Organization balanced with flexibility is the hallmark of every great homeschooling experience. This means having a scheduled start/end time is important, but it may be different depending on what works best for your children. Having them all on the same schedule is easiest and a good way of starting when they are younger but as they transition into middle and high school, be aware that it may be more beneficial to let them adjust the times so they can do better with the work.
Partnering with one of the best online accredited homeschool programs is critical to ensure your children not only receive a quality education with a solid foundation for the future. Whether you are starting when your children are young or looking at moving them from a traditional school and teaching at home in the later grades, take time to research the various online program options. The school should have at least one, if not several, accreditations, a reliable support system, a certified teaching staff and a quality curriculum at each grade level. This establishes the basis of what they will learn and the transcript that will get built when they enter the high school time frame and begin to look at college opportunities.
It’s important to remember that not everything a child needs to learn can be found in the pages of a textbook or on a screen inside the class portal. In fact, many children and teens do better when the reading material is reinforced by hands-on experience such as field trips, experiments and other tactile events. In addition to the using the best online accredited homeschool programs, be sure to block time for these types of activities including art, music and other areas that are of interest to your child/teen. The ‘arts’ are just as necessary as the core subjects but sometimes they are easy to forget about in homeschooling because parents are so focused on following the lesson planner provided by the school. Be creative and schedule a little time each day that gets students off the tablet or out of the textbook and allows them to be active and use their other senses. There are plenty of ways to do this including joining a homeschool group, scheduling with homeschool families or simply adding this to the lesson plan provided by the school.
Creativity, organization and the right foundation are the characteristics that help define a positive and successful homeschooling experience for parents and children. While the basic tenets are the same for each family, how they look and are implemented will be different because flexibility is one of the top reasons that many families choose this approach to begin with. Take a few minutes to sit together as a family and talk with your children on what they would like to see the homeschool day include and what works best for everyone to get the work done, have some fun and learn all at the same time. Then be flexible enough to know that this may change year after year as they get older and move into different phases of their education.