First and most important thing to know about homeschooling is:
If you're trying to recreate how the public school does it, you're doing it wrong. None of the families I know that tried to mimic public school have continued homeschooling. It's too hard on both the kids and parents.
Homeschooling has so much more freedom. You don't need a desk or set hours to do subject A. You don't need thick textbooks or long lectures (although your kids might want those as well).
We've always focused on teaching our kids how to learn. Once you get them there, they can find their way to anything they need for the rest of their lives.
In the early years (think k-3rd), that means they need the skills of reading and writing and basic math. There's a lot of repetition required to get those skills. Those are the hardest homeschool years.
We focus on unit studies on subjects that the child is interested in. If it's Dinosaurs, we read history about dinos, watch videos on science about dinos, do math about dinos, visit museums, go fossil hunting - dive deep into everything dinos and the child hardly knows they're learning along the way as their interest is driving and motivating them. Soon enough, dinosaurs aren't fun anymore so we plod along until the next thing catches their excitement and now we're studying the history of cars, the science of cars, we're out in the garage working on the car...
These are teachable moments and we have to take advantage of those opportunities to take leaps forward in learning.
There will be some things they aren't interested in that they need to learn anyway. We sprinkle those 'have to learn' things in with the 'fun to learn' and try to keep the knowledge gaps at a minimum.
Teaching them how to research, where to find information (book and experiencial), is the best thing they can learn because it will help the learn anything else they'll need in life.
Don't forget moral training. That's where local homeschool co-ops and enrichment programs can be helpful so your kids can share social experiences in a learning environment.
As a wise man once said about raising kids, the days are long but the years are short. Make the most of them.
Homeschooling has so much more freedom. You don't need a desk or set hours to do subject A. You don't need thick textbooks or long lectures (although your kids might want those as well).
We've always focused on teaching our kids how to learn. Once you get them there, they can find their way to anything they need for the rest of their lives.
In the early years (think k-3rd), that means they need the skills of reading and writing and basic math. There's a lot of repetition required to get those skills. Those are the hardest homeschool years.
We focus on unit studies on subjects that the child is interested in. If it's Dinosaurs, we read history about dinos, watch videos on science about dinos, do math about dinos, visit museums, go fossil hunting - dive deep into everything dinos and the child hardly knows they're learning along the way as their interest is driving and motivating them. Soon enough, dinosaurs aren't fun anymore so we plod along until the next thing catches their excitement and now we're studying the history of cars, the science of cars, we're out in the garage working on the car...
These are teachable moments and we have to take advantage of those opportunities to take leaps forward in learning.
There will be some things they aren't interested in that they need to learn anyway. We sprinkle those 'have to learn' things in with the 'fun to learn' and try to keep the knowledge gaps at a minimum.
Teaching them how to research, where to find information (book and experiencial), is the best thing they can learn because it will help the learn anything else they'll need in life.
Don't forget moral training. That's where local homeschool co-ops and enrichment programs can be helpful so your kids can share social experiences in a learning environment.
As a wise man once said about raising kids, the days are long but the years are short. Make the most of them.