Homeschooling Quick Start

Millions of parents were disconcerted by what they discovered about their child’s education during the pandemic, and millions are considering the homeschooling option. Homeschooling Quick Start is a straightforward, user-friendly guide for the parent who sees an urgent need to start homeschooling their child, and also the parent who is wondering whether they have what it takes to homeschool. Written in a format that allows for a quick overview, and then diving deeper into detailed aspects of homeschooling, this book explains what’s necessary for homeschooling and lays out the steps needed to start homeschooling from scratch, with plenty of examples and firsthand experience. The book is designed so that you can go straight to the topic that interests you most. If you’re worried about teaching science, math, or literature, or if you’re wondering what you have to do to comply with your state’s laws (there are no federal laws regulating homeschooling) you can go straight to the relevant chapter dealing with your chosen topic. There is a vast amount of printed or online material to help homeschoolers, including curricula and lesson plans for teaching all subjects. Much of this material is free. Susanne identifies some of the best of this literature, with her own observations and recommendations. These include encouraging the building of family culture around reading aloud to your kids, recommending and reviewing curriculum and teaching materials from five different education philosophies for every subject, walking the reader through creating SMART goals and a family vision, presenting a fresh view on teaching literature, history, and foreign languages, and making sense of it all by teaching worldview, great literature, and logic. It covers legal matters, and gives direction for running your household and general, non-school-related family matters. The vision of this book is that education is a lifestyle and involves the whole family. From an academic standpoint, reading aloud as a family, studying literature and history combined with philosophy and worldview, make up the foundation on which all other subjects are built. But real life is not only about the academic subjects, but also how to apply them in a meaningful way. Being exposed to history, great literature and the great ideas of humanity helps students to find meaning and purpose in their lives.