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When you first step off the beaten path, leaving the conventional schooled path, you might have uncertainties and doubts; you might research & read more than Wiki itself.
Of course, it is a rite of passage for all new homeschoolers to do that, as one should (we are taking responsibility for our children’s education and that’s a big responsibility).
So, from this graduated homeschool mama to one just beginning her journey, here’s my guide to get started homeschooling…
I’m here to equip you to get clear and confident as you get started homeschooling so you don’t have to ride the tsunami waves of uncertainty, grapple in angst with other people’s concerns, or feel alone in your choice to do this thing: you really can do this homeschool thing confidently (and enjoy it too).
And a big warm welcome to you!
In the podcast season dedicated to new homeschoolers, here are a few common concerns that new homeschool families have:
- Tell me where to start: A Beginner’s Guide to Your First Year of Homeschool
- the surprising transition from school to homeschool
- What about gaps in my child’s home education?
- What do homeschoolers want to deschool from: let’s get specific.
- What Does Homeschool Cost: What I Wish I Knew Before I Homeschooled
- A Homeschool Life Coach Help Near Me
- Three Things I Wish I Knew Before I Homeschooled
- homeschool philosophies and why you don’t need to care
- How to homeschool with confidence in 5 (not-so-easy) steps
- A Homeschool Mama Will Benefit from Coaching for Homeschool (& Life)
And if you’re intending to Homeschool in Canada, I’ve got two episodes you’ll want to listen to as well:
If you have any questions as you get started homeschooling, you’re welcome to send a message here or book an appointment with me to chat…
To get started homeschooling, there are a few key things you need to know:
1. Legal requirements:
Each province, state, or country has legal requirements for homeschooling, so research them and become familiar with them. (ps getting to know them will help build your confidence in addressing the non-supporters).
2. Curriculum:
You will want to choose a curriculum or resources that make sense to you and fit your child’s learning style. You can purchase pre-packaged curriculums or create your own using free resources.
3. Learning styles:
Understanding your child’s learning style will help you tailor the curriculum and methods to meet their unique needs.
Oh, and since you’re researching all things homeschool right now, consider reading about:
- child development,
- family dynamics,
- personal growth,
- healing your inner child,
- exploring your mother wound,
- and learning self-compassion strategies, you’ll need them.
In fact, if you heavily weighted your research here, rather than curriculum, methods, schedules, or time management, you will be happier at year 4.
If you don’t know where to start, join me in the Homeschool Mama Book Club, where I’ll lead you in conversations on important books & concepts that can benefit your homeschool and your homeschool mom life.
4. Determining a routine:
Setting a schedule and routine can help you stay organized and sane.
And I know you know you need this because this is one of the first things that 1-year homeschool parents ask me.
I’ll happily show you how to set it up in the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective. We can walk through what matters to you, help you clarify how to spend your days, whether you work in addition to homeschooling, or not, how to incorporate your Wellness Plan into your days, and also include relationship-building practices because the homeschool family life isn’t just about multiplying fractions, teaching your kiddo to read, or facilitating extracurriculars (but of course, we’ll talk about that too).
Here are a few resources to set your routine:
- Hack Time Management for Homeschool Moms for What Matters
- 6 Game-Changing Ways to Streamline your Homeschool Routines
- How to Create an Energizing Homeschool Morning Routine
- How to Create a Homeschool Routine that Works for You
5. Record keeping:
Keep records of your child’s progress. I believe that tracking their progress is useful for you to build your confidence, not just because someone might come to your home one day (cause maybe they will, but probably they won’t)…
- you want to know that you are doing right by them,
- and keeping continual records will reinforce to YOU that you’re doing a bang-up job engaging them,
- enabling their curiosities,
- and giving them a feast of ideas so they can contribute meaningfully to their lives.
6. Support network:
Build a support network of other homeschooling families in your area. In the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective, I’ll give you a play-by-play of how you can create these relationships and support networks in your real world. and you can experience it virtually around the world too, and be cheered and encouraged by other first-year homeschool moms too.
