HOW DO I START HOMESCHOOLING?! Easy Tips to Get Started Without Fear // Where Do I Even Start? Ep. 1

hey guys welcome back to my channel if you are new here my name is christy and i am going on my third year of homeschooling i'm going to be doing a bit of a series called where do i even start and this is going to be a series geared toward any new homeschooling parents whether you have been thrown into it completely off guard or you have been planning it for a while or maybe you just want to know more information about homeschooling i hope that this series will be helpful to you and i am going to be kicking it off with this first video that will hopefully help you to start in your homeschooling journey i know how overwhelming it can be it can feel like you are inundated with information and curriculum and methods of homeschooling and this is your children's education it is such a heavy thing and it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders when you're first starting out so like i said i am going on my third year of homeschooling we pulled my oldest two from public school and started homeschooling homeschooling was one of those things that i wanted to do from the very start but i was too scared to actually move forward with it and so we ended up putting my oldest two in public school for three years and that nudging towards homeschooling just got stronger and stronger inside of me and we actually started homeschooling a full year before the pandemic hit and then everybody was homeschooling so i hope that this video is encouraging and informational for you if you are overwhelmed with where to even begin this journey there is a lot of information to wade through out there but i promise you that you will find your groove just by doing it so here we go number one is find your why now whether you're planning on putting your kids back in public school at some point or this is something you want to do for the long haul find your reasoning why why do i want to homeschool everything else every other decision that you make is going to flow from this first point it's going to affect everything from which curriculum you use right down to long-term investments in homeschooling whatever the case may be find your wife for your homeschool and work from there number two is find out your state's laws each state can be vastly different as far as homeschooling laws is concerned and what they require so be sure to check out the hslda which i will link down in the description box below it's hslda it is a resource for you to find out all of your rights as a homeschooling parent what your state requires from you and how to go about legally starting to homeschool some states may just require that you give notice to your school district some states may require attendance keeping some may require testing and portfolios at the end of the year whatever the case may be check out the hslda to be able to get the full picture as far as what the requirements are or put a call into your school district as well because they'll probably know what the procedure is for homeschooling number three is figure out what kind of homeschooling are you interested in doing what is your budget do all the research that you can whether that's on youtube or blogs or different curriculum websites look in to the different styles of homeschooling whether that's charlotte mason whether it's eclectic there are there's unschooling there are so many different ways that you can homeschool or you could do a mixture of all different kinds there's so many resources out there don't be afraid to check out some free samples like for example we use the good and the beautiful in our home school and they offer a lot of free curriculum on their site don't be afraid to download maybe one of their language arts levels and see if that would be something that you'd be interested in incorporating in your home school there are tons of resources out there another resource that i love is kathy duffy's reviews she reviews all kinds of curriculum on her website and she gives the ins and outs of the different things you could choose an all-in-one curriculum which is a curriculum that you're usually going to pay more up front for it but it includes everything the problem with all-in-one curriculum is that you don't have the freedom to tailor different curriculum for different subjects for your kids which is a whole other thing but it all depends on your goals all in one curriculum works for a lot of families and that is totally fine there's nothing wrong with that at all if your child is going to be eventually going back to public school maybe an online schooling program through your state would be better suited for that child to be able to seamlessly transition back into public school at some point i would just spend the time doing the research that is how i learned what i wanted to use in my first year of homeschooling and spoiler it's gonna change as you're homeschooling anyway if you're anything like me it's going to be a lot of trial and error anyway so just get as good of a grasp on it as you can do the online assessments if you're interested in a certain curriculum because sometimes levels don't necessarily correlate with grade level such as the good and the beautiful their language arts is usually about a level above the grade level so kids sometimes test a little bit into a lower level and that is totally fine so be sure to take advantage of the free resources out there free curriculum assessments to see where your kids are at and you will feel a lot more confident going into this number four determine where and when you want to start so where are you going to homeschool at in my house we have a dedicated space in the dining room we started out with a homeschooling room i loved my homeschooling room i loved having everything in one space but we ended up converting it into a bedroom for my two youngest so we moved our stuff over to our dining area and i love that too even though it's in our living space a little bit more we move around the house a lot during the day anyway a lot of my kids just school on the couch at some point in time anyway so where in the house do you want to dedicate your homeschooling where do you want to store your things these are things to definitely think about so that you can feel a little bit more confident going into it my first half of the year homeschooling we were still in our rental house before we moved into this house and i was schooling out of latchmade bins and that worked out great for the season that we were in i had one little shelf dedicated to homeschooling things and batchmate bins for each of my kids and that was it and so you don't need a whole bunch of stuff to homeschool