After you decide to homeschool, the next consideration is what kind of homeschooler you will be so you can choose your curriculum and plan your style of teaching. Are you a religious homeschooler who desires to infuse all of your teaching with the principles of your faith? Or are you a secular homeschooler who prefers not to teach matters of religion or at least keep them separate from your academic pursuits? Your answers to those questions will influence what kind of curriculum you consider and ultimately buy.
Do you want a faith-neutral program or a faith-positive one? Do you prefer secular materials only for certain school subjects?The beauty of homeschooling is that you can mix and match. Some families hold a personal faith but prefer a curriculum that doesn’t address those tenets in the day-to-day homeschool lessons. Others are strictly secular in the own perspective on life and, of course, want a program to mirror that conviction.
Being a Secular Homeschooler
If you’ve ever felt out of place at overly spiritual co-ops or at churchy homeschool groups, we invite you to consider BookShark’s 4-day faith-neutral curriculum. It’s literature-based and covers everything your children need. Our All Subjects Packages include Reading, History, Science, Language Arts, and Math (plus areas like geography, vocabulary, etc.). All the materials come in one big box, and you won’t have to worry about editing out religious content on the fly. Add in whatever faith-based materials you prefer—or not! We leave the choice up to you.
Below is an index of all our articles and blog posts about secular homeschooling: reasons, definitions, tips, and even a personal story from a secular homeschooling mom.
There are as many reasons to homeschool as there are benefits in doing so. It’s not uncommon for a family to choose to homeschool for one primary reason, but as the years go on, they discover so many more reasons to homeschool—reasons they never even contemplated until they started on the journey. With more experience, a homeschool parent begins to see the rich education that homeschooling provides goes well beyond any single motivation—whether religious or secular.
With history’s constant expansion, it’s easy to understand why homeschooling the subject may feel a bit daunting. How can children begin to grasp how it all fits together? There are so many people, cultures, continents, and events!
Timelines come in a variety of formats, but one thing is consistent. Whether it’s vertical or horizontal, there’s a dated line that helps students put information in chronological order.
Students can create history timelines for a variety of reasons:
to study a specific era or region
to see the events of a person’s life
to trace the development of a particular subject—like the evolution of art or progress of scientific discoveries
to compare the histories of multiple countries at the same time
to give context to a person’s life or an event
Homeschool timelines are incredibly versatile. They can be kept in a binder, hung on a wall, or even written on adding machine tape, They come pre-printed (like BookShark’s Timeline Book), or students can make their own. Whatever format you choose, consider these five benefits to making one part of your homeschool history studies.
1. Homeschool Timelines Help Kids Make Connections
A timeline acts as a way to tie history together. As students add people, events, scientific discoveries, and inventions to their timelines, they discover how these smaller puzzle pieces fit together into the bigger picture of history.
Teaching tip: Color code your timelines. For example, you can write people’s names in red, events in blue, etc. Or you can assign specific colors to countries and label anything to do with that area in the same color. Just keep a key for reference.
2. Homeschool Timelines Provide a Way to Organize Learning
Many parents enjoy a chronological approach to studying history, so using a timeline makes perfect sense. But there are also times when you may want to follow a rabbit trail—something your kids are interested in studying or a current event you want to take advantage of, like the Olympics or US Elections.
When you use a timeline like BookShark’s The Timeline Book, students can add to it even when they aren’t studying history sequentially. They will see how their current studies fit into the broader scope of history.
Teaching tip: Have students memorize a few key dates. These can become pegs to hang their learning on. For example, while studying the American Revolution, knowing what happened in 1776 is essential.
3. Homeschool Timelines are the Perfect Review
With a timeline, students have the opportunity to look back over what they have learned and review it. And when you ask questions about their timelines, it can be an informal method of evaluation.
Teaching tip: Have students show off their timelines. When they are sharing it with grandparents, aunt, uncles, etc, they will naturally be telling others about what they learned. You’ve covered narration and review at the same time!
4. Homeschool Timelines Develop a Global Worldview
Students can see what was going on in different parts of the world at the same time. For example, using a timeline when studying inventors and inventions shows students that ideas were often being worked on concurrently, but in different ways.
Thanks to a timeline kids will realize that Christopher Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci were contemporaries.
They will marvel that Socrates, Buddah, and Confucius all lived at around the same time period.
And they may be surprised to learn that while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, the Islamic Empire and China had a flowering of science and art.
Teaching tip: When working on your timelines, look for overlap. Prompt them to consider,“How did people from around the world contribute to this event, idea, etc.? Does this event remind you of something else in history? While this is happening here, what’s happening elsewhere?”
5. Homeschool Timelines Show Patterns in History
Timelines help students discover patterns in history. You’ve probably heard a variation of George Santayana’s observation, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” By using a timeline, students see certain patterns emerge. Rising tensions, war, times of economic depression, times of prosperity—these tend to cycle in almost every developed nation around the world.
When students look back over their timelines, they can find specific types of events more easily and compare to current events. The 2020 pandemic is the perfect time to look back and see when a disease or illness has had a major impact on society.
Teaching tip: Questions help your student develop critical thinking skills. Instead of simply adding a person or event to the timeline, ask them if they’ve noticed any patterns. Be specific, especially with younger students. For example, “Have you noticed any similarities about events before a war begins?”
Why You’ll Want BookShark’s Timeline
Timelines are such a valuable tool for homeschool history that every BookShark Reading with History curriculum package includes a Timeline Book as part of the required resources. Of course, if you use BookShark more than one year, you don’t need a fresh Timeline Book each year. You can continue placing figures in the same Timeline Book throughout your entire homeschool career. The spiral-bound notebook format is especially practical:
includes pre-printed dates from 5,000 B.C. to the present
constructed of quality, heavy-gauge paper that holds up over time
is in a standard 8 ½ x 11” size so it’s easy to store on the shefl or take with you on the go
includes plenty of space for figures, notes, and drawings
Even if you’ve never used a timeline in the past, it’s never too late to start! And if you get behind in placing your scheduled figures, no worries! Just have a timeline book day when you review what you’ve learned and affix all the figures you’ve covered in the last few months. pics they are interested in and can relate to, ask questions that spark opinions and more questions, and get excited about what will happen next. Your kids will follow suit and you’ll be digging in and having valuable discussions with them before you know it.
If you’ve ever doubted yourself as a homeschooler, you’re not alone. No matter how many years we homeschool, doubt can get loud. Seeds of doubt plant germinate and sprout when our kids struggle, when we’re tired, when our kids say they are bored, or when learning stagnates. When worry rears its head, our inclination might be to turn to a quick fix or busy work to quiet our fears.
What is busy work? Busy work is anything we tell ourselves is good for our child knowing full well deep inside it’s a way to keep kids occupied or put a bandaid on whatever is going on.
Busy work often appears in the form of
worksheets you’ll never look at or use
excessive practice and problems
crafts
online learning games
educational television
flashcards, and workbooks
While all of these things can be wonderful learning tools if used as such, they can also be pointless. They can be busy work.
Busy work in education is like the fillers in our food. We can pretend something labeled natural is automatically nutritious. But when we analyze the ingredients label, we see the truth. And at times (especially when we are stressed or exhausted), we tell ourselves our children are learning when children are merely doing something school-like.
I’m not here to judge. When I was a new teacher, I gave my students busy work. Again, there are a variety of reasons good teachers and homeschoolers use busy work to keep kids occupied. Busy work keeps kids quiet and basically content when other children are learning at different paces, when children are struggling to learn, when a teacher is tired or overwhelmed, and when there isn’t time to plan a more meaningful or hands-on lesson.
Good teachers and homeschoolers don’t turn to busy work because we’re lazy. We turn to it because we feel something is amiss. When we have that feeling, we need to answer the deeper questions:
Is my child struggling or challenged by something we are learning?
Is my child complaining about being bored or miserable?
Am I comparing my child to someone else?
Am I tired or in need of a break?
Is my child tired or in need of a break?
Are my expectations realistic?
Am I looking for reassurance?
All of these questions point to something other than the need for busy work. And in fact, offering worksheets or mundane practice on something a child already knows, finds boring, or they don’t understand is only going to make the situation worse.
There are alternatives to busy work, even when we’re tired or feel overwhelmed. Here are eight ways to say no to busy work.
1. Play
Children learn through play! Play is just as important, if not more so than anything we are teaching our kids. Rest assured, they are learning! If you need to work one on one with a child, have toys or activities the others can play with independently. Maybe set up an art station, reading corner, or building center. These areas do not have to be complicated or time-consuming to set up. Pull out beads and strings, watercolor pencils and paper, put books in a basket, or grab a bin of LEGO blocks.
2. Games
There are countless games that offer practice in reading, writing, math, geography, etc. Children will learn the skills at a faster rate if they are playing. Bonus: playing a game can be the perfect way to both take a break and learn at the same time.
