Sunday, October 3, 2010

Home Schooling and Tutoring - Do They Mix?


If you're thinking of homeschooling your child, or have already been doing it for years, you're to be applauded. You are taking on a role that many will not or cannot handle. However, even the parents who are fully prepared for all home schooling requires may not know everything. In other words, you might need help from time to time. It probably seems a bit strange to think about bringing in tutoring assistance when you're the teacher, but it's not uncommon. So let's take a closer look at why you might need tutoring, and where you can find some great resources.

The Basics of Homeschooling

There are a number of reasons that you might feel it's best to pull your child out of school and teach at home, or begin your child in a homeschooling environment. You may be displeased with the both the increased regulations and slashed budgets of your local public school system and feel your child will not receive the appropriate education as a result. You also may feel that it's extremely important that your child receive daily one-on-one instruction, which is difficult in a school setting.

Whatever your reason is for homeschooling, you are making a decision to take on quite a job. You will be solely responsible for the academic wellbeing of your child. However, it's good to know that there are tons of resources and elaborate lesson plans available to help you teach specific subjects. Also, you can find great books and resources in the library, which can help you cut back on personal costs.

Why You Might Need the Assistance of a Tutor

As previously mentioned, the job of homeschooling your child is a big one. This is especially true when you consider that your child will likely have strengths and weaknesses pertaining to certain subjects. If you're not equipped to dig deeper with your child to help him understand the subject then you may need to bring in additional help to deliver the message more effectively.

Tutors are usually equipped to handle specific subjects and have a wealth of knowledge and resources in one area. So while the tutor is helping your child, you can gain more knowledge in this particular area as well. The more help you're willing to bring in for your child, the better chance your child has of excelling as you hoped he would.

Online Tutoring Resources

When you think of working with a tutor, you probably automatically picture a person coming to your home to do their job. However, there are tons of additional resources available - particularly online - that can help you fulfill your role as a teacher more successfully.

For instance, there are online tutoring sites that allow you to work with tutors one-on-one, via chatting capabilities, from the comfort of your home. What's great about most online tutoring services is that you can schedule appointments 24/7. Also, you can download worksheets and take advantage of practice problems right over the Internet.

If you were unsure whether home schooling and tutoring mixed, now you know that they do. It's just a matter of finding the right tutoring environment for your child based on your schedule and your child's needs. Once the right formula is found, your child can have the success you've always desired.








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Establishing a Home School Connection For Your Children


Home schooling has become quite a common practice with many today due to various reasons. These include safety of the children as the schools are becoming increasingly dangerous to attend, single parents who cannot always make it on time to pick up and drop their kids, those physically or mentally challenged children and/or unavailability of a school in the vicinity.

Due to the fact that there are many children undergoing home school studies program, there are in fact many options, and they are all mostly available on the internet which is something that many people already have easy access to. Well, you will need the following: a computer, and a connection to the internet. The internet should preferably be through broadband because it the speed is fast and thus, you will be able to download and access any data, such as educational videos, quickly in double quick time

Home school connection is established through the Internet from where you can obtain daily programs; submit homework and other curriculum projects that are required. The internet will also help you get connected directly with teachers and students on the specially designed school forums; over on these forums you will be able to chat and discuss directly with a teacher, ask questions as well as get in touch with other students via the wire.

Most home school forums are open 24 hours a day to allow students to interact anytime they want. This is because children who undergo home schools find themselves at times isolated and lonely, and the forum can certainly help with that side of the home school connection.

So What You Should Know About Home Schools

Home schools have many advantages because the parents get to be a even bigger part of their child's life by being his or her school teacher, however, there are a few things you must ensure before enrolling your children in a home school. You have to make sure that the school must be accredited in order for your child's studies to be recognized once he completes programs.

Another very important factor is that home schools don't just give your child the normal social life other children access by attending traditional schooling everyday. You must ensure that the home school connections also have active forums for your child to interact freely and make friends as all other children do in school. There are many home schools available, so do your research and pick with care the one your child should follow, as that will determine his or her future, probably.








