Why Homeschool? - How can it help my family?

Let’s start at the beginning and talk about why you should homeschool.  I have talked to numerous families and we can all have a different reason but I am going to discuss some of the most popular. 

Maybe you have a gifted child or a child that needs some extra help.  Homeschool is ideal for this because you can customize your child’s education to fit their needs.  You are able to adjust the difficulty level of your lessons based on your child’s needs.  So if you have a student that is gifted in math you can raise the level of math that you give him.  If you have a child struggling in spelling you can find alternative ways to help them learn their words. 

Our School Day – version 3

When I started out this year I did what I think every homeschool mom does when they first start out.  I created a 6 or 7 subject day (version 1).  I was trying to cover all the subjects every day because that is how I learned when I was in school.  It was a struggle to get through the day with all school work done and the kids complained about the amount of work I was requiring. 

After Christmas I played with the schedule trying to reduce the amount of work but I continued the 6 subject day (version 2).  When I attended the homeschool convention I attended a class by a lady that had some great concepts.  She talked about how one of the problems with learning in school is that it promotes short term memory instead of long term retention.  They teach to the test and the kids only retain what they need for test and after forget what they had learned.  They don’t cover one subject long enough to create the long term retention.  She taught that you should do the 3 “R”s everyday (reading, writing, and arithmetic) and pick one subject to teach in a “unit study” style.  You cover that subject until you get through it, say a month, this promotes long term retention.