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Top 5 Tips for Homeschooling Parents

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Best Parenting Tips @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusLet’s face it. Parenting is hard enough, but then you decide to homeschool. Knowing which hat to wear, the teacher hat or parent hat seems more like a juggling act than educating a child.

By the way, this blog hop is organized by The Jenny Evolution, where bloggers have connected to share their top parenting tips of the year. Be sure to click the image above to visit all the other articles shared on each blog.

Look at these top 5 tips for homeschooling parents that I rounded up from 2015 that I hope will help to smooth the homeschool path for you.

3 Wrong Ways to Homeschool a Hotheaded Child @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

My article, 3 Wrong Ways to Homeschool a Hotheaded Child really resonated with you. Avoid my same parenting mistake.

Here is my excerpt from my article that you need to scoot by and read:

When I started homeschooling my first son, Mr. Senior 2013, he was the perfect child to school or least I thought so.  Along came Mr. Awesome and I was humbled because all of the sudden I had a hotheaded and stubborn child on my hands or least I thought so.

Then this next article goes directly to the decision you have to make to homeschool your children as the homeschooling parent.

But the Little Dear Doesn't Want to Homeschool

You’d be surprised at how homeschooling parents feel with this article, But the Little Dear Doesn’t Want to Homeschool.

Fake It Til You Make It

Here is my excerpt from my article that you need to scoot by and read:

“In my workshop, I hear the statement often “but the little dear doesn’t want to homeschool”. Okay, maybe not quite like that, but you get the idea. And it’s not from just parents of preteens and teens, but from parents who have very young children, as young as 5 years old.”

What is the alarming truth behind who makes the decision to homeschool? It goes directly to parenting!

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Then, I received a lot of emails and feedback about this next article, which is Treasure the Moments of Homeschooling Testosterone Armed Teen Boys.

It’s tough to  homeschool boys, who can think completely different than I do much less parent them.

Geography BundleThey learn differently, handle their emotions differently than girls and you have to be ready to teach and parent outside the box.

Real Life Parenting Tips

Here is my excerpt from my article that you need to scoot by and read:

“I don’t want to sound cliché, but I treasure the moments of homeschooling testosterone armed teen boys.  Thinking back when all the boys were real young, my sis came over to my house one day with her girls, which are about the same age as my boys to discuss how we could join forces to homeschool our kids together. 

When we looked up, my boys were outside in the yard with tree branches fighting and her girls were inside coloring pages, inside the lines no doubt.”

Patience, Confidence, Knowing all the Answers – NOT Required to Homeschool @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then many things are required of us as homeschooling parents, but Patience, Confidence, Knowing ALL the Right Answers is NOT Required to Homeschool.

Here is my excerpt from my article that you need to scoot by and read:

“If somebody had told me that prior to starting homeschooling I needed patience, confidence and all the answers to every subject, I would not have plunged into homeschooling.”

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Then, this next post, 3 Homeschooling Myths Debunked, you loved because it goes directly to facing head on some of the critics of homeschooling because we do spend a lot of time together as a family.

“Taking time to debunk popular homeschooling myths helps to avoid mommy guilt.  Confronting head-on homeschooling myths that I have both encountered and that I hear from homeschoolers that I’ve helped through my New Bee program also deepens my dedication to homeschooling.  It gives me a chance to ponder, because I know there is always room for improvement in both my parenting and homeschooling skills.”

Also, don’t forget to go through our New Bee Homeschool Program for more great homeschooling parent tips!

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Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Be sure to follow BOTH of my Pinterest Accounts to grab more homeschooling parenting tips!

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

 

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

3 Common Missteps in Teaching Multi-Level Children (And How to Fix Them)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Common Missteps in Teaching Multi-Level Children (And How to Fix Them) @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Teaching multi-level children is a necessary skill that emerges quickly when homeschooling and all the focus on homeschool curriculum can pale in comparison with homeschooling multiple ages of children.

Problem: Keeping ALL subjects separate.

Fix: This seems like a pretty easy problem to figure out, but when you have high school children and preschoolers it can be perplexing.

Should you or should you not keep kids on separate subjects is not as easy to figure out.

The secret here is to follow the scope and sequence of your older children because credits do matter in high school. It is easier, also, to plan down a grade than plan up a grade.

In other words, planning for lower grades is always easier than trying to take a lesson plan and increase the level of it for an older or high school student.

3 Common Missteps in Teaching Multi-Level Children

Using your high school students history or science curriculum, plan activities for the lower grades by changing written assignments to coloring, essays to word search, and memorizing vocabulary to match the word and definition.

Too, my younger sons were always entertained when my oldest son did his hands-on activities. Also, let your high schooler do his hands-on activity and add in another easy hands-on activity for your younger children.

Where possible, teach history, science, Bible, art and geography together.