7. Flexibility:
One of the benefits of homeschooling is the flexibility to adjust your schedule, activities, and the events of your life as needed to meet the needs of your children, yourself, and your community.
Know this, you’ll need flexibility, and whether you are willing to learn it or not, you’ll learn it.
Consider exploring areas where you’re naturally flexible, and where you’re not, in your journal.
ps if you haven’t started journaling, it might be time. She’ll be your constant witness, companion, and clarifier. You can use any of the journals I’ve designed for homeschool moms, found on my website, or grab a simple dollar store notebook, and write anything that comes to mind at the same time every day).
Journals I’ve designed for you:
- Journaling for the Homeschool Mom to Overcome Overwhelm
- Deschool your Homeschool Journaling Workbook
- A Daily Homeschool Mama Journal for You!
- Reimagine your Homeschool Workbook
- Gratitude Journal for the Homeschool Mama
- Build your Boundaries Journaling Workbook
- Big Emotions Journal for the Homeschool Mom
8. Patience and persistence:
Homeschooling can be challenging at times because…
- you’ll possibly be reorganizing relationships,
- learning to emotionally regulate (& learning how to help your kids learn this too),
- you’ll learn that you only have a finite amount of time and have to choose what matters so you use it well,
- you have to learn how to address your unsupportive community and get clearer on why other people’s criticisms matter so much to you,
- you’ll have to learn how to prioritize your wellness, and oh yeah, relearn all the stuff you didn’t want to learn in school (unless you farm that out, which is cool too!).
My first perceptions about homeschooling before I did it…
Once upon a time, I had an expectation my family would experience utopia via a homeschool life.
Early on, I wrote about my three little girls in white dresses, slamming screen doors as they ran in from our Prince Edward Island homestead garden, enjoying readalouds with tea in the afternoon, reading classics like Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables, on our white couch, and living happily ever after.
You know, utopia.
And yes, for some reason, it had to happen in Prince Edward Island, not British Columbia (where I now live)...
And why a white couch? Because I already purchased one from Ikea (which I might add is the antithesis of homeschool utopia: a white couch in any family home is always unwise!)
I learned that homeschool is not utopia: there are plenty of challenges along the way; however, if you’re clear on why you’re doing it and you’re willing to learn a few things, you’ll overcome many of those challenges and feel satisfied and successful in your homeschool journey…
Turns out my three little girls are way past wearing white dresses now: they’re 23, 21, and almost 19. They purchase their own clothes and I’ve not seen a white dress. We added a son to the mix. He’s 15, almost sixteen, and thick into the high school years.
I learned you can homeschool in every province of Canada, not just PEI. And many countries around the world too… Most of you listening to me are my neighbours to the south: hello to you!
In our homeschool years, we indeed read a bajillion readalouds with tea many afternoons, we got rid of that white couch, and you know what? It was a long hard road to happily ever after, and the way I understand life now: happily ever after belongs in fairy tales, not real life.
But this homeschool lifestyle has brought us so many moments and memories, so many opportunities to grow and learn alongside one another, the freedom to think and live outside the conventional societal box, and therefore, to be drawn to what is truer for each of us, becoming more authentic, congruent, and intentional, in all the different areas of life: and all because we chose to step off the beaten path.
What my reality is and what my original vision was definitely were not the same, but freedom most certainly has remained a constant family companion.
Here are a few of the challenges I’ve had to overcome:
- How to handle homeschool frustration & overwhelm
- What to do when I was fed up homeschooling?
- how to manage impatience in my homeschool
- Time Audit to Address Unrealistic Expectations in your Homeschool
- How to address homeschool mama’s big emotions
- Are you homeschooling good enough?
- How to deschool to bring more freedom & purpose
- Grow Yourself Up: A Guide for Homeschool Mom Personal Growth
- And how to find quiet, build boundaries & handle overwhelm
- Healing the Mother Wound for Homeschool Moms
- Become more me while enabling others to become more them: ya know, have a few relationship revolutions
- how to become more you as a homeschool mama
For those regularly listening to this podcast, now you know why I speak to these topics on the regular. Because I’ve lived and grown into them.
