Two years ago our first child came home to homeschool online. We have a free online charter school in New Hampshire. People who reside outside of NH can attend this school with tuition, but NH residents can attend full time or part-time for free.
This means our oldest attends online classes and graduates with a high school diploma in 2020. They’re graduating this week, actually.
Our youngest son came home to homeschool about a year ago and then our middle son followed shortly after. You see, each of the kids has various issues with traditional school settings and the way things were going in our public school system.
The education system isn’t what it used to be, in just the 11 years that our oldest was in the public school I watched it change tremendously, pushing parents out, starting to teach things that shouldn’t be brainwashed into kids heads, pushing agendas, and being extremely hypocritical.
With that being said, there were still a handful of amazing teachers, one of which recommended that our youngest son attend a different type of school because she saw his intelligence but knew public school wasn’t a good fit for him to expand that intelligence in his unique way.
Each of our older kids, starting at grade 5 for one kid started developing issues we knew weren’t good. Each of our kids were getting depressed or anxious about what was changing and happening in the school system, and that’s when we started searching for homeschool benefits.
3 Benefits of Homeschool
Boosts Mental Health
For our oldest kid, who had advanced academic plans, the traditional school was refusing to work with us. We met, we didn’t get a solution, and eventually, our oldest started having some major mental health issues. Going from a traditionally A and B student to C’s and D’s. This wasn’t okay.
When we switched this kid to an online charter school two years ago, we had no idea the homeschool benefits of this online charter school. Now, it’s 2020 and this kid will be graduating early with straight A’s. A complete turnaround of mental health and confidence occurred when we transitioned to this homeschool option.
Teach Kids Individually
The main homeschool benefit is that you can teach each of your kids individually. We have one kid on the spectrum, one that’s advanced and extremely independent with high goals for academics, and one that’s super hyper with short attention span.
This means our kids each learn differently. One of the homeschool benefits we love is that we can take into consideration how each kid learns and go with that flow for them. One is great at taking online charter school courses, getting volunteer hours completed and all of that on their own.
Another kid needs more guidance and hands-on learning, while the other is good at learning with a little more of a homeschool organization structure. We can meet the needs of each kid.
Simple Pace
Homeschooling allows you to let your kids learn at a pace that’s comfortable for them. Sure, some kids hate school and don’t want to learn, but it’s amazing what happens when you bring them home to homeschool. They start to want to learn more things because they’re able to have the homeschool benefit of learning in a way that makes sense for their brain.
Our oldest has figured out a pace that works, but with our two summers of being homeless, well it was a little difficult and our oldest fell behind. Only to find out that they excelled and worked hard this year to graduate in March instead of June. Catching up in a traditional school would have proven near impossible, but with your homeschool organization and online curriculum, you can work at your own pace to excel.
Homeschool Organization
This is an area that’s different for us, as our kids were middle school and high school level when they came home to school in our house. The homeschool organization we use is pretty lax, as even our kid on the spectrum doesn’t need as rigid of a schedule as he needed in his younger years.
We work with each kid, mostly the younger two, to set a homeschool organization that works. Each selects the hours of the day they prefer for learning, and if they get more done than necessary then they can take other days off.
We try to do at least 2 hours per day of homeschool organization learning such as where they use the online platforms, there are many online homeschool curriculum platforms. We’ve used a program that I can’t recall, as it’s been a half a year since we used it, but here is a list of homeschool math curriculum ideas.
I have a cabinet where we keep our homeschool books such as language arts, American history, and an old series of learning books that’s been passed down from my Dad’s side of the family.
We watch documentaries on Amazon Prime and Netflix for some fun homeschool organization learning. We also enjoy reading history style books during reading time.
How you work the homeschool organization needs to be based on how each kid learns, not how you envision school to work.
Tips for Homeschooling for First Time
When it comes to homeschooling for the first time, regardless of whether your traditional school is offering virtual learning or not, is to watch your kids. Figured out the best hours they work to learn, for me, I am more productive in the late afternoon into late-night hours, for one of my kids they are the same. Another kid of mine works best in the morning while the third works best in the middle of the day.
The key to homeschooling for the first time is to let go of traditional school learning or setting. Some kids don’t thrive in that by the book old school educational setup. You don’t have to have a structured day, if your kids learn better with a simple structure or routine that’s less traditional.
Take each day one at a time, and don’t stress about not teaching your kids enough. If you’re working to create a homeschool room that features books, online learning, and other resources to encourage learning, you’ll be just fine.
As time goes on you’ll need to adjust the learning style, because we’ve already switched about three times in the couple years we’ve been homeschooling.
In order to successfully homeschool your kids, you’ll need to retrain your educational mind. Think outside of the box and try your best to spend some time with your kids. Watch how they engage with homeschool education and adjust your homeschool organization and homeschool curriculum based on each individual kid.
In conclusion, the biggest homeschool benefits we’ve seen is that our preteen and teens are more confident, smarter, and more willing to learn the things they dreaded being taught in public school. They’re happy, they’re helpful, and our family bond is stronger.
Homeschooling can be scary for some of you out there getting forced to virtual learning sessions with a homeschool curriculum from public schools or having to pull the kids into homeschooling completely, but it is okay.
You will survive.
Take it one day at a time, but first?
Learn about all of the homeschool benefits as you work to figure out how each of your kids learns best. You can do this!
Now, if you want to find some homeschool science activities then check out my ultimate list of homeschool science curriculum ideas by clicking here.
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