Answer 0701: I have four children, and they're all different ages. How can I homeschool all of them, different subjects all day, like when they were in school? Can I teach all four grades in just eight hours a day?

Whether you have one child, or a dozen, the answer to the question of consolidation is easier than most parents think. How do you do it all like the school did? YOU DON'T!

Homeschooling is not "schooling." You are not a public school. Your children are not students, they are your children and you are a FAMILY. And as head of that family, you and your spouse are responsible for teaching your children. Actually, you were also responsible when you sent them to public school. We hear that from teachers and learning professionals every day: "You are your child's best teacher." Many parents, after they've been homeschooling for a bit, realize that they've been homeschooling their children all along -- usually to keep catch their kids up to what they were SUPPOSED to be learning in school!

The beauty of taking homeschooling out of the "SCHOOL" category is this: homeschooling becomes a lifestyle, not a pedagogy or a method of instruction. Homeschooling simply is not a system of controlling thirty children; keeping them still for an hour while you try to cram information into them. Homeschooling is living and learning with your children.

Now relax, and make today a RECESS DAY!!!

Resources: Consolidation of Effort by Andrea Schwartz - 9/7/2005 The Chalcedon Foundation
Author: b. b. bennett


Links:

IHEN.org
IndianaHomeschoolers.com
IHEN Statewide Resource Directory
IHEN Mail Directory