I see them as the most important elements of a happier, more satisfied homeschool mom life.
No question, this homeschool family life hasn’t been utopia, but what an amazing life it’s been!
(If you’re here contemplating whether you should even homeschool, head over to my YouTube channel, Homeschool Mom Wellness & Mindset Coach, and type “Should I Homeschool” in the search bar. I give you an honest overview of the things I believe you should consider if are trying to decide whether you’ll homeschool this upcoming year).
Before you even consider how to get started homeschooling, should you homeschool?
Now that you’ve watched the video above, are you still hoping to get started homeschooling?
If you are planning to homeschool this year, please continue reading.
If you’re not sure, you’re welcome to connect with me to decide. Find my booking link here.
Can I give you advice, 1st year homeschool mama?
As you’re researching for your first year of homeschooling, can I give you advice?
Be realistic about how much time you have to plan for your upcoming homeschool.
You could spend the entire summer planning for your homeschool: there are so many options, ideas, resources, bloggers, social media influencers, books, and podcasts.
I share about homeschool books that could help you research your homeschool plans, but here are a few podcasts that might help you too.
(FYI you can access my Homeschool Mama Reading List to get you started. So many books.)
Your homeschool research can be informed by your natural preferences, beliefs on education, or your homeschool philosophy choices…
- there’s the catholic homeschool mom who can give you seasoned advice: check out Bonnie Landry’s podcast at Make Joy Normal,
- or if you’ve got a kiddo with neurodiverse challenges, you should listen to Colleen Kessler at Raising Lifelong Learners, (since she is neurodiverse and her kids are neurodiverse, and she studied neurodiversity, you’ll gain so much benefit by listening to her),
- if you want a more Charlotte Mason-infused homeschool, join Leah Boden of the Modern Miss Mason podcast, and check out her recent book, Modern Miss Mason too,
- if you’re interested in homeschooling, but you don’t know how because you’ll be a new working homeschool mom, then you’ll want to listen to Charlotte Jones at The Strike a Balance Podcast for Working Homeschool Moms.
- or if you want to learn from a Christian homeschool mama of 2 and a genuinely kind soul, you should listen to Aimee Otto at the Homeschool Compass Podcast learn from the wisdom of homeschool moms who have gone before her,
ps I’m just going to interrupt my list of homeschool mama podcasters here to say, I’ve interviewed these mamas, so if you want to hear us in conversation, put their name in the search bar at the top of my website.
- you can listen to Natalie Burns on her new podcast, Assured, where she’ll help you navigate your homeschool teaching, so you don’t need to try to figure it out on your own.
- or if you want to learn from a graduated homeschool mom who suffered adrenal burnout, anxiety, and depression, and found her way back to health and happiness in her homeschool listen to Susie Lubbers at Near Still Waters podcast.
- and if you want to learn about unschooling, listen to Robyn Robertson’s podcast, Honey, I’m Homeschooling the Kids: Robyn come back, we miss you!
- or listen to the podcast, the Virtual Kitchen Table Podcast with Erin, Ashley, and Hayley, to have conversations about family life and home education, most specifically unschooling,
- have you met Kelly from the 90-Minute Schoolday Podcast where school is out and natural learning is in? Kelly’s a foster-adoptive homeschool mama who was in search of an attachment-based approach to learning and so she created it,
- if you want to learn about all things homeschool high school, you need to check out the catalog of resources & episodes designed to bolster your confidence in the high school years over at The Homeschool High School Podcast with my dear friend, and heart cousin, Vicki Tillman,
- and of course, you’re always invited to return here to get your weekly dose of encouragement and inspiration to live your authentic, confident, intention-filled homeschool mama life where aspire to walk alongside you to turn your homeschool challenges into your homeschool charms.
Every last bit of research will be useful, but you don’t want to be in constant research mode. You want to be present doing fun stuff with your growing kids now.
Because they’ll keep growing up whether you’re glued to your phone or not.
So time block your homeschool research time.
(FYI I have a Time Audit to help you learn to manage your time and use your time for intentional purposes, you can find that here.)
