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The decision to begin homeschooling is not a decision to be taken lightly or without much fore thought. One of tasks at hand is to sort through all of the homeschool information that you will come across as you research and learn more about homeschooling. Don't panic. There is a lot of information out there on homeschooling and teaching your children at home. A good place to start is would be to take a look at the homeschooling laws that pertain to your state. You can get off to a start on this website by taking a look at an overview of your state's homeschooling laws. You'll certainly find different information about all the different areas, techniques, and methods of homeschooling. Always try to keep in context what you are finding out and how it pertains to your family goals and values. After all, it is probably your values and philosophical beliefs that have driven much of your decision to actually home school. The Home School Source (http://www.thehomeschoolsource.com) offers a unique and very cost effective approach to helping us homeschoolers. The Home School Source offers a library approach for your homeschooling resource needs. With an easy and inexpensive library membership you can have a wide variety of educational resources right at your fingertips! And the beauty of the library membership is that you can check this valuable homeschool material out and all you'll have to pay for is the round trip shipping cost (which averages about $6.00 to $10.00). And The Home School Source supplies the return postage label for you. As a Home School Source member you can borrow up to 10 items at one time. I think you can start to imagine the potential savings offered here. Another absolutely fantastic advantage to being a library member is that you can preview resources before deciding if you want to make an investment in them. And we all know how expensive curriculum can be. If you rented just a handful of educational videos a year, you would probably spend more than twice what an annual membership would cost you. And if they don't have what you're looking for; they have a suggestion box! Sometimes you just need to get started and once you do you will get on such a roll with one idea flowing right after another. I might offer up one of my favorite freebies; and that is the Free Personal Learning Styles Inventory, at HowtoLearn.com. It's a quick and easy online test to help you figure out how you or your child learns best -- by seeing, hearing, or doing. It's a great place to pick up a bunch of great ideas, and it is also a great place just to get yourself started. Check it out! at: HowtoLearn.com. Homeschooling is a wonderful road to take in your child's educational journey and great sites like Teacher Created Resources. TCR has an abundant amount of quality home school information available and is a website that I used quite extensively. There are certainly many aspects to consider and decide upon, as they relate to how to homeschool your child. However, before that, let's look at a few of my thoughts as they relate to making the decision to home school itself and some of the thinking process that we went through. All In Agreement: Are both parents in agreement? Certainly there are many different parenting and family architectures these days. But, the bottom line is it will be more difficult to homeschool if one parent is against the idea (or any family members for that matter). Remember folks, this is about the child's success..... Not yours. If you feel part of the objection is because certain family members or friends haven't enough homeschool information available, be sure to provide it. Homeschooling information is everywhere...... including this website! Time: Home schooling equals time commitment. Remember you are the teacher. The commitment to your day isn't just the time you spend in front of the books with your child. As a teacher there is much lesson planning, projects, field trips, testing and grading, and the list goes on and on. And having said this, you still must find time for you personally..... your occasional alone time is not easy to find; essential, but not easy. If you are reasonably comfortable with software might I suggest you seriously consider a record keeping software designed specifically to simplify such a time consuming homeschool task. And that will help you to recover those lost minutes and hours each day. Your Child's Willingness: Ultimately it is your decision as a parent. But, really... no explanation necessary here, right?$ $ $ $ $: Homeschooling can be very inexpensive. The thought here is that will one of the parents have to perhaps quit their current job, go to part-time, find a different job that will accommodate your homeschooling schedule, or be able to work from home on a more flexible schedule. What will the financial impact of the potential shift in income that homeschooling your children have on the family? Be very honest and realistic with this one. Crunch the numbers. If you have never actually put your budget on paper or a spreadsheet it is time to do it now. Financial pressure can be a daunting obstacle to overcome. Household Organization: Do you have, or can you create a separate space for your home school classroom? Remember all those regular household chores and duties? They aren't going away either. They still need to be done. And plan on, at least at times, your house, quite frankly, will be a mess.The aforementioned certainly isn't the entire pre-flight checklist on all the homeschool information one will need before getting started. Hopefully this short list will get you thinking in the right direction and stimulate some pre-planning and discussion amongst both parents and the entire family. The goal is to insure proper expectations being set and the best chance for success is laid in the foundation early on.
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