1. BE AVAILABLE! Homeschooling is not hard, nor do the
actual classes need to take much time, but it is important
that your children find you available 24/7.

2. BE INTERESTED! Keep your child’s heart, and their
hunger for learning, by being interested in all the do and
bring to you, even the worms!

3. BE A PARTNER IN LEARNING! Teach researching skills
when they are young, creating a habit to serve them when
older.

4. BE FLEXIBLE! Do not be so set in schedules and classes
that you miss the real learning, bonding and loving
experiences.

5. BE THRIFTY! Homeschooling does not have to cost an
arm and a leg. God can direct you into terrific opportunities
and resources for learning.

6. BE ORGANIZED! This is so important for our peace of
mind! Our schools and our homes will run much smoother
when we conquer this area.

7. BE DILIGENT! Consistency and schedules are important!
Habit and hard work at God’s priorities, teach more than we
realize!

8. BE THE EXAMPLE! When our children see that we are
under an Authority, and obedient to Him, they will likewise
subject themselves to God’s and parents’ authority.

9. BE LOVING AND KIND! Maintain your peace and don’t
chase away the Holy Spirit by “blowing up.” We can do all
things through Christ! It helps to make sure you have a quiet
time every morning, no matter how early you must get up!

10. BE BLESSED! Homeschooling is a wonderful
opportunity and lifestyle that we would not trade for any
other! Enjoy your children. Before you know it, they will be
stepping out of your arms into life!

Lorraine Curry is the author of 5 Star books, Easy
Homeschooling Techniques
and Easy Homeschooling Companion. See FREE articles,
checklists, copywork,
subscriptions, ebooks and more at
http://www.easyhomeschooling.com

Going to a regular school is more than just education. School kids get to mingle with their peers and teachers and in the process acquire social skills that are important when they progress into adult life.

Some critics have criticized that homeschooling does not fulfill this aspect of education. Since the child is studying alone at home, it does not give him/her the opportunity to pick up social skills. Some critics even pointed out that homeschooling children are less able to express themselves compared to the regular school goers.

However studies have shown quite the opposite. Public school children are put under fiercely competitive school environments. The net result is that they lack the confidence to initiate or hold a conversation. They do not know how to interact with other age group people. Some seems to have no social skills at all! This is indeed worrying.

On the other hand, homeschooling children are more aware of the implications and purpose of their learning. They are also able to make intelligent comments and are more attentively when studying.

The studies concluded that public school goers pick up bad influences from their peers while homeschooling children are shielded from such negative influences.

In my own opinion, homeschooling children are better prepared with the tools necessary to face the world. Being shielded from negative influences from their peers plus the positive influences from parents will help them to be more versatile and a more well-rounded individual.

Ricky Lim is the founder of http://www.homeschooling-guide.info where he regularly write homeschooling articles to help educators and parents. Visit his site for more Home Schooling Resources, Tips and Information

There are so many problems with our schools today that it can be a difficult choice to put your child on that bus each morning and send them away to an institution where it is likely little or no learning will take place throughout the day. Consider homeschooling your child. There are so many wonderful advantages.

One of the best things about homeschooling your child is the fact that you get to control what your children learn and when they learn it. There are so many worthless things being taught in our schools today. There are things your children shouldn’t be learning. There are certainly age appropriate things that school districts tend to think are appropriate at increasingly, and alarmingly, earlier ages. The ability to control this is a real plus to homeschooling. Another advantage to homeschooling is that you can show your children that learning is a fun, exciting process that they should continue for the remainder of their lives. The schools of today simply cannot meet this need for most children. You can also build a great relationship with your child through homeschooling that simply would not be possible if you continued to send them away from you each day. Moreover, no matter what your child’s strengths and weaknesses, you can give your child the personal attention they need in every subject area. If your child struggles with a particular subject, you can help them to understand the material better. If your child has an area he or she is great in, you can help them to further their knowledge. Finally, homeschooling allows you to protect your children from all of the negative things outside of your home. No longer will they have to be afraid of bullies at school. They will not have to see drug deals in front of their lockers. You will be able to keep them safe from many of the negative influences our school systems breed.

Consider homeschooling your child and you won’t regret your decision.

If you need more information visit http://www.citizenschool.com to learn about Home Schooling and a High School Diploma or if you prefer phone 1-800-736-GRAD (4723) or email studentservices@citizenschool.com. Internet Marketing done by Crackmarketing.com.

My 12 year old son is creative and intelligent. He can compose artistic and written works at a level beyond that of many his age. So why can he be so difficult to teach? When using standard curriculum, it can be like pulling teeth to get him to do anything more than the absolute minimum. He races through the lessons, obtaining grades far lower than he is capable of getting, or he easily gets distracted and drags his feet, taking hours to complete what should take minutes. Read on to see how I confronted these problems.