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Saturday, October 2, 2010

How Many Hours a Day Should You Home School


One of the most confusing parts of home schooling is how many hours should you home school your children. Should you have your classes everyday, can you miss a day or two? These are very important questions that you will have to answer when you have a home school.

The great thing about having a home school is that you can be flexible with the hours. You don't have to have classes starting at 8 am every morning. Maybe your child learns better starting at 10am or even in the evening. You can teach them anytime that is best for you. 

How do you figure out how many hours you need to teach your children every week?

A lot of parents will have the schedules made by how well the students cover the subjects, and how much material you will have to cover every week. When looking over your planner and your schedule you will be able to determine how many hours it will take to cover the material. In public schools they don't really have lessons for the whole time, they have time between classes, and then each period they have a certain amount of time that it will take to call roll, and get all the students settled. So there isn't that much learning going on. Plus it may take you less time to teach your student because you will be doing one on one with them, letting them learn faster and better.

It is advisable to plan a tentative schedule for your home school, while you can still be flexible with it, your children will know that learning is part of their daily schedule. They will know that during these hours it's time to learn. While you can change it as necessary it's always a good ideal to have a tentative schedule that is the same daily.








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Homeschooling - The 4 Main Reasons A Family May Choose to Home School a Child


It is estimated that more than 1 million children under the age of eighteen are receiving their education at home. It is impossible to know the exact number of families that choose to keep their children at home instead of sending them to traditional classroom settings. Part of the reason for this is that most states do not have an accurate count of these children.

Families may choose to home school their children for many different reasons. Sometime it is only temporary due to an illness or a cross country move. There are four reasons that children are being educated at home by their families:


They are deeply religious and want the children to be educated with fundamentalist beliefs. Many of these families use the Bible as their main text and use it to teach reading, math, social studies, health, geography and science. Older siblings may help teach the younger children. Consistent beliefs and values are maintained throughout the family. The parents of these children want to ensure that no ideas from outside of the family are introduced to their children without their approval. In years past this group accounted for the largest number of home schoolers.
The family may live in a remote area where schools are not easily accessible. There are quite a few sections of the United States and Canada where this is the case. It may be a two hour or longer ride to a school and some families do not want their children to be on the road for that long, especially when the weather is bad. Many of these children do not attend school until they are in high school.
Children who have survived a traumatic event, those who are going through a serious illness, or a child who has experienced a catastrophic event either at school or at home may be taken out of school for an extended period of time and educated at home by family members. Some of these children return to school within a few months and others continue to be home schooled until they reach the age of majority.
They believe that what they can offer their children is superior to what any formal institution has available. The children in these families may receive professional music or dance classes, sometimes travel throughout the world with their families, or may have a connection with one of the many private universities across North America that offer programs for young people. Many of these children go on to attend universities successfully before they are eighteen years old.
Many states require that you register your home as a home school, while other states require no such identification or registration. At one time it was typical for one adult family member to hold at least some type of teaching credential, but that is now a thing of the past. Textbooks are easily available to anyone who wants to use them in their home teachings. Resources such as libraries, local colleges and universities, and reliable internet information can now make teaching children at home an adventure rather than a chore. While the academic education of a home-schooled child may be enriched, many are concerned that the socialization of these children may be negatively impacted. However, according to the recent studies conducted by a variety of statisticians, the home-schooled child may have a higher level of self-esteem, have a highly developed set of social values and mores, and be more well- adjusted than children who attend regular day classes. Home-schooled children typically spend morning with academics and have afternoons available for organized sports, classes in music, dance, or art, and activities at their place of worship.

Choosing how and where to educate a child can be a decision with far reaching consequences. Much of this decision will be based on the needs and beliefs of the family, the individual child, and the educational system available to the family. By researching all of these factors, families can come to an intelligent decision that will be beneficial to all involved.








Connie Ragen Green is a motivational writer, