How I Started Homeschooling After I Took My Kids Out Of Public School

 

When I took my kids out of public school I was excited and nervous at the same time. So many feelings and emotions took over me - their education was now my responsibility until they were 18 years old. Was I truly up for the challenge? 

Honestly, I totally was and I’m so glad I did it. Though homeschooling is not easy by a long shot it is worth it. I’m going to share with you how I started to homeschool my kids after I took my kids out of public school.

Squaring Away Legalities

I made it a due diligence of mine to fully understand the homeschooling laws in my state before I even withdrew my kids from public school. It was important for me to make sure I knew what was expected of me. 

So, I made a binder for homeschooling, also known as my teacher binder. I printed out the HSLDA homeschooling laws with a sheet protector and put it into that binder. I wanted easy access to everything. 

I remember imagining scenarios where I didn’t put much thought into what the laws were and it  always had a bad ending. So, I wanted to avoid that anxious thought as much as possible by doing things legally.

The next thing to consider was the school district that I lived in. I looked on the website and found the board of education’s contact information and reached out to them regarding my decision to withdraw my kids from public school for homeschooling. 

They sent me the forms I needed and I filled them out and received confirmation and that was it. The legal part was super simple and I was able to get it all done in a day or two. The emails and the paperwork copies also went into that binder with a sheet protector. 

I was informed by my board of education that I would need to fill out these forms for every school year that I homeschool the kids. That’s good to know because it would’ve been easy to assume you only needed to fill out the letter of intent once. So, that was the first step in how I got started homeschooling.

Organizing and Planning

At this second step I was scouring the internet to find helpful content on homeschooling, and thankfully there was an abundance of it. I also would adapt any concept I stumbled upon to the needs of myself and my family to make the whole process more tailored.

I sat down and decided to develop a teaching plan for my kids and to also guide myself along throughout the school year. This is the order I decided to do that:

1. Decide how many weeks in the year we will be homeschooling with a start and end date

There are typically 36 weeks in a school year, but I opted out for 41 this year to give us plenty of room. Then, I used a Microsoft Word Document 12 month calendar outline and took off all of the breaks that I planned throughout the school year. I also used this time to add in any days for field trips.  

2. Develop a course of study (what subjects I wanted to teach)

This part is why it’s important to know the homeschool laws for your state. My state had 7 subjects required to be taught for both of my kids, but I also wanted to add in a few bonus subjects that would teach them life skills.

3. Take any placement tests for curriculum

Depending on the curriculum I was going to choose I could have my kids take a placement test for math, reading, or writing. We ended up using Spectrum Reading, Writing, and Math which don’t have placement tests for their curriculum. 

4. Make pockets of space in my school calendar for 1-2 week unit studies

I knew that I wanted to dive into a couple areas of interests that my kids had that weren’t necessarily part of the curriculum, such as dinosaurs, the human body, and the solar system. So, I wanted to make sure I schedule time to do those unit studies after I separated the school year into 3 terms - about 12 weeks long. One unit study per term. 

5. Make space in the school year for lots of breaks and days off to prevent burnout

Burning out was the last thing that I wanted to do, as most parents who homeschool would think the same thing. I scheduled multiple full weeks off throughout the school year with field trips monthly and random days that are completely off. 

Developing the Culture of Our Homeschool

I wanted to make our homeschool fun, so I created a list of fun things and supplies I needed to purchase for our homeschool for the school year. This was part of developing the culture for our homeschool. The entire environment that my children would be feeling throughout the school year needed to be clear.

I learned very quickly that there were a few ways to do this, so I tried a few different methods.

First method:

1. Write down a list of “new” household rules.

I basically utilized this time to write down any rules that I previously enforced in my home, as well as taking the time to add in some behavioral expectations during homeschool time that would be acceptable. 

Second method:

2. A behavioral contract between each child.

Good behavior should be rewarded. I wrote down desirable behaviors that are expected of each child and agreed to provide them with a treat of choice weekly if the behaviors are in line with their contract. This way there was motivation and my kids were able to control something.

Third method:

3. Asking the kids what they wanted.

Simply put, I asked my children what were some things that they wanted to get taught this school year that were of interest to them. That’s how I came up with the ideas for the unit studies and separated them into terms. Also, this was a time to fill up my calendar with more field trips and write down art project ideas and new hobbies they wanted to take up.

Budgeting

Homeschooling can get really expensive if you aren’t careful and I didn’t want to blow too much money. Though in the same thought there is no limit to how much I would be willing to spend on my child’s education, especially since they are being homeschooled.

I thought it would be a good idea to keep track of receipts either physically or digitally to get an idea of how much I can anticipate spending annually on their education. So, I got a good planner to keep me organized as one of the expenses. This planner helped me to get started homeschooling after I took my kids out of public school.

While I was keeping track of expenses I wanted to make sure I kept track of how much more I would be spending on breakfast, snacks, and lunch because the kids were now going to be eating at home and not at school. I needed to add that to the budget too. 

Also, there were some basic school supplies plus miscellaneous supplies to make our homeschool room feel like a learning environment.  On average people spend $500-700 dollars a year on homeschooling., so I expected it to be that much when I was done. This included the curriculum.

I also kept track of expenses with field trips, read aloud books, independent reading books, learning games for reading, writing, homeschool co-ops, and math.

Purchasing

I wrote down what I needed, where I needed it from and how much it cost - down to crayons and pencils. I bought some things second hand and was given some items from people, but I bought the curriculum brand new.

There were some websites I stumbled upon that offered free homeschool curriculum, like allinonehomeschool.com, khanacademy.com, oldfashionededucation.com, but as different as they all were, it didn't fill the desire that I wanted for my homeschool. It may work for you though. So this was the final step in my homeschooling journey in how I started homeschooling after I took my kids out of public school.

What were your first steps when you took your kids out of public school?