3. Quiet Times
If we want our children to learn, our children need rest. A study out of the University of Edinburgh and the University of Missouri looked at the best ways to improve memory. “The participants were asked to listen to some stories and answer questions an hour later. Without the chance to rest, they could recall just 7% of the facts in the story; with the rest, this jumped to 79% – an astronomical 11-fold increase in the information they retained.”
When our kids aren’t used to resting or playing quietly by themselves, it can take time to help them adjust. Start out with ten minutes of quiet play and work your way up.
4. Use Group Work or Pair/Share
We can learn by watching others. If there are skills you want your children to practice, find a friend or sibling they can practice with. The other child may explain the concepts in a new way that helps it stick.
We all need reassurance, but as homeschoolers, we may have to offer it to ourselves. Keep lists, charts, or bullet journals to remind yourself you are all doing great! Keep track of and encourage yourself by focusing on all the things your child accomplishes during a school day.
7. Take a Break
Give yourself and your child time to process everything you’re doing. Take time to plan, to talk together about what your child wants to learn or needs to learn.
8. Go Outside
There are a number of reasons to get kids outside. The outdoors offers places to learn, explore, and exercise. Nature is good for our brains and our well being. Take a walk or head to the creek, the fresh air will reset everyone’s mood and your kids will find all sorts of learning threads to follow.
As homeschoolers, we have the opportunity to offer our children a quality education over quantity. Our kids do not have to sit in chairs all day, stand in lines, or wait for twenty other children to finish their work. We can set deadlines or not. Our kids can learn inside or out, in the morning or afternoon, and while that doesn’t mean our job as a homeschooler is easy, it does mean we can focus on what our children need and avoid keeping them busy with pointless busy work.
If after reading this article, you wonder if your entire curriculum may be based on busy work, take a look at BookShark. Meaningful discussions about great books are the heart of a BookShark education. No fluff. No busy work. Request a catalog here.
About the Author
Kelly left teaching middle and high school English to homeschool her children and reclaim how she and her family spent their time. Followers of interest-led learning, her family’s days rarely look the same, but they tend to include a lot of books, art supplies, and time outside.
Kelly facilitates local writing circles for women and children and blogs about nurturing the love of learning on her blog, Curiosity Encouraged. She loves to journal, read memoirs, hike, and travel. She seeks quiet mornings and good coffee daily.
We all suffer from information overload at times. When there is too much detail or too much to digest, we tend to shut down and not assimilate any of it in a meaningful way.
The same is true for students. Some learning tools are overwhelming. For example, traditional maps and atlases that have hundreds of labels can be hard to digest. There’s just so much information, students may not know what to zero in on and consequently remember little of what they see.
By doing the work of locating and labeling places on their map, students are more likely to remember what they are learning.
We tend to remember information better when it has a specific purpose or connection to what we are learning. The Markable Map gives you a way to create that context. You read; then you mark.
This 23″ x 34″, full-colored map can hang on the wall so your students can reference it easily. Tip: If you don’t have room on your wall, pin it to a piece of foam board and store it under a bed. You can prop it up on an easel or a chair during school hours.
It’s laminated, so you can use it again and again for a variety of activities.
The map has two sides: the United States and the world.
All of your students can use it, from kindergarten through high school.
Markable Map Learning Activities
You can use the map for a variety of learning activities with students of all ages across subject areas. You’ll only need a few supplies and resources such as Vis-a-Vis® markers, an atlas, the Internet, and of course, the Markable Map.
BookShark Instructor’s Guides include suggested mapping activities, so you’re covering geography in an integrated way if you follow the lesson plans. Below are some of the kinds of mapping activities that you may encounter. If geography is a favorite (or a weak spot), you may want to add extra mapping fun into your homeschool routine.
Label parts of the map such as lines of longitude and latitude and the equator. Learn what these terms mean and why they are important.
United States
Write the name of the state you are studying and place a star on the capital of the state and label it. Also mark and identify major cities. Include geographical features such as mountain ranges by drawing triangles where they are located.
Choose a color for each region of the United States. Outline each state as you study it with a Vis-a-Vis® marker corresponding to the color of the region.
Draw a symbol, such as an outline of a car, on each state that you have visited. This is also a great activity to do as you plan a vacation showing where you will be traveling.
World
Label continents, oceans, and countries as you study them.
During the Olympics, place the olympic rings on the map where the games are held. Learn about what the rings stand for, then using colors corresponding to the rings, outline those regions on your map.
Use your map to show where Native American tribes were located across the United States as westward expansion became the focus.
As you study the history of different parts of the world, add a symbol or simple stick figure style picture on your map where major events took place.
