Quick Start Guide to Homeschooling

There are many families considering home education these days. If that is you, then keep reading for a quick start guide to homeschooling from a homeschool veteran and mom of seven.

This post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.

Quick Start Guide to Homeschooling

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by new things and homeschooling is no exception. For parents who were raised in the public or private school system, homeschooling can seem intimidating. Here are 8 steps to help you get started in your homeschool journey and hopefully ease your worries.

Determine How to Legally Homeschool

The first step in homeschooling is to determine how to legally homeschool where you live. It is legal to homeschool in all 50 states of the United States but homeschool laws vary from state to state.

The best resource for homeschool laws is HSLDA. HSLDA has led the way in fighting for homeschool freedoms while offering an abundance of resources to its members. You don’t have to be a member to search their sight for homeschool laws though. Just click here to find out how to homeschool in your state. HSLDA also has an international homeschool page to help families homeschool around the world.

Choose Curriculum

This is probably the most exciting and stressful part of getting started in homeschooling. How do you decide when there are so many excellent curriculums to choose from?

First, visit my homeschool curriculum page for tips on choosing homeschool curriculum, curriculum reviews and a list of curriculum providers to help get you started.

You will also want to research and determine your educational approach to education. Do you want to follow a more traditional approach or a classical one? What about Charlotte-Mason inspired learning? Knowing your educational approach will help you narrow down your curriculum choices.

Next, become a student of your child. Learn how they learn best. This will take some time but will be a great benefit for you in the long run. Knowing how your child learns best allows you to choose curriculum that fosters joy instead of frustration in your child. You can find out more about different learning styles in this post.

Finally, figure out how you teach best. For example, do you enjoy lesson planning or do you prefer a curriculum that includes detailed lesson plans. Are you someone who wants to pick the best resources from several different curriculums or do you feel more comfortable sticking with just one? Are there subjects that you don’t feel equipped to teach? Perhaps an online course would work for you and your child.

It is so important to make sure you choose curriculum that works not only for your child but also for you. If you can’t implement the curriculum then it doesn’t matter how amazing that curriculum is. You will either get frustrated and overwhelmed trying to use it or it will sit on your bookshelf, collecting dust, for weeks on end. Make sure to choose a curriculum that works for you and your child.

Plan Your Homeschool Year

Homeschooling offers you the freedom to plan your homeschool year around your own family’s needs. (Make sure your plans comply with the homeschool laws in your state though.)

For some families, following a traditional school year works best. This means starting the homeschool year in August or September and taking a few months off each summer. Others prefer homeschooling year-round which allows them to take frequent breaks throughout the year. To learn more about the pros and cons of year-round homeschooling, click here.

Now it is time to plan your school year. When will you start? When will you take breaks and vacations? When do you hope to end?

I like to start my homeschool year planning by selecting an end date to the school year. Then I mark of vacations and breaks. I determine how many days I want to do school (or how many are required by law in your state). We usually do around 165 to 175 days of school each year but I schedule out 180 days knowing that life happens and we might not get to all of them.

Then, I work backwards from the end date, counting out 180 days and skipping over breaks, to determine when we need to start our school year. It sounds more confusing than it is. Watch this video to see how I plan out my homeschool year.

Plan Your Weeks

If you are coming from a public or private school mindset then you may have the traditional 5 day school week engrained in your head. However, homeschooling provides lots of flexibility into how your homeschool week looks.

Some families enjoy using a 4 day-a-week schedule. This allows them to have one day (usually Friday) for field trips, social activities or running errands and doing chores around the house. Other families find the traditional, 5 day-a-week schedule to work best for them.

As a homeschool family, you don’t have to stick to homeschooling Monday through Friday. For example, if your husband works on Saturdays and has Mondays off then homeschooling Tuesday through Saturday (and taking Sundays and Mondays off) may be a great option for your family.

When I was homeschooling several older kids while juggling a preschooler, toddler and baby, we took Fridays off and did a half day on Saturday when my husband was available to help care for the little ones. This provided more one-on-one, quiet, uninterrupted instruction for my older kids one day a week.

Another option for planning your weeks has to do with when you do each subject. There are several options for when to do each subject. First, you could choose to do every subject every single school day. Another option is scheduling certain subjects for certain days. For example, Monday and Wednesday may be for history and English. You would only tackle history and English on these two days but you would be packing a weeks worth of lessons into two days. Some kids find it easier to focus on just a few subjects each day instead of jumping around all day to numerous subjects.

When it comes to planning your homeschool weeks, you have a lot of flexibility to meet your unique family’s needs.

Create Routines for Your Days

Start thinking about what your general routine is going to be for your homeschool days. For most families, a routine works better than a strict schedule. What’s the difference?

A schedule lists subjects to be taught within different time frames. For example, math is from 8 to 9 am and English is from 9 to 10 am. This type of strict schedule is what many of us are used to from our years in public or private school. While this type of schedule may work for some homeschool families, most homeschool families do better with a routine.

A routine is a flow and order to your day that isn’t tied to a specific time. For example, my kids know that our homeschool day routine is to get up and get ready and then do morning chores. After that, we start our school day tackling a few subjects before we break for snack. Then, we come back to school until we are hungry for lunch where we break for an hour or more to eat and play and get energy out. We finish up any school work after our lunch break before having the afternoon for free time.

Some families combine the best of both the schedule and routine methods to create time chunks in their day. Perhaps 7 to 8:30 am is morning routine time. 8:30 to 10:00 am is school time. 10:00 to 10:45 am is snack and free time and so on. They set times to their days to keep on track but don’t micromanage the time chunks.

Figuring out what type of daily routine works for your family will take time. And remember that what works in one season of your homeschooling journey may not work in another season. Be open to making changes as needed.

Here are a few examples of schedules and routines that we have used over the years:

• Large Family Homeschool Schedule
• Our Simple Homeschool Day Schedule
• New Homeschool Routine
• Our Summer Routine as a Homeschool Family

Organize Your Materials

It’s time to start organizing your homeschool materials. That includes your curriculum, homeschool supplies and record keeping.

Check out my homeschool organization playlist on YouTube for more ideas on how to organize your homeschool. You might also find this playlist on homeschool planning and recording keeping helpful. And here is a playlist on how to keep high school records for your homeschooler.

Get Started

Just get started! As you begin homeschooling, you will learn what works and doesn’t work for your family. You can spend days and weeks planning only to find that all your planning doesn’t work for your family. So instead of spending time stressing about what your homeschool should look like, just get started and discover what works best for your family along the way.

Re-evaluate and Make Changes Throughout the Year

Throughout the homeschool year, take some time to re-evaluate and make changes. What has been working really well for you? What isn’t working and what changes could you make?

If you are uncertain about what changes you should make, reach out to another homeschool mom for advice and encouragement. I’m also available to assist you in your homeschool journey through my one-on-one homeschool consultations.

Quick Start Guide to Homeschooling Video

Do you learn better with audio and video? Then watch my Quick Start Guide to Homeschooling video below. It has all the same information in video format.