Problem: One child needs more attention than the rest of your children.

Fix. By adding in my suggestion above, you have already freed up some time.

However, there are many times that one or more of my children needed my attention at the same time.

Dividing my time between my children equally was stressful until I figured out a few key ways of how to manage the time.

The basic rule of thumb is to start with the youngest learner first or the special needs child.

They do not have the attention span of your older children.

Your older children understand that they will get their turn soon, but it is hard to capture the teaching moment again with the youngest learner.

Teach your children that sometimes their day will not go as planned.

In other words, there will be times that you will just need to stop and switch your day.

Some of your children will need to work on subjects they can work on independently or even use digital devices when necessary.

The key is to be prepared for the interruption. This is not an if, but a when one or more of your children will need you.

Avoid the stress by having a backup plan now.

Digital and interactive content play a vital part now in learning.

Beating Homeschool Burnout

Be sure you have a plethora of resources to reach for in case you need them and to not lose control of your teaching day, but to switch it around temporarily.

Look at my article, Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List to grab some backup when needed.

Plan prudently.

This means when assigning subjects during the day, try to plan the day so that no more than a few of your children are doing subjects at the same time that they find challenging.

For example, I knew that when I had to teach my younger two boys to read, I gave them my time in the morning. At that same time, my oldest son was working on math, a subject he excelled at.

By planning my day where each son’s subject that he struggle in was spread out, I minimized the stress of

Problem: Comparing children and their work.

Fix: Another roadblock to look for when teaching your children together is to avoid comparing children.

Though it is good that the oldest set of children model for the younger set, sometimes the plan backfires.

What I mean by this is that normally the younger child or to the child with special needs feels less inadequate in his school because he is always looking at the work of an older student.

This can really dampen the love of learning by a younger learner when he feels that he is constantly be comparing to his older student.


Not that we would do this on purpose, but because of the constant interaction, a younger learner may feel that his work is always of less value.

What I did to avoid this constantly was that I would dismiss my older son occasionally and especially if I felt the younger boys feeling a bit inadequate.

We spent a lot of time together, but at times it was okay for my older son to go to his room to do some of his work while I worked with the younger two boys.

The benefits of the one-room school house have always far outweighed any possible negatives because the kids can learn from one another.

Don’t let a few missteps in teaching multi-level children prevent you from treasuring one of the most unique ways to teach your children – altogether is superior.

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Check out my other tips!

From Homeschooling One to Multiple Ages – Then Back to One

5 Days of the Benefits and Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together

3 Unexpected Benefits of Homeschool Narration

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Second only to reading aloud, there is not any other homeschool tool more outstanding than narration.

It it totally free, works across the board with any homeschool approach used and the skill level is absolutely zero for beginner homeschoolers.

Explaining the definition of narration, which is simply telling back what your kids have read or learned or telling back what you have read to them, is easier to explain than the way I feel now about the 3 unexpected benefits of homeschool narration.

It’s not a secret that I use a more unit study approach and don’t really follow a Charlotte Mason approach.  With that being said, I don’t think many of us totally follow only one homeschool approach, myself included.
Narration, which is a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason approach though is one homeschool technique that I have used from the beginning of my homeschool journey and that has spanned all of my sons’ learning style.

Most homeschoolers will tout that the greatest benefit of narration is that it is a way of checking what a child understands.  Though this is true and it’s important in gauging progress, there are benefits to narration that I couldn’t even imagine.

ONE/ Teaches Valuable Critical Thinking Skills.

When I did narration with Mr. Senior 2013, little did I realize that “simple narration” in younger grades would prepare him for not just high school level courses but for honors courses too.

Mr. Senior 2013 did honors classes early in math. Looking back now, I feel this was directly related to teaching him to only know how to think, but how to sift through information when he was narrating back to me.

Many days as I would sit and listen to him or write down what he would say, I wondered what he would be doing with this massive amount of information he was storing.

I am not the most patient mom but I sat still as my son bubbled forth with what he knew about any subject.

Is Your Homeschool Narration Missing a Vital Link?

I admit, it was not easy to sit and listen to details that I didn’t think mattered to what we were learning at the time.

Simple narration then was the basic framework of teaching him how to think long-term.

Having helped many new homeschoolers, one of the problems they had in the beginning was that their child was not use to sitting still for long amounts of time to contemplate, think or recall information.

A fast paced schedule at public school and constant shifts in focus can leave very little time to process new information.

The problem is exacerbated now because we live in a fast paced technological word and that can breed in all of us a “give-me-an-answer-right-now” attitude.

Narration helped Mr. Senior 2013 to avoid the negative effects of an instant education.

TWO/ Narration nurtures togetherness.

By it’s nature, the process of narration is sociable and interactive.

When I first started narration, I was probably more teacher like using white boards and writing down everything my children told me.  That can be part of narration but as I have schooled longer, I realize narration is more of meaningful conversation than me quizzing my children.