When I took over home schooling my then 10 year old son, I used the traditional curriculum that he had been using previously with his mother. Some of the curriculum worked fine (we still use the Saxon math series) but other traditional home school curriculum just seemed to bring out the worst in my child. He would easily get bored. He would lose focus and often get distracted. After half a year, I started searching for alternatives. When I found new materials, I included my son on the decision making process. He seemed to take a lot more ownership as a result, even though I still had the final say in what what curriculum we finally used. Some of the things we do are listed below.

We use a science encyclopedia purchased at Sam’s Club for science. Why? Of all the books we looked at it was the best text in terms of explaining concepts and relating them to real world phenomena (even though it wasn’t meant to be a school text). We sit down together and read several pages of this science encyclopedia on a concept. Then, I have my son write a 100 word report. He then edits the report and we work on sentence composition. At the end of the term, we print out all the articles to make a 15 page report. In addition to the reports, we do related science experiments together and some of the younger siblings join in. My son loves science!

My son and his younger brother are taught history by my retired father-in-law (who happens to have a major in history). My father-in-law makes use of his library of books and tapes and records
history specials for the boys to watch. Now, my boys and I sit down together at night to watch the evening news - this I believe, is a result of their grandfather discussing current events with them. There is no comparing either of my sons’ current enthusiasm for history with the drudgery of plowing through a traditional school history text the way we used to do.

In addition to completing lessons in english and grammar from a traditional school text, I encourage my son to do some creative writing. He started writing his own kids novel which he has now nearly finished. He is writing some pretty silly stuff which would not be standard fare for any of the english curricula I have seen. But he is writing. In fact he is writing a lot! In 3 months from the time he started writing this novel I have noticed a marked improvement in his writing. When my son’s book is completed, I will publish it online and also have a friend that owns book binding equipment bind up some copies for our family and friends.

In summary, don’t let yourself become boxed in with traditional home school curriculum. There are educational resources all around us if we look hard enough. You don’t have to use a “school” text. Look on your book shelves or go to a local second-hand book store to find books that might serve as good texts. Involve your child in the decision making process. Borrow some materials from your home schooling friends and review the books with your child. Use what will work for both you and your child. Utilize any and all available resources and above all, have fun as you and your child learn!

Michael Sakowski works full time and homeschools his son on the days he is able to work from home. He also has a website,
http://www.schoolinyourhome.com that showcases some of the resources he uses when home schooling.

Do you know that numbers are the key to life? Indeed numbers form the foundations of mathematics from number theory all the way up to partial differential equations. Without these curious creatures, we could not calculate, estimate, or compute (as in computer); nor could we transact any of the business that occurs daily throughout the known world. Yet most people find these most interesting entities just a bothersome part of life. Why should this be so? Well maybe a person’s ambivalence towards numbers derives from childhood frustrations experienced when struggling to learn the basics of arithmetic and the rote calculations associated with this discipline.

Lacking an appreciation for numbers can be a sad state of affairs for any person since such a condition often leads to mathematical illiteracy. As parents we should try to instill a love and curiosity for numbers into the minds of our children so that they never arrive at this blighted condition. One way we can do this is by teaching our children early on the amazing properties of numbers and some of the magical calculations that can be performed with them. Indeed the Teenage Number Trick, the Nifty Five Square Technique (see my other articles on these topics), and the techniques laid out in this article should suffice to arouse and stimulate curiosity even in the most torpid learners. Thus here we go on to introduce a calculation that permits one to square any “one” number with blinding speed. In a future article we will learn how to multiply any two arbitrary “one” numbers with no difficulty at all.

But in order to begin this short educational journey, we need to understand what we are talking about in the first place. What is a “one” number. Take a stab at it before reading further. Okay, now the definition. A “one” number is simply a number whose digits consist entirely of 1’s. Thus 1 11 111 1111 11111 are all “one” numbers. Because 1 is such a special number—in fact one of the most important constants in mathematics, much like water is one of the most important compounds in chemistry—its presence as the sole digit in forming numbers—the “one” numbers—makes squaring these numbers such an easy task. Watch what I mean.

To multiply the number 11 by itself, something called “squaring 11″ or taking the square of 11, we obtain 121. Stepping up to 111, squaring we have 12321. If we square 1111, we get 1234321. I think by now the pattern has become clear to you and we can thus form a rule for squaring any “one” number: write down the digits consecutively from 1 to the number represented by the number of 1’s forming the “one” number and then count backwards from this number to 1. So in 1111, we have four 1’s. To square this number write the numbers from 1 to 4 consecutively, and then back from 4 to 1 so as not to repeat the 4 twice: 1 2 3 4 3 2 1 to get 1234321 or one million two hundred and thirty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-one. That’s all there is to it. Want a bigger example. Try 11,111 x 11, 111. How many 1’s? Five. So we get 123454321 or one hundred twenty-three million four hundred fifty-four thousand three hundred twenty-one.