Show the movement of troops during wars. Talk about the obstacles the geography of the area might have caused for them.
History is being made everyday, so locate and label places you hear about in the news.
Other Subjects
When you read about a place in a book, locate it on the map. You can even draw a small copy of the book’s cover to attach to the map.
When writing a fictional story, consult the map to find a setting for your story. Think about how the geography of that area would affect the character’s lives.
Use the Markable Map as a visual for a presentation.
Learn about graphing using the lines of longitude and latitude. Give students coordinates and have them draw a circle on the map where those coordinates meet.
Reference the Markable Map when visualizing math problems dealing with distance.
Have students create their own word math problems using the map.
When studying animals, put small pictures of them in the region they are most predominant. Or track migration routes of animals across the world.
Draw small pictures of inventions and place them on the map where they were invented,
Label the places different types of music were created or emerged from classical to jazz to rock.
As your students study different subjects, brainstorm your own family’s ideas for how to use the Markable Map in your homeschool. You’ll discover it’s an inexpensive investment that yields valuable learning opportunities for the entire family. s with our children. Draw out the topics they are interested in and can relate to, ask questions that spark opinions and more questions, and get excited about what will happen next. Your kids will follow suit and you’ll be digging in and having valuable discussions with them before you know it.
Are you in a season of on-the-go-schooling? Are you out exploring the world more than you’re at home? I know I am! Museum visits, sports practices, dentist appointments, weekend trips, co-op classes, piano lessons and countless hours in the car blanket our week.
This constant motion means that our homeschooling has to be flexible. Sometimes reading assignments are tucked into the twenty-minutes hanging out in the waiting room or the forty-five minutes at the library between activities.
At first, I didn’t think we could fit anything meaningful into these short shifts of learning, but I knew I had to find a way!
Next to my front door, you’ll find a laundry basket filled with tote bags of various kinds. As we waltz out the door, staying on track with learning is as simple as grabbing a tote. Let my bags inspire you to build carry-alls that meet the needs of your on-the-go family!
1. Tote Bag Homeschooling for All
If you’re going to set up just one tote, this is the one. It has something for everyone—perfect for family-style learning! Here are some suggestions based on what’s in my own bag:
A card game or two
A juicy read-aloud
Drawing books and colored pencils
Journals for freewriting
Magnetic white boards
Magnetic letter tiles for word play
A tablet for streaming documentaries
2. Tote Bag Homeschooling for One
This kind of tote bag is designed for one learner and is individualized accordingly. Here is what you’d find in a few of ours.
Learner, age 6: phonics workbook and early readers, math book, a couple of picture books, a geography sticker book, crayons and unlined paper, audiobook player with earbuds
Learner, age 12: atlas and Markable Map, deck of cards for math games, writing journal, historical fiction book, tablet with science videos bookmarked
Learner, age 14: laptop for online math lessons and history videos, novel, science book, word roots game, colored pencils and drawing notebook
Mom: Instructor’s Guides, a few math manipulatives, a read aloud book, a box of granola bars
3. Tote Bag Homeschooling by Topic
This tote bag is focused on one subject area and the contents will vary depending on the topic.
History Bag: history read-aloud, atlas, geography game, world history encyclopedia
Science Bag: field guides, nature notebooks, colored pencils, science books, science-themed games
Math Bag: deck of cards, snap cubes, math-themed read aloud, base-ten blocks, math notebooks, dice
Reading Bag: early readers, letter tiles, white-boards and markers, word cards, a phonics game
Fine Arts Bag: poetry anthology, art books, how to draw guides, markers, colored pencils, oil pastels, books about famous musicians, audio player with earbuds
4. Tote Bag Homeschooling on a Budget
This tote bag is inexpensive and versatile! It could be assembled with just a few items from the dollar store!
Library books
Notebook and pencils for writing and drawing
Dice, a deck of cards, and dominoes for math games
Homeschooling flows smoothly into the pockets of our days with grab-and-go tote bags! They don’t have to be fancy or overly involved. Build a few totes and line them up in your entryway so you’ll be ready for next day of on-the-go learning. Each bag can fit your family’s needs and the contents can change as often as you’d like them to!
Angela Awald is a homeschooling mama to 6, certified teacher, writer, and doula. Her days brim full of learning, loving, and laundry (lots and lots of laundry)!! She believes that nurturing children (and ourselves) means helping them to see that all of life is about learning – from our mistakes, from each other, and from great books! Angela blogs at nurturedroots.net where she shares the ways she is nurturing her family and inspiration for nurturing your own.
