How early to start planning

[Lila]

How early should I begin preparing for homeschooling my daughter: selecting curriculum, etc.? We intend to homeschool her and all of our future children, but I am kind of nervous about getting into it. What advice can you offer?

[Linda in Arizona]

It's never to early to start educating yourself about homeschooling! I started reading about homeschooling when my first child was about 6 months old. There are so many options with homeschooling (so many it can be overwhelming) and I'm glad I started learning about the possibilities before I felt the crush of her being "school age."

If you live in a good size town, your library is a great place to start. Some of my favorite "starter" books are the "Homeschooling Book an Answers" by Dobson and "Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense" by Gutterson. I also like John Taylor Gatto and John Holt (everything by them is interesting).

Children learn so much between birth and 5. Some good books about early learning, though not homeschooling books, are "You are Your Child's First Teacher" by Baldwin, "Playful Learning" by LLL, and "Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk" by Elkind. Another writer I really like is Jane Healy. She has written several books on brain development: "Your Child's Growing Mind," "Endangered Minds," and "Failure to Connect."

Why are you nervous? My biggest advice would be to relax and enjoy your baby (though I freely admit that once in a while I completely freak out)

Linda

[Lila]

I mean that the enormity of it makes me nervous. I dont know why.
I will definitely check w/my library for those books. Maybe that will ease my mind about it. Thanks, Linda!

[Linda in Arizona]

Rereading the enormity of my readling list made me nervous! I think the best, most relaxing book is "The Homeschooling Book of Answers" by Dobson. It contains the most common questions about homeschooling answered by a variety of people, including well known homeschooling writers, homeschooling moms, and even homeschooled kids themselves. It is a very reassuring book. It is one of the few homeschooling books that I bought -- most I just use the library copy. This book is great to re-read when I start to worry.

Lately, I've been worrying a lot less. Most of my friends' kids have started school and listening to what the kids are doing and learning makes me feel good. I don't think I could do a worst job that most public schools. School is pretty much a waste of time. My kids will learn more by being free to explore, having "field trips" most every week, being read to a lot, exploring with art supplies, experimenting with musical instruments, and yes, even the occasional lesson (which are never forced at our house).

A few threads down there are a zillions links to homeschooling sites. I really like this messge board because there are people with so many different homeschooling styles who hang out here -- from pretty structured to radical unschooling. We are somewhere in the middle. There isn't one right way to homeschool.

later
Linda

[lilyka]

When breastfeeding was going smoothly, potty training was underway and I was toughly convinced that cloth diapers were the bomb I needed something new to obsess about . So homeschooling and other education alternatives were my focus. My favorite book is The Unschooling Handbook. It is a really easy read and even if unschooling isn't the direction you plan to take it will really take the stress off and help open up your creativity. I would definitely wait on curriculum. I was sure I would go with a bowed cirriculum set when I started my journey, now we go with the flow and chart our own journey. We use 100 easy lessons for reading and everything else is on a need to know basis. We have a really fun unit study on water planned for next week. I am looking into math and handwriting curriculums. Another good book is "Abundant Life Homeschooling" She does things differently than I do but she still had a lot to offer. Her main point was homeschooling should be fun and enrich your time together and if it doesn't you should change what you are doing. She also had some good odeas about the practical things like saving money and organizing stuff.

[Lillian J]

I'm one of those people who always has to run back into the house to get something when I'm trying to leave. I just thought of another good read - an excerpt from Linda Dobson's book, The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child:

"10 Gems: What I wish womeone had told me during the first year of homeschooling my child"

Off to my bubble bath now! Lillian

[SagMom]

Originally Posted by Lila

How early should I begin preparing for homeschooling my daughter: selecting curriculum, etc.?

Don't buy anything until she asks for it. (Only half-kidding here.)

When we first started, I researched and bought soooo many different things--every math program sounded better than the last, every writing program seemed to offer something more, all the manipulatives looked like fun.

MOST of the stuff I bought, my kids weren't interested in. Or, by the time they were interested, it was too "young" for them, or the wrong approach.

I have so many writing programs sitting here, that my sister, (who's a teacher, but also tutors on the side) calls me to borrow curriculum for her students!

I ended up selling or giving away a lot of stuff (and we've only been hsing for 4 years!)

