Home Schooling

When you decide to start home schooling your child, you might not know where to begin. Do you need everything the ‘home schooling’ stores insist that you need? Probably not. You’ll need some of the most basic school supplies, of course, and maybe some special items depending on what curriculum you’ll be teaching your child. Let’s start with the basics.

Before you worry about what to buy, figure out what you’ll teach. Your state government may have a curriculum you’ll have to follow, either strictly or loosely. Local stores that carry home schooling items likely have lesson plans based on state-required curriculum to help you. The Internet is also a wealth of knowledge of these topics. You can find lots of free help like lesson plans, curriculum and teaching aids, so many you’ll be surprised at the amount of choices you have in choosing what to use to teach your child.

Of course you’ll need basics like paper, pencils, pens, markers or crayons and colored pencils, just as if your child were attending traditional school. But unlike a traditional school, the responsibility doesn’t end there. Your state will have specific requirements about curriculum, so be sure to check with them so you’ll know which textbooks to purchase. Check out home schooling sites on the Internet for textbook recommendations, too. Get the best books you can find at your child’s level. If you get too ambitious and purchase textbooks that are a bit ahead of your child’s reading level, it’ll be easy for your child to get discouraged and find the work too difficult. Always opt for the newest edition so you’re not purchasing outdated information.

If you don’t own a computer, invest in one now. You won’t need a $2000 gaming computer for home schooling—a basic unit can be found very inexpensively these days, sometimes for only a few hundred dollars. There are a wide variety of educational computer games and programs that aren’t just fun for kids but teach them, too. And if you opt for Internet service, the resources online, study helps, online educational games and the opportunity for you to connect with other home schoolers can help both you and your student.

A chalkboard or dry erase board can be a great help when homeschooling. Children are used to the chalkboards at school and having things written in front of them for illustration, like a math problem, for instance. It gives them a focus point, and especially helps those students who are more visual than aural learners. Allowing the child to write on the board can also boost learning.