Decide when you are going to set aside time to plan for your upcoming homeschool year.
- Will you listen to a podcast while you’re walking the dog or pulling weeds after dinner?
- Will you turn on a podcast while you’re doing a Pilates workout?
- Is Wednesday evening in a library cubicle near you the right time to both get away and plan?
- Of course, you’re especially invited to set aside time to join me in the Confident Homeschool Mama Collective (virtually).
So when will you decide to plan for your upcoming homeschool year?
Academics are not synonymous with an education so think outside the traditional learning box.
Of course, you can learn from a teacher’s lecture, a workbook, or tests (that can sometimes encourage recall).
However, you can also learn from these things:
1. You can learn from games.
Name a game, and I, or someone who has homeschooled for many years, could easily tell you how your child is uniquely learning through that game.
- A game of chess enables strategy,
- and a game of chutes and ladders enables simple arithmetic.
- Professor Noggins’ games can help us learn geography, Canadian provinces, astronomy, biomes and habitats, and any other knowledge titbit under the sun.
- Poker can teach statistics.
- Board games, gaming systems, portable car games, card games, and dice games all have their learning potential.
2. Kids can learn from conversations & questions.
A conversation might break out after listening to a radio, or news piece, or after uncle so-and-so, had a discussion with dad about a recent current event, or your child sees something in the common culture that they haven’t seen in their own home, or when a child reads something they’re not familiar with, or when your child is interested in literally any activity: all these conversations can be fertile ground for a child to think and learn to build critical thinking skills.
Every single conversation is a learning opportunity.
3. Your child can learn from people outside your home.
We are known as homeschoolers, but we are anything but at home all the time. Can I hear an amen?
We do interesting things. Sometimes that’s at home and sometimes it’s not.
When kids have an interest in a specific area where we do not have skills or knowledge, we look for resources and mentors in our community to come alongside our kids so they can have useful mentors.
These community mentors can come alongside our kids for a few years or just an afternoon. These mentoring opportunities are meaningful educational opportunities.
If your kiddo is interested in something, anything, ask around to find out who might be interested in sharing their expertise with your kiddo, because there is always someone.
4. Anything your child reads watches, or listens to could be a learning opportunity contributing to your kid’s education.
Just because it’s not found in a classroom doesn’t mean it’s not educational.
But FYI the traditional classroom uses cinematic films, documentaries, games, workbooks, manipulatives, & online language programs too.
All this stuff is educational. If your child is learning, there is something educational there.
To get started homeschooling, people also ask:
- 20 Ideas on How to Create a Homeschool Kindergarten
- a Perspective Shift on the Art and Science of an Education
- how to plan homeschool: what I want my kids to know
- how to incorporate play into your homeschool day
- What it’s like having a high schooler at home.
- How to unschool high school.
- what kids need to know before they homeschool high school
- 7 Important Reasons for Project-Based Homeschooling
- How to Motivate Your Homeschool Child toward Curiosity & Independence
- why homeschool your child? 8 reasons my family homeschools
- Teach Your Own: Homeschool Confidently Without Being a Certified Teacher
- The Homeschooling Option: How to Decide When It’s Right
- 7 Freedom-Loving Ways John Taylor Gatto Informs your Homeschool
Plan for the “S” question.
You will have to answer this question to infinity and beyond.
Even though someone may comment on how kind and considerate your children are toward each other at the playground, even though most people have been educated in a brick-and-mortar school, and socialization is not encouraged during class time, and even though most adults know that they don’t want to spend 30 hours in a room with 24 other people, their exact age, I believe you are likely to be asked about the socialization question to infinity and beyond, so pre-plan for it.
What is your answer? Your peace-oriented, authentic, and non-reactive answer? Practice it.
To get started homeschooling, people also ask:
- Addressing all your concerns about homeschool socialization
- How Rachel Gathercole Clarifies my Concerns on Socialization
- Why kids don’t need socialization, and why they need you
- How Gordon Neufeld informs my Homeschool
- Crack the Loneliness Code for Homeschool Mom
- Homeschool Socialization Quantified in 9 Ways
- The truth behind homeschool socialization
- What about homeschool socialization?