If I was doing it all over again, I wouldn't buy a program because it sounded good and I could use it for all three kids...I'd wait until someone said, "I really want to learn to ___________" and then find something specific that would be good for that child.

[moominmamma]

I very much agree with whwat Joan has said.

You asked your original question in two slightly different ways and I think that for me there are two very different answers.

"How early to start planning?" and "How early should I start preparing?"

To the first question, which to me implies formulating, purchasing, organizing yourself for future homeschooling, I join Joan in saying "Wait!" Wait until your daughter is expressing or demonstrating a clear need for specific structure/materials/etc.. And by 'demonstrating a clear need' I don't just mean that she's reached the stage in her development where she's beginning to learn things that schoolchildren learn in structured ways. I mean that she's showing you that structure and organization are going to work better for her than a child-led, serendipitous style of learning. I bought a handwriting curriculum, for instance, not when my child was 2 or 3 because I wanted to be organized, nor when she was 4 or 5 because she was reading well, nor at 6 or 7 because schoolchildren that age do handwriting work, but in the middle of the winter when she was age 8 because that's when she expressed interested in a workbook approach to handwriting. We did research together on the different approaches and she helped weigh the different factors and decide what made sense for her. She developed an excellent manuscript and cursive hand in very short order. Short & sweet & very effective. I'm sure glad I didn't buy "Handwriting Without Tears" when she was 3 or 4. It is, I'm told, an excellent program, but it wasn't what my dd wanted or needed.

To the second question, which to me implies developing your own general understanding of the possibilities and developing your own philosophy of education, I say "There's no time like the present!" When I first started considering homeschooling I asked myself what tends to happen to homeschooling families as they become more experienced? I wanted to know what families tended to try early on and then discard as they learned from their mistakes, so that I could avoid making the same mistakes. As I read and read and read, and lurked and asked questions on message boards and listservs, I discovered that experienced families had tended to drop a lot of structure as time went on, and trust more and more in their child's developmental timetable and in the propensity things have to unfold naturally in their own good time. I discovered that by and large families end up more 'unschooly' than they start out. So I did a lot of reading about unschooling, and about a number of other approaches. I read Gatto and Holt and Guterson and Kohn and Llewellyn and Griffiths and Wise-Bauer. The unschooling philosophy grew on me very quickly, and I managed to build up a big storehouse of trust and confidence by grazing on others' experiences; it's served me very well.

Good luck!

Miranda

[Dar]

Hmmm... this was originally posted 3 1/2 years ago, I wonder how it all worked out?

Lillian, I think you probably clicked "Last" thinking it was "Next", and got these old, old posts. Not that there's anything wrong with bumping them up, since it's an issue that many new homeschoolers struggle with... but I would be surprised if the OP was still reading replies

Dar

[SagMom]

Originally Posted by Dar

Hmmm... this was originally posted 3 1/2 years ago, I wonder how it all worked out?

Dar

pppfffffffffttttttttttttt! : I NEVER look at the posting dates.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by Dar

Hmmm... this was originally posted 3 1/2 years ago, I wonder how it all worked out?

Lillian, I think you probably clicked "Last" thinking it was "Next", and got these old, old posts. Not that there's anything wrong with bumping them up, since it's an issue that many new homeschoolers struggle with... but I would be surprised if the OP was still reading replies

Dar

: How STRANGE! I don't think I did anything at all - I think I just opened the forum page and saw a post labeled "How early to start planning." Boy, from now on I'm going to look at dates.... But I wonder how she's doing! Lillian

[Lillian J]

:

Well, strange has turned to stranger. I thought I'd posted a fairly long post that made references to some of the things Linda had mentioned - right before posting the one that said "I'm one of those people who always has to run back intot he house for something I forgot.." And now I don't see it. Are posts sometimes deleted without notice? I hope I didn't break any forum rules... - Lillian

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by Lillian J

:

Well, strange has turned to stranger. I thought I'd posted a fairly long post that made references to some of the things Linda had mentioned - right before posting the one that said "I'm one of those people who always has to run back intot he house for something I forgot.." And now I don't see it.

:LOL Okay, I think I figured it out. I think that longer post was in another thread. And maybe the follow up post was supposed to be after that one in the other thread. I dunno...I was tired last night. It's been a crazy couple of days.
- Lillian