Have you ever heard the myth that homeschool parents need to be extremely organized to successfully homeschool? Maybe you tell someone you homeschool and their reaction is, “Oh! You must be so organized!” Or you attend a homeschool convention and hear speaker after speaker talking about planners, schedules, calendars, and organizational systems as if those are more important that reading aloud and doing science experiments.
Well, I strongly disagree with the assumption that you must be organized to be an effective homeschooler, and here’s why. I am a disorganized mess, and we have a very successful homeschool nevertheless!
What do I mean by a disorganized mess? Here are a few examples:
I’ve never successfully maintained a planner.
We don’t have a single file folder holding school papers.
If we can find enough pencils for everyone to write at the same time, it’s a good day.
Now you may be wondering, “If you are so disorganized, how do you ever get your homeschool work done?”
First, I think it’s important to point out that kids do not need constant academic instruction. Most homeschooled kids can accomplish a lot of the more academic needs in a much smaller amount of time thanks to the small teacher/student ratio and the ability to move at the student’s pace.
Second, kids learn a lot through everyday life. We don’t need to have a plan for every moment of the day for them to learn.
Third, while many parents are organized, there are plenty of parents who are not at all organized. And you never know the whole story of someone else’s life. That super mom you are comparing yourself to may not be quite as organized as she seems from the outside looking in.
Benefits of Being a Disorganized Mess
Not many people see benefits to being disorganized. And truthfully, there aren’t many. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bought two of the same item simply because I forgot I had bought it in the first place. That’s not an advantage of being disorganized.
But being disorganized has allowed us to be a bit more spontaneous. Since we don’t usually have a set plan, it’s easy to take time off to explore a newfound interest. When we are in the middle of a lesson and my sons want to expand on it, we can. We can drop whatever we are doing and not worry about ruining our schedule (because we don’t follow one).
How to Get Stuff Done in Your Homeschool
When your mind opens to the reality of homeschooling, it can be overwhelming to think about all the possibilities that you could cover with your children. There are so many academic subjects plus extracurriculars, field trips, and supplements. I have two steps to combat the overwhelming feeling of trying to get it all done.
Simplifying. I write down all the subjects i want to cover in a year (or even semester). Then I rank them in order of importance. For instance, we would put math ahead of science and science ahead of coding, etc. Once I have my list, I consider what I can eliminate. Do I really need to do grammar lessons this year or is it something that could wait until my boys are older? I write everything that is left in order of importance and determine a basic routine to get it done. We do math twice a week, reading twice a week, and rotate history and science on a weekly basis. This very simple structure means we get things done without feeling hemmed into a strict regime.
Writing down my goals. What are my goals in homeschooling? Do I want my kids to gather all the possible knowledge they can? Or are my goals more about making learning fun? Knowing and understanding my ultimate goal helps me realize what matters and what doesn’t matter. Our main goal is to teach our kids how to learn. When we focus on only that, the overwhelming feeling of getting it all done is simplified to just one task.
Choose the Right Curriculum
A lot of successful homeschooling in general is choosing the right curriculum. Homeschooling as a disorganized mess is no different. For me, an open and go curriculum works best. When I can just sit down and start the lesson without prep work, it eases the effect of my disorganization. We are able to start any time we please without organizing the lesson first. I don’t need to have a planner or spend hours a week figuring out what we need to do. I just open the Instructor’s Guide and do the next thing.
Not all curriculum can be open and go though. Any hands-on curricula will need at least a bit of preparation. I prefer programs either offer a concise material lists of items normally found in a household or a program like BookShark’s science that comes with a kit of required materials. That kit is a lifesaver for a mom who isn’t great at planning ahead.
So when you’re searching for curriculum, consider how much prep time is required. If you’re a disorganized mess, you might want to stay away from ones that require more planning and stick with something that lets you open up a guide and do the next thing.
About the Author
Erin blogs at RoyalBaloo.com where she inspires people to make learning fun! Through printables, games, activities, and unit studies, learning becomes an adventure worth having.
With one foot in childhood and the other entering adulthood, eighth-grade is a pivotal time. Choosing homeschool curriculum can be nerve-racking when you realize that eighth grade can set your child up for success or hold him back. I found inspiration for my son’s curriculum choices in a very odd place—a 1912 eighth grade exam.
Learning the art of cursive or diagramming sentences from the Bible seems archaic by today’s educational standards. However, the old-fashioned testing standards I saw in this old test helped me find a middle ground between relaxed and restrictive homeschooling. Here are three lessons I learned from this relic of one-room school days.