- How to get homeschool mama’s socialization?
When you get started homeschooling, remember, there is no ONE right way to homeschool.
Since there are only one to 15 children in your home, and you are only responsible for homeschooling 1 to 15 children, you only have to find one to 15 ways to homeschool.
And from one homeschool mom to another, I’ve learned that you never get things fully right for any of them.
Sure we can try, and we are constitutionally bound to do so, I believe.
But as with every area in our lives, perfection will not be found. Because perfect ain’t a thing.
Growth is a thing, process is a thing, and learning is a thing.
So I believe there is not one right way to homeschool. So take a deep cleansing breath, and accept your perfectly imperfect, homeschool life.
Do it in whatever way seems right to you today and continue to learn and process and grow and discover a new way tomorrow.
People also ask when they get started homeschooling:
- Planning for Upcoming Homeschool in 11 Essential Steps
- How to Do Child-Led Learning
- Why do you want to deschool?
- How do I unschool?
- How do I decide what kind of curriculum I should use?
- A simple guide to homeschool without a homeschool room
- Can I teach my own kids?
- How do I know if I’m successful in homeschooling?
- Reimagine your Homeschool: Nine Simple Steps to Plan
You want to create a community that will support and encourage you along the way.
You already know who might not be supportive in your sphere. (Or they’re skeptical about your choice.)
So until they warm up to your choice (you can always hope they will see that this homeschool thing is indeed working for your kiddos), you’ll want to be surrounded by a supportive group.
You are welcome to try out the 1st Year Homeschool Mom Support Group.
Hey, and can I just say, welcome to homeschooling!
If you’re new to homeschooling, you want to learn more about options to help you transition toward clarity, confidence & vision in your homeschool life…
- Download your Guide to 1st Year Homeschooling.
- Join the Homeschool 101 Group Coaching to help you transition from school to homeschool and know how to address everything you’ll need to know that first year.
- Learn more about homeschool coaching: learn more by scheduling a chat with me.
- Join the Deschool Your Homeschool Coaching Course to help you shed schooled mindsets as you move toward individualization and freedom in your homeschool.
- Use the self-directed journaling workbook to Deschool your Homeschool.
You can do this first homeschool year alone, of course.
As you get started homeschooling, you will feel supported, satisfied, and successful when you do these in your first homeschool year…
- checking out Facebook threads and asking questions (you probably already are),
- and learning from homeschool authors (you can get my Homeschool Mama Reading List here)
- & you can read my book, Homeschool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer too,
- or you can listen to podcasts (here’s my podcast),
- watch YouTube videos (I’ve got one too!)
- or you can just head to the local playground on school days and ask if the families with school-aged kids playing on the monkey bars are homeschooled families: they probably are.
(And you really should do some of those things, of course).
But if you want someone to encourage and inspire you, if you want someone who can help clarify your challenges during the most demanding year of your homeschool family life, I’m here to walk alongside you.
If you wonder if that might be benefit you, join me in a no-obligation chat to learn more about coaching opportunities.
I look forward to connecting with you & learning about you and your family.
And welcome to homeschooling! As you get started homeschooling this 1st year, know this, you can do this, you really can!
xx
Teresa Wiedrick, your Homeschool Life Coach
People also ask:
- A Beginner’s Guide to Your First Year of Homeschool
- how to create a homeschool kindergarten
- How to homeschool without losing your mind in 11 Steps
- what kids need to know before they homeschool high school
- Homeschool Teens Perspective: How to Homeschool High School
- Customized Homeschool Help for Parents that Can Transform your Life
- Do you offer one-on-one coaching? Yes, I do, connect with me here.
- What mamas are saying about Homeschool Life Coach…
Teresa Wiedrick
I help overwhelmed homeschool mamas shed what’s not working in their homeschool & life, so they can show up authentically, purposefully, and confidently in their homeschool & life.
Call to Adventure by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3470-call-to-adventure
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
