Beginning to Home School - Homeschool Article - Alternative Education at ExtremeIntellect.com

	What is home schooling or home education?
	Home schooling or home education is the act of teaching your child at home using grade appropriate materials without the help of the public school system. Some families teach only from their knowledge base while others seek out support groups of many parents who share teaching subject matter. The parents, not the school system, determine the school work that each child does. Home schooling has been legal in all 50 states since the 1980s.
	Deciding to home school. Deciding to home school is difficult because there are so many things to consider. Do you have the right combination of skills to be able to teach your children at home? Is home school a good fit for you and your family? Here are some things to consider in your home school decision: 1. Resources - Home school requires a huge amount of resources. Computers, the internet and learning software can supplement books, but there must also be science projects that require supplies, music lessons that require instruments, sheet music, cd's or dvd's, all paper supplies, writing supplies and art supplies are provided by the family. Many families purchase readymade curriculum books specifically designed for home school families. Those home school systems often cost hundreds of dollars. 2. Network of People - You, hopefully, don't want your home schoolers to simply sit in the kitchen and perform work all day and night, so you will have to make sure that everyone has a network of friends and activities that they participate in to get social contact. Many home schoolers participate in sports and get a lot of interaction at soccer, baseball, dance, gymnastics, music or acting classes. Summer camps, 4-H organizations, Police Explorers are great for interaction and fun as well as the Girl/Boy Scouts. 3. Time, time, time a. Time Commitment - Home schooling takes up a lot of time. The home school parent has to sometimes devote double the time because all learning materials have to be prepared for the home students, then administered to the students and then work must be corrected. More time is taken up because the home school parent must gather course materials and materials for hands-on projects. b. Time Saved - while you do have to spend more time on collecting, preparing and correcting coursework, you also save a lot of time too. Add up these time savers: time getting ready to go to school and the bus ride in - (approximate time saved = 1 hour or more), recess (approximate time saved 1 hour or more), waiting in the lunch line (approximate time saved = 20 minutes or more), busy work (approximate time saved = 1 hour or more), study hall (approximate time saved = 1 hour or more) in addition to increasing class sizes which steals an undetermined amount of time from each child. If your child is training as a pre-professional athlete, they waste time in gym class as well. As a home school family, we did a lot with those approximate four hours of wasted time! c. Time with the family - you'll enjoy spending more time with your kids and they'll benefit from more time with you. In many cases, families are much closer. I find that teenagers who home school are capable of actually having a conversation with adults without feeling intimidated and they offer a great contribution to the conversation, while making eye contact! d. Set Aside Specific Time - The best way to accomplish home school happily is to set aside a specific time and time limit to do school work and teaching. Choose a time slot each day. "We will begin school at 9 a.m. and learn from 9 a.m. to 12 noon." Then commit to that schedule every day. Our family chose a definite time and a flexible time. For instance, during the hours of 9 to 12, teaching/lecture, experiments, work would be done and from 12 to 3 or 4, we would take field trips, watch educational DVDs, do sports or dance. The great thing about home school is that you get to choose your own schedule! e. Time to try it out - You don't have to make a life-time commitment to home school. My family home schooled when necessary. My daughter would go to either public or private school and when she clearly needed better educational material, better social interaction or a better environment, she was pulled out of school and home schooled. We educated any way that worked at the moment. So, you have a choice. Your family can try out home school and then return to public school or private school. There should be no problem in reentering a school system as long as your children have you have kept up to the grade level of the school curriculum.
	Why do parents choose to home school? 1. Control over peers - Parents of children who are home schooled find great benefit in choosing who their children interact with on a daily basis. They can eliminate all negative influence and create a great social environment. 2. Safety - Children from more troubled school systems can keep their child away from drugs, alcohol and violence and have more control over social contacts. 3. Excellence in Education - Too many schools are dumbing down their curriculums. There is too much emphasis on making kids feel good about themselves instead of becoming competent at coursework. While it is important to help kids become strong contributors to society, many parents feel that they are better able to make sure that kids perform at a higher educational standard. Many great teachers in schools feel they are babysitters, not teachers. 4. Flexibility - Many pre-professional athletes, young actors and performers choose home school so they can meet their training and on-camera time schedules. Many ice skaters home school. Other home school families love to take home schooling on the road and educate by visiting museums, landmarks and historical sites. Imagine learning about our political system and visiting all of the locations sited in the text book as you learn?