Lesson 1: Longer School Hours Aren’t Necessarily Better
Learning that longer school days don’t necessarily equate to more learning, I shortened the length of our school day and increased the level of difficulty in my son’s courses. Instead of sticking to grade level by purchasing eighth grade curriculum, I purchased high school level courses that better suited his true abilities. My son was able to get a head start on high school while still in middle school.
Lesson 2: The Basics Don’t Have to be Reviewed in Upper Grades
Learning more background of the exam, I realized that it was uncommon in the 1800s and early 1900s for a child to continue his education past eighth grade. Scholarships were awarded to students to encourage them to continue onto high school. Because eighth grade marked the end of most students’ academic careers, the basics were expected to be fully mastered by this level.
Taking a clue from this old test, I realized we, too, could move past the basics in eighth-grade and move into more complex subjects. I knew how much time we had spent covering the 3Rs over the years, and so I stopped scheduling them on our homeschool plan for eighth grade. Although it was frightening at the time, I reduced my son’s work in the basics, and he transitioned easily into higher-level courses.
Lesson 3: Curriculum Should Go Beyond Rote Memorization
Not all the things I read in the 1912 eighth-grade exam positively influenced me. Some of the history questions like name the last battles of the Civil War and the War of 1812 didn’t impress me as especially important for today’s society. It’s not enough to memorize battles or dates. Our kids need to understand the ideology behind decisions made in the past. Preparing a teen for high school or college means he needs the skills to look beyond the obvious and learn analysis.
So the last lesson I took away from this old exam was to scrutinize my long-term goals. In eighth grade I looked for curriculum that taught my son how to think creatively and critically and how to communicate effectively. On the other hand, because a relaxed homeschool atmosphere is important to me, reviewing my long-term goals didn’t mean I had to force my son to learn higher-level skills in middle school until he was ready. Achieving balance between relaxed and rigid homeschooling has always been challenging for me, and the huge amount of unused homeschool curriculum in my home is a testament to that fact. Reviving some of the learning standards from times past is something I occasionally wish for, but learning from them was far more valuable and inspirational than I imagined.
About the Author
Tina Robertson celebrated the graduation of Mr. Senior in 2013 and Mr. Awesome in 2015. Because of her love for new homeschoolers, she mentors moms through her unique program called New Bee Homeschoolers. She loves all homeschoolers, though, as she shares her free 7 Step Curriculum Planner, unit studies, lapbooks and homeschooling how tos. She can’t sing, dance, or craft, but she counts organizing as a hobby. She is still in the homeschool trenches blogging at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
Many of us were taught language arts as a disjointed set of unrelated skills—a very ineffective way to learn it. Can you relate to any of these experiences?
Learning about a grammar concept and completing ten to twenty exercises after the lesson to practice the new skill.
Receiving a list of spelling words on Monday and memorizing them for a test on Friday. Then spelling them incorrectly in your own writing.
Defining literary terms and never noticing them in the books you read.
Memorizing vocabulary words, but never actually using them while speaking or writing—and then forgetting them.
Following a formula to write a paper and hating every minute of it because you were as bored writing it as your teachers were probably reading it.
You did the work in school, but without context and without connection. As a result, you may believe you aren’t good at language arts. The truth is, you struggled with language arts because of how it was taught, not because of a lack of intelligence. Unfortunately we have a tendency to homeschool in the same way we learned, even if we believe our own education was lacking.
There’s a better way. You can teach language arts effectively, no matter your own school experience with the subject. After all, Albert Einstein said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
Life-Long Learning Starts with You
As a homeschooler, know it’s perfectly fine to learn alongside your children. You don’t have to be an expert in every subject. It’s not even possible! What you do need is an attitude that says, “We can figure this out together.”
As Anthony J. D’Angelo said, “Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”
It’s okay if you don’t master something the first time around.
Learning is a process that takes diligence and practice.
They don’t have to do it alone.
Modeling learning means you’re showing them how to learn, not just what to learn. You also get the benefit of a better grasp of language arts skills you can use in your own life. And you’ll also be more sympathetic when they struggle, because you know what it feels like.
Teaching Language Arts Comes Naturally
“Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.”—John Holt
Your children began learning long before they ever started school. From the moment they were born, you watched in amazement with each skill they added from rolling over to lifting their heads, from sitting to standing, from crawling to walking.
You wondered as they picked up word after word and began speaking in phrases and sentences. You laughed at their grammar mistakes because they were adorable, and you knew one day they would say it correctly.
