and a lot of disappointment and it took me a long time to let go of that and but once I did let go of that I realized that my kids were so much happier I was so much happier and we were learning so much more so think about that think about how you were and how your children work because you know you've been with them you know your children you know how they thrive and so you'll be able to create a structure of your day that really works for you and for them please don't forget the you part that is so important to make sure you create something that works for you so for us so you can for us so you can get an example of what our day looks like we really don't start anything till about 9:00 so our mornings are a little more relaxed because I'm not the best morning person I like to wake up I like to have my coffee sometimes my girls are reading or playing or watching TV that just works for us and then usually their dad is the one that makes them breakfast and then around 9:00 o'clock we just start coming together so 9:00 to 12:00 is generally one when we do a majority of our school work and the afternoon is when we do more fun things like our coops or gymnastics oh we're not doing that right now because of the stay-at-home afternoon would be the electives and a lot of the structured schoolwork would be happening between 9:00 and 12:00 the next thing that you want to think about when you're implementing a homeschool routine is your space I have a homeschool room this is my daughter's desk but you don't have to have a homeschool room to have a successful homeschool I know a lot of families at school at the dining room table and they love it because they're all sitting at the table together and it works for them and to be honest a lot of times they don't sit at their desk we all sit at the dining room table or the kitchen table or the floor in the living room or in their bedrooms in bed or you know outside on a picnic blanket or a picnic table that is what's beautiful about it you can school anywhere and it might be different every single day if that works for you but just think about the space think about creating an inviting space think about a space that your kids will like they'll want to go to that is yeah and think about a space that you'll enjoy too that wouldn't cut eustress if the idea of having papers cluttered all over your dining room table gives you a panic attack then don't do that do something completely different and I hope to share some of my organizational hacks in another video coming up so keep your eye open for that so I also want to talk about this I want to talk about this in regards to implementation because I think it's really important and I fell victim to this a lot my first year it was that I would go on social media and I would see these moms and they would have it all together and they'd be teaching like seven different subjects and they you have these like poetry tee times with beautiful artwork and these nature walks and these journals and these just everything perfect home school rooms and all the curriculums and manipulatives and pretty toys and all that that doesn't happen overnight so if you're a homeschooling mom just starting out my biggest advice for you would be please take baby steps please when I started out which was preschool I just focused on two small things and that was teaching them their alphabet and alphabet sounds and teaching them their numbers and that was it that's all I focused on and then when we implemented kindergarten for my oldest I decided to purchase a language arts curriculum when a math curriculum and that's what I took on now we did little science things here and there and we read a ton of books and you know I would throw a little arts and crafts projects I would bake with them a lot we would do nature walks a lot we would take field trips and go on hikes but what I required of myself was very very small which in my mind were those two pieces of curriculum and then as the years or months went by I just built on that so as I started to master this curriculum and the idea of this curriculum and I became really comfortable with that and the routine of that then I built on something else so then I started to bring in more structured science and then I started to bring in more structured art projects and handwriting in a Bible curriculum and different things like that so just please keep that in mind because it's very easy to look at another homeschool mom and think I have to do all of this this is completely intimidating and overwhelming and I also want to preface this for when I show my curriculum videos because you know I have been doing this for a few years so it's gonna look different it's gonna look completely different than when it did for me when I started out year one so just keep that in mind baby steps pick a few things to really master and if your children are older let's say third or fourth grade and you're pulling them out I still would give the same advice okay start with like you know math and language arts and then maybe you won't be waiting a year until you incorporate a new subject because they do need to learn those other subjects but maybe you wait a month and then you say okay we've really got this under control okay let's start bringing in the science let's start bringing in handwriting in or history or geography or whatever it might look like for you and your family and that's really gonna help you to not feel so overwhelmed in the beginning and to really get a grasp of what works for your family and what your home school day is gonna look like so we're coming to the end of this video but this is so so important and I could not in this video without telling you guys this because when I I don't share a lot or up until this point I haven't shared a lot about my homeschooling journey because my Instagram wasn't ever really focused on just homeschooling I did share it because it is a huge part of my life but you know I mainly shared like the fun parts and the easy parts and didn't really go into a lot of the struggles which I hope to do more this coming school year to really show you what it truly is like to home-school but the comments I would get were always so so sweet and so caring but they would always be like I could never do that and you are so amazing I don't know how you do it and I just want to say this that I am nothing special I make mistakes I cry about things I feel disappointed I feel like giving up but I also feel like I get this opportunity to see my children flourish and I get them they get to see me making mistakes and we get to build on our relationship and I get to form their character I get to pour into them every single day and some days look better than others but I still have that opportunity to show them that I'm an imperfect person and they can be too and I get to love on them and it's just a beautiful and unique opportunity then you get to do this with your children and I just want you to know that you are capable you are so capable you are your child's best teacher you know them more than anyone so please if things get hard please if you are disappointed because it didn't meet your expectations if you're frustrated because your children maybe aren't learning or they're really protesting and not doing what you asked them to do I've been there I've been in all of those situations okay it comes and you adapt and you get stronger and your relationship with your kids get stronger and you realize how capable you are you really really are and I'm gonna try not to cry because this is really really important to me because I know those comments were well-meaning but it also it shows that maybe some people think that you know that they would love to home-school but they can't now if you don't want to that is 100% fine i 100% agree this isn't for everyone not everyone has this this desire to homeschool their children and that was okay this is not like a one size fits all type of thing and a lot of my friends do different types of homeschooling where their children go to school two days a week and then they homeschool the other three days a week so there's really something for everyone but I just think it's so important that I let you know that you can do this that you are capable it might not be easy and there's going to be a lot of sacrifice okay but if it's something that you really really want and you see the beauty that could come from it you you've got this you can do it and my hope is that I can create more videos like this to encourage you to help you to answer your questions to be a resource for you to make this homeschooling journey easier so I hope you will follow along and you will subscribe to my channel because I have a lot of fun things in store for this coming up here and I am excited to take this journey with you so bye guys thanks for watching

Channel: The Gray Ruby Diaries

Views: 7,697

Rating: 4.9748425 out of 5

Keywords: how to start homeschooling, homeschooling for beginners, how to homeschool your kids, starting homeschool, homeschool advice, homeschool family, homeschool mom encouragement, homeschool routine, how to homeschool, how to begin homeschooling, homeschooling, homeschool, homeschooling tips, homeschool mom, homeschool tips

Id: O0igmklxggA

Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020