Narration in 5 minutes.

Time spent one on one with each of my sons nurtures a warm relationship and it begins with short meaningful conversations each day.
Getting past the feeling that narration had to be so formal and school like each time, I realized that communication with each of my sons was filling an inborn need for all of us, which is to communicate.

One of the reasons for homeschooling, which I hold very dear is to give each child my exclusive undivided attention for discussing whatever is weighing heavy on his mind.

As each son narrated back what they liked about a story, a science lesson or history lesson, it almost always was a time for them to share with me what else they were thinking at the time.

I wouldn’t trade any of those special moments I have had with them for making them sit down alone and do a quiz to process information.

THREE/ Self-Expression flourishes.

Another benefit of narration is that your kids learn beautiful expressions that fill their mind’s memory from worthy literature.

Using literature like the Bible and other great sources like classical literature and living books your child gradually learns to adopt values and principles that make up the man or woman they will turn out to be.

Self-expression flourishes because they have been influenced by resources that you value.

What I am saying is that instead of being molded by this world, which can make a child feel withdrawn because they are always being corrected, your child becomes an independent and free thinker in a positive way.

A lot of homeschooled children who have never been public school simply do no care whether their viewpoint is accepted or not by others.

Being sure of their identity because they have spent time pondering morals, principles and values learned and recited during narration from childhood, a child is proud of their adult role whether they start a family of their own, go to college or take up some form of ministry.

It has been hard for me to strain all of my feelings, thoughts and reflections about the value of narration into these short nuggets.

My love for the tool of narration has only been heightened now as I help Mr. Senior 2013 with his next venture as an adult.

Seize the moments for narration and don’t let them pass you by because they are filling more needs than you can imagine at this point in your homeschool journey.

What about you? Do you take time for narration?

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Check out these other posts:

Narration – Telling Back or Testing? Books that Make Teaching Narration Easy Peazy
 Am I Doing Enough When Homeschooling
 Gauging Homeschool Progress – Masters of their Material?

 

4 Secrets to Creating Your Own Successful Homeschool Co-op

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Savoring the food of the Amazon region in a banana wrapped leaf, dancing the minuet like George Washington, creating Native American crafts with beadwork and studying the healing power of plants like Lewis & Clark did are just a few of the adventures that my sons and I have participated in as I led a homeschool co-op.

4 Secrets to Creating Your Own Successful Homeschool Co-op

In my many years of homeschooling, I have seen numerous elaborate definitions of a co-op, but in its most basic form a co-op is simply a group of two or more families meeting together to share their collective efforts in teaching their children all together.

Depending on your personal experiences in participating in co-ops, you may conjure up in your mind a picture of your children engaging in awesome hands-on activity along with socialization or you may picture a mini-version of a very regimented public school that you probably fled not too long ago.

Understanding some basic facts in how co-ops are developed will help you to determine if a co-op is a good fit for your family.

Enhance Your Journey or Encumber It

There is no one set of rules for any co-op. Co-ops can be very informal without many rules or it can be as formal as public school.

Take time to ask questions after you determine if you want to meet for socialization or to meet strictly for academic purposes.

One note of caveat for new and struggling homeschoolers is that sometimes you may join a co-op to ease the burden of teaching, but actually create an environment where you may feel trapped.

Regimented schedules, turning in homework assignments and preparing extra-curricular activities are a few reasons why some homeschool families find co-ops more stressful than helpful.  They can feel a little too much public schoolish.

Do not leave the rigidness of public school to trade it away the freedom so quickly to a very regulated co-op.

Co-ops can spring up or shut down at any time. Realizing that most co-ops are ran by homeschooling parents like yourself, you will appreciate that rules are made by the homeschooling parents as they lead the group.

Most co-ops expect all the parents to shoulder some of the responsibility of running the co-op whether it is teaching, supervising toddlers, cleaning or making copies.

Unless the co-op is being ran like a small private school, most co-op leaders welcome the help. Normally it is the few doing the work of the many.

Because there is so much variety in classes like teaching crafts to preschoolers to preparing teens for driving in high school, co-ops can spring up and shut down each year or at any time during the year.

Most groups try to have their goals written down by the start of the school year, but even that can change.

Clear expectations by either a group you create or either join will avoid a lot of misery down the road.

Homeschool Co-op Conundrum

Avoid confusion of which co-op to join by having clear in your mind your purpose for participating. For example, I knew when I formed our private local co-op that my main purpose was for socialization and enrichment.

I was not interested in anybody teaching subjects like the 3 R’s to my sons because I wanted to do that.

Did I mention teaching my three at home was way more relaxing too?

The co-op serves as a refreshing break in our routine so I didn’t want a weekly co-op, but one that met once or twice a month. In addition, I wanted like-mind parents who have Christian values and a place where my sons could make lasting friends and memories.

