One of the things that I see so much of and notice is that most homeschooling mums are former
early years teachers and because of that most of the content I have seen don’t cater to the
regular mum who just sees the need to homeschool her child(ren) for whatever reason. When
you hear “Homeschooling” we probably think it only teaching your kids Maths and English at
home but in my journey to home educate my son, I have seen that it is a whole lot more than
that. That is what I hope to shed more light on in this article;
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
● Know that it’s a long term commitment & find strength; For you to be reading this article
it means you have made a decision or planning to make the decision to homeschool
your child. When we make the decision we have one focus, the education of our
children and we have to keep that focus on every day because there will be hard days
and there will be days you feel like you are not doing the right thing but with the focus in
mind, it will give us the tenacity and will power to move forward. Commitment is what is
going to keep us moving forward on the days we don’t feel like it. Just like a Job, you
have to show up ‘everyday’ for your child(ren) because you understand that their
learning is important to you.
● Be on the same page with your spouse: This is a very important part of the process.
Most homeschooling families the mother is responsible for the homeschooling process,
most of it is based on the mother's philosophy of education, research on the curriculum
to use and just informs the spouse or significant other as against, both partners sitting
down to define everything involved and making the decisions together. In the situation
where he is 100% involved, he can be a sounding board for ideas, help in making the
decision for the curriculum to use, he can take your home education session
occasionally. The truth is that we all need support and isn’t it absolutely amazing when it
comes from your spouse.
● Check the Laws of your country: In Nigeria, from the research, I have done,
homeschooling is permissible, however, there are some things that need to be taken into
consideration. How long do you want to homeschool? Are you in it till university level? Or
just for primary education? Your answers to these questions will determine if you should
be ‘worried’ about the laws in Nigeria or not. I am putting in steps to find out more on the
laws but from the information I have, you can’t register for common entrance except
through a school but if it is for WAEC there is an option to register a private student. The
whole information is sketchy because all the information I have are from online sources
that are not verifiable because there are no clear standards in this country, however, I
am working on finding out more official information. In the USA there are clear laws,
requirements in each state all you have to do is search for the laws of your state to figure
out what you need to do to ensure you are doing the right thing.
● Define your education philosophy: This one is very important. I started my
homeschooling journey not thinking so much about my educational philosophy. I was
just researching curricular, schedules, worksheets etc. I discovered that I was always not
getting what I wanted and this was mainly because I hadn’t even defined my philosophy
on education. I want us to also think of our philosophy different from just choosing a
method but also looking at your overall goal as a family, for example; “I want to raise a
well-rounded child who enjoys learning, curious and is committed to the process
of lifelong learning” something along those lines. While it is good to know and be
familiar with the different educational methods out there, it is important to define your
philosophy because this will inform how you approach educating your child.
● Know the learning style: Children are different and all children do not learn in the same
way, so we can’t educate them in the same way, this is why you have to know the
learning style of your child(ren)Observe, observe, observe. For the younger kids, it’s not
like you are giving them an assessment but the purpose is to know what will be the most
effective way to achieve your learning goal. For older kids, there are different online tests
that can help with knowing their learning style. There are various types of learning styles
Visual, Aural, Kinetic, Social, Interpersonal, Logical & Verbal Read more here being
armed with the information above you can now go ahead to choose your curriculum
● Choosing a curriculum/Learning method: There are a thousand and one options out
there on the internet, both paid and free resources it can get really overwhelming
especially when you don’t have a formal education on knowing exactly what to do. But,
when you have gone through the process of defining your philosophy and defined your
child(ren)’s learning style the process of choosing the curriculum/learning method
becomes narrowed down and makes the process easier. When you do start the process,
you should be willing to trust the process.
● Routine & Planning: If you fail to plan you plan to fail. Like we mentioned earlier, we are
in this for the long haul and if we don’t create a routine and plan ahead what we are
going to do we are already setting ourselves up for failure. We have a simple routine for
homeschooling for toddlers and you can use it as a framework for your homeschooling
by tailoring it to your child(ren)’s age. You only have to create a routine once and tweak
as your child evolves, and based on your curriculum/learning method you can plan
weekly. Planning doesn’t have to be a long process, you can simplify the process and in
future articles, we would share how to do these.
I really hope that these step by step process will help you on your homeschooling journey.
Are you a homeschooler? What will you say are the important steps for someone starting out?
Are you new on the journey? Feel free to ask questions in the comment section.
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