If you show your kids how to do these calculations so that they can multiply and square numbers which produce results in the hundreds of millions, do you think they might have a new outlook on mathematics and their ability to master this subject? I think you’ll agree that the answer to this question is self-evident. Stay tuned for Part II which is even more amazing than this one.

I began homeschooling in 2003. My reason was simple. I did not like the environment my children would be learning in. I never had any past experience teaching, so I was a bit apprehensive. I began by doing research. I wanted to find a program that I thought would benefit my children and also not bore them. I also did research on homeschooling in the USA. I wanted to see for myself how many children were being homeschooled in this country and how they stood next to public and privately schooled children.

I found that according to NCES(National Center for Education Statistics) in 2003 an estimated 1.1 million students were being homeschooled in the United States. This amounted to 2.2 percent of U.S. students, ages 5 thru 17, with a grade equivalent of kindergarten thru 12.

Parents gave a variety of reasons for homeschooling. These reasons included being able to give their child a better education at home, for religious reasons, and because of poor learning environment at public schools. Also, according to research done by NCHE(National Center for Home Education), the average 8th grader who is homeschooled performs four grade levels above the natonal average. One in four homeschool students(24.5%) are enrolled one or more grades above age level. Students who have been homeschooled their entire lives have the highest scholastic achievement.

A good article on homeshooling was done by a staff reporter, Daniel Golden, for “The Wall Street Journal Atlanta”. This was on the front page in the February 11, 2000 edition. Read it. Especially if you are a little apprehensive about teaching. I have found that it is not as hard as it sounds. It is actually fun and rewarding.

My name is Vicki Bennett. I am a full time wife and mother. I homeschool my children. I enjoy reading and writing short-stories in my spare time. I also enjoy cooking, singing, and gardening.
If you want to read information on an average family homeschool and their day to day routine go to
http://www.writingup.com/blog/vicki-bennett.

Copyright 2006 Matt Weight

Wikipedia states that “Home education, also called homeschooling or home school, is an educational alternative in which children are educated at home by their parents, in contrast to the compulsory attendance which takes place in an institution with a campus such as a public school or private school.”

Around the world Homeschooling has been increasing quite substantially over the last 4 years. In 2003, in the United States, approximately 1.1 million children were Home Schooled, up 29% from 850,000 in 1999. Recent figures show that Homeschooling in other Western Countries are also continuing to grow. For example, an estimated 50,000 children are considered “home-educated” in the United Kingdom; Australia - 26,500; and in Canada (as at 2001) it was estimated that 80,000 children were educated at home with the numbers continuing to increase.

Most home education advocates have individual motivations to home-educate. Academic and social results of home education are varied and are the source of vibrant debate. Some feel that they can more effectively tailor a student’s academic program to suit an individual strengths and weaknesses, especially children who are gifted or have learning disabilities. Others are religious parents who see non-religious education as contrary to their moral or religious systems. Still others feel that the negative social pressures of schools, such as bullying, drugs, school violence, and other school-related problems, are impacting negatively to a child’s development. Many parents simply like the idea of teaching their own children rather than letting someone else do so.

A common concern voiced about home-educated children is they lack the social interaction with students and society that a school environment provides. Many home-education families address these concerns by joining numerous organizations, including home-education cooperatives, independent study programs and specialized enrichment groups for physical education, art, music, and debate. Most are also active in community groups. Home-educated children generally socialize with other children the same way that school children do: outside of school, via personal visits and through sports teams, clubs, and religious groups.

The academic effectiveness of homeschooling is largely a settled issue. “Numerous studies have confirmed the academic integrity of home education programs, demonstrating that on average, home-educated students outperform their publicly-run school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects.” The performance gaps between minorities and gender that plague publicly-run schools are virtually non-existent amongst home-educated students.

Notable home-educated individuals
• Thomas Edison, United States, scientist and inventor
• Alexander Graham Bell, Scotland, Inventor (Telephone, Hydrofoil)
• Dakota Fanning, United States, actress
• Hilary Duff, United States, Actress/Singer
• Charles Evans Hughes, United States, Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States
• Frankie Muniz, United States, Actor
• Rosa Parks, United States, civil rights activist
• Susan La Flesche Picotte, United States, first American Indian woman physician
• Woodrow Wilson, United States, the only United States President to hold a Ph.D.
• George Washington, United States, First United States President
• Abraham Lincoln, United States, President during American Civil War

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything learnt in school” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

For more information on Homeschooling visit www.homeschooling-secrets-revealed.com