You were their first teachers. You encouraged them, you helped them, and you gently corrected their mistakes.
You’ve been teaching them since the day they were born, and you can continue to teach them everything they need to be effective communicators.
Workbooks and textbooks may offer lessons and exercises to teach kids language arts skills, but they are ineffective to inspire a love of literature and writing. Often students don’t know how to apply those exercises to their actual writing. They miss those things that make writing compelling to read and their speeches compelling to listen to.
Spelling and vocabulary comes from the books they are reading.
Writing assignments are tied to the subject matter they are learning about in the books they read.
Grammar skills are learned through copying and writing from dictation using sentences and passage from the books they are reading.
You see the pattern. Students learn from published authors—experts in their field. Good writing inspires good writing as students absorb language arts skills naturally.
You Have a Guide
Anatole France correctly said, “Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.” As a homeschool parent, tou have the opportunity to be your students’ biggest cheerleader—the one who encourages them and helps them stay on track.
But you also have a coach to help you along the way.
With BookShark Instructor’s Guides, you have everything you need to teach language arts, even if you don’t feel confident in your own skills. You get:
A 36-week, 4-day schedule designed to save one day a week for co-ops, music lessons, sports, field trips or other extra-curricular activities.
Weekly overviews
Student Activity Sheets
Separate parent instructions, answers, and definitions
Rubrics to help you evaluate more subjective activities
You Can Teach Your Children Language Arts
You may not consider yourself equipped to teach language arts because you didn’t understand the way it was taught to you. But there’s good news. You aren’t alone. BookShark can help.
You’ll have everything you need to teach your kids naturally, and along the way learn a few things yourself. It’s one of the reasons homeschooling is so successful. As a homeschooler, you are the facilitator of your children’s education. You don’t have to know everything, because like any life-long learner, you can find the resources to help.
About the Author
Kelly left teaching middle and high school English to homeschool her children and reclaim how she and her family spent their time. Followers of interest-led learning, her family’s days rarely look the same, but they tend to include a lot of books, art supplies, and time outside.
Kelly facilitates local writing circles for women and children and blogs about nurturing the love of learning on her blog, Curiosity Encouraged. She loves to journal, read memoirs, hike, and travel. She seeks quiet mornings and good coffee daily.
Although having a family reading time is important to my family, I realize that with the numerous other obligations a homeschool mama has, reading aloud as a family might not seems doable. Our family reading time is one of our favorite times of the day, but it didn’t always look like it does now. Here are five easy tips to help you and your family have an awesome daily reading time together:
1. Be choosy about the time of day.
Your family reading time will be affected by the ages of your children and your daily activities. It may also change over time, depending on how your schedule shifts through the year. Choose a time of day that is more relaxed. If your evenings are always very hectic, that probably isn’t a good time for you.
We used to read in the mornings before school until the baby became a toddler. Our family reading time suffered while our mobile little sweetie was getting into everything under the sun. To say she was distracting is an understatement. We ultimately moved our reading time to evenings after the baby was in bed and after the older kids were showered and ready for bed themselves. Changing our family reading time to evening made it a great transition into bedtime.
2. Choose books that interest your children.
If your children can’t stand fanciful stories, don’t read them. Find an author that they love, and read his or her books. My kids love Roald Dahl! On the flipside, challenge your kids to try new literature styles, too. But make sure that they are having fun. Family reading time should not be torture.
3. Read an array of books together.
Sometimes I chose books that correlate with the season or an upcoming holiday. Sometimes my selections go with what we are studying in science or history. Other times they don’t match our homeschool lessons at all.
The point is that I select a wide variety of books, authors, and subjects. Changing it up keeps family reading time from getting dry and boring. Let your children suggest books they want to read. Other times choose for them.
4. Keep little hands busy.
I have been reading to my kids for a long time, ever since they were very small. I’ve even read chapter books to my three-year-olds, but to expect them to sit still and not wiggle is unrealistic. Have a special activity that your little ones can do while you read. Make sure this activity is mostly mindless like these examples:
squeezing silly putty
stacking and unstacking blocks
matching socks
This kind of physical action will keep them mostly stationary and quiet while you read. They may still be moving while they do their activity, but they are listening!
5. Be consistent.
When I’ve tried to read only one chapter every week or so, I almost never finish the novel. Being consistent in your reading time is key to being successful. With too much space between reading sessions, your kids (and you) will forget what is going on in the story. Shoot for at least reading four times per week. It will start to become part of your daily routine, and your kids will miss it when you don’t read.
Happy reading to your family!