Too, I purposely kept the co-op small because it is easier to make friends in a more cozier environment.
Activities like doing a lab, presenting a geography report to an audience and drama are better done in a group setting. It is nice to have an audience for projects.

My sons have benefited from doing those activities and have become more well rounded out in their education.

In one area I lived in we had a homeschool mom who use to be a high school Spanish teacher. My older sons took her classes which was ran more like a mini private school.

Though I prefer a more informal and hands-on setting, I took advantage of local resources for enrichment. It has only strengthened my sons’ skills in foreign languages.

4 Secrets To Creating Your Own Successful Homeschool Co-op @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When You Gift Others

I can’t hum a tune, draw a beautiful portrait or shoot professional pictures, but none of those things are required to serve others.

Sharing with other homeschoolers and teaching is a gift.

It’s true that when you serve in a leadership position it can have trials. But I have a secret to admit and that is I am the one that always feels blessed after leading the co-op.

Over the years I have learned that each homeschooling parent possesses a gift or two whether they admit it or not.

You do not have to be a former public school teacher to teach a subject, but you do need to love the subject you teach.

Instead of looking into joining a co-op, can you form one near you? Beginnings are important. So start slow with a just few of your like-minded friends.

Meet once a month and use forums like yahoo to communicate and set up polls.

Avoid the modern day quick methods of communication like texting that interrupts your day schooling your children.

In the beginning, it’s easy to communicate like this, but as the group grows, your time can be consumed by taking care of the needs of others.

Don’t neglect your own homeschool routine and family.
When you use something like an online forum or email list, each teaching parent can respond to emails after she has taken care of her family for the day. It also trains others in your group that your priority is your own family and to be considerate of your time.

There are a wide variety of curriculum resources to use from laid out lesson plans to unit studies that make leading a cinch. Unit studies are my very favorite in teaching multiple ages because there is something for all ages to do.

Serving others is a joy and your blessing in giving will be immeasurable not only to your children, but for all others that come your way.

Creating the co-op we had took time. My first attempts at meeting with others wasn’t a fit for our family because of either the scheduling or activities.

Forming a co-op after my previous failed attempts ended up being a blessing for our family because we then met with like-minded families.

Shared experiences and fostering friendships for a lifetime have heightened our homeschool adventures.

Have you been part of a co-op that has changed your life?

3 Homeschool Co-op History Resources Worth Exploring

5 Days of a Homeschooling Co-op Convert

The One Question Homeschooled Kids Dread Answering

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Besides answering questions to relatives about what my kids have been learning and no I don’t mean the kind of genuine questions where my extended family is interested, but the kind where they think they can quiz my kids to find out if they are truly learning, there is one question dreaded more by my kids.

The one question homeschooled kids dread answering is what grade they are in. And when my kids shrug their shoulders and answer with, “I don’t know”, that just gives the relatives one more thing to bristle about.

When kids have not been exposed to public school grade levels and they have not learned to keep pace with a grade level, they really don’t know what grade they are in and guess what? Most kids don’t care.

As my kids have grown older and see the shrieks of terror on some adult’s faces because my kids have no idea what grade they are, my kids try to reply as best they can.

When Mr. Senior 2013 was in fourth grade and without any prodding from me, he replied, “Which subject?” The reply made complete sense to me.

I learned a few things from that encounter:

It was probably best to prepare my kids for questions like that because most people are asking just to be polite;

It was a reminder to me that I had released myself from the bondage of graded level learning because my kids were all over the place in each subject and it was a good feeling;

That my kids were being allowed to learn at their own pace;

That I did recognize the differences in each of my kids because they were accomplishing skills at different grade levels; and

That if I had to reply to it I probably would have to say something like he is in 9th grade reading, 7th grade grammar, 8th grade math, 7th grade writing. .. oh my!

Through the years, I have found it better to reply with a more general reply like he is in middle school or high school.

Too, I find a more general reply avoids a lot of confusion even for my sons. For example, we may have started a new curriculum mid-year and my sons may reply they are in one grade level for that year and then still be in that same grade level the beginning of the next year.

To avoid my kids feeling confused, which are the only ones I am concerned about when answering that question, I just have them reply in generalities by saying middle school or elementary school.  The kids understand there are about 3 or 4 grades considered for any level, even high school.

Sometimes, the boys reply by saying their age and then the adult can figure it out on their own.

Besides how many people would understand that you may be starting pre-algebra with a 11 year old or a 5th grader reading high school level literature?

How about you? Do your kids know which grade they are in?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature 3 Reasons You Wouldn’t Want to Homeschool

Also, check out some other comebacks here:

“I’m homeschooling because I want them socialized”

How do I SOCIALIZE my kids?

Gauging Homeschool Progress – Masters of their Material?