you can start very very small and work your way up or you could just stay small just depending on what your needs are for your individual family which leads me to my next point remember that everyone's homeschool looks so different just because your homeschool might not look like this person on instagram so this person's on youtube doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong the beauty of homeschooling is that freedom to be able to tailor your school around your individual child's needs and nobody's homeschool is going to look alike it's okay if you don't like that super popular curriculum that everybody's raving about it's okay if your child is in a math level two levels down from their supposed grade level those kinds of things are things that make homeschooling so unique and so special because it isn't supposed to be like public school this is homeschool this is what you get to make it and you have the power to do that and you have the freedom to and you have the permission to do that so if you are just starting out and i have a video where i talk to you specifically mamas who are struggling with your decision on whether or not you should homeschool i will leave that in a link down below um just know that i've been there and i totally understand that back and forth that you go through in your mind like am i going to fail my kids am i going to be good enough for this am i going to have enough patience for this those are all things that i struggled with before i started homeschooling and what i have found is that it isn't easy it isn't easy some days are really really hard and there are days where i'm like what am i even doing but i will tell you that it is a beautiful journey and you get to be on it together with your kids and you get to learn with them you get to immerse yourself into an educational experience with your kids and you get to watch the light bulbs go on and there's nothing more special than that i will tell you i have learned so much more and these two years of homeschooling than i feel like i ever learned in college i am not even kidding i learned so many things i failed to learn in my public school growing up or things that i had completely forgotten about and it is it has been an experience for me to be alongside my kids in that learning journey and to be able to get excited about new things with them and subjects with them and to be able to create with them i love getting in and doing art with my kids it's something it's a special time it's a special bonding time that we get to do together and i just wanted to encourage you i know just starting is the hardest part just saying yes is that hardest part but i promise you it's not always going to be easy but you will grow more confident as you go on in this and you see that it isn't as scary as it looks it is a lot of an investment from you and from your heart but i cannot believe how refining it has been for my heart how it has illuminated things about me that i wanted to change and that are changing because i decided to say yes to this experience so like i said find your why find what is the reasoning that i want to homeschool what is the heart of this homeschool what are my goals what do i want for my kids from there you can research your state laws see what kinds of rights that you have check out the hslda and be sure to get a membership to them because it is so worth it to have that peace of mind and that resource available to you whenever you need it research find out what kinds of methods of homeschooling appeal to you and help you to meet those goals your why of your home school this is where the research will start kind of making sense like oh yeah you know what i want i want my kids to read more and to be more literate so maybe charlotte mason kind of approach would be best suited for our kind of homeschool that we are wanting my goals that i want for our kids take advantage of free resources out there and samples and assessments and all those youtubers out there there's so many homeschooling youtubers out there that are just helpful wealth of information look at their flip-throughs of curriculum look at their experience and reviews of curriculum there are so many great ones out there that will be so helpful to you and figuring out what you want to use in your home school also determine how much of a budget you want for your homeschool you can either homeschool for almost free to spending you know a pretty penny it just depends on what you want for you determine where and when you want to start so really taking stock in your house and saying okay you know what we're not going to have a homeschooling room we're just going to have an area that we dedicate to it or maybe we'll have special bins that are dedicated to our homeschooling things and just a reminder that nobody's homeschool is going to look the same nope don't even try comparing when that comparison trap creeps up just know that it is going to steal your joy and your experience here the goal here is to do what's best for your family and usually that's why we all decided homeschooling is because we determined that that was the best thing for our kids our individual kids and they are individuals and that requires an individual experience so i hope that this was a helpful video to you like i said i'm going to make this a series i'm going to come out with some more videos as the weeks go on as we start our new school years especially if you are just looking into how to homeschool i would encourage you to subscribe to my channel and click on that bell notification so you're notified anytime i have new videos i do have playlists of past videos you can see my homeschooling journey all the way from the very beginning when we started homeschooling in our rental i have documented our very first year our very beginning times all the way up to now when i'm going into my third year and it has been an experience and i've learned a lot i've grown a lot i've changed a lot and i hope that you enjoy following along so you look so beautiful and i'm so lucky to be yours [Music] i hope that you guys have a blessed rest of the week and i will talk to you guys very soon

Channel: One Blessed Mess

Views: 1,536

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: homeschooling, how to homeschool, how to start homeschooling, homeschooling tips for beginners, homeschool curriculum, homeschool laws, big family homeschool, homeschooling multiple kids, public vs homeschool, one blessed mess, where to start homeschooling, homeschool routine, homeschool room, homeschool area, homeschool organization, homeschool advice, should i homeschool, the good and the beautiful

Id: nLs9vVILpLI

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2021