About the Author
Alicia Hutchinson is the homeschooling mom to four. She and her children love reading and history and exploring outside. They are just settling into their new home in the Minneapolis area, where they just relocated from North Carolina.
You can read more about Alicia and their homeschooling adventures, current projects, and thoughts on motherhood at her blog Investing Love.
We have just started our fifth year of homeschooling with BookShark and have changed our schedule through the years to fit various stages of our life. I’ve learned to make my curriculum flex for me and my kids while also trusting it to lay a solid academic foundation. I know that BookShark doesn’t need extra dressing up beyond a healthy layer of real-life exploration. But how I arrange the lessons is up to me!
The BookShark Instructor’s Guides offer an easy-to-understand four-day schedule that shows me precisely what to cover in each subject each day—what to read, what to talk about, what words to learn, what timeline figures to place in the Timeline Book, what locations to mark on the Markable Map, what Science activities to do, etc. It’s a relief to have a base to work from! I don’t have to spend energy planning lessons.
Sticking to My Instructor’s Guide… or Not
Sticking to the schedule benefits my kids since the subjects are so often intertwined. I find we get an an even richer learning experience when we work through the Instructor’s Guide as planned. For example, currently our Science, History, and Readers are all set in a relatively close time period, allowing us to dive deep into the mind-set of early American days. Keeping with the same time period means that the bulk of our lessons all relate back and forth with each other.
While staying with the schedule is my preferred method, we have frequently found ourselves in a groove and excited to continue a History lesson to the point we may get several days ahead. Most days we want to work on all subjects, and other days we may power through an entire week of Science in one sitting. We can do that! I let the curriculum flex for me!
We choose to homeschool because it offered our family the greatest flexibility in our school schedule. Even when our schedule may look different from one week to the next, BookShark has worked well with our changes.
Homeschooling with a Four-day Schedule
BookShark’s four-day schedule gives our family the opportunity to enjoy an extra family day or a learning day without books. We enjoy museums and will frequently use our extra day off as a field trip day to learn more with hands-on activities at a children’s science museum or an early American homestead.
We have also used our extra day off to do more in-depth studying of things that interest us at the time. Robotics, foreign language, and crafts frequently fill our fifth day.
The four-day schedule is a great choice for families who want to enjoy a three-day weekend or who elect one day a week for field trips, extra-curricular activities, or homeschool co-op.
Using the Fifth Day for Rabbit Holes
We generally plan for a four-day week, but homeschooling has allowed us the opportunity to jump down the many rabbit holes that come about with learning. We can take our four-day schedule and spread it over five days. This means we may start out talking about an early American family’s water well and then start learning about the water table and finally study the water cycle. We might begin a lesson on the ocean and end up spending an hour with our map discussing geography. I don’t plan these rabbit hole days, but I always welcome them and love that we can adjust our schedule and not stress about getting back on track.
Stretching a four-day schedule into five days gives us more time to spend on each subject and encourages more in-depth learning on subjects our family is interested in.
Keeping a Traditional School Schedule
Following a local school’s schedule can be important for many families. It is a great way to keep on track with your school year and still get plenty of breaks during the year. When we began our first year homeschooling, we went this route and it worked well for us then. We had plenty of breaks and certainly plenty of days for learning, too.
Choosing Year-round Schooling
We currently choose to homeschool year-round. Although we do take a significant number of days off in the summer, I’ve found it works better for our family if we do not take two whole months off school. During the summer, we take more field trips since our local museums, libraries, and parks have great summer programs, packed full of learning opportunities.
Our family loves to travel, so year-round schooling lets us do school while others are out on break. This means we can take our breaks during the school year in the off-season. Traveling while others are in school means the beaches are less crowded, the airfare is reduced, and the hotels are more affordable. Win-win!
Year round schooling is a great option to avoid summer boredom while providing room for more breaks throughout the year.
I found a homeschool schedule that works for me by being flexible and making changes when needed. Being willing to try new routines has helped me find my homeschool groove. Now I’m confident in my choices and know that I can change my schedule each year if I need to!o turn your non-reader into a reader. Some readers bloom later than others! And your investment may pay off in years to come.
About the Author
Pamela Gann lives in Alabama with her husband and two kids where they love doing science experiments. They began their homeschool journey back in 2013 and have used BookShark Levels K -4. Pam is a former flight attendant and is married to a pilot, so traveling is not just their passion—it is their livelihood. She blogs about their homeschool and family travel journey at PamGann. Homeschooling for their family takes place on planes, in cars, and most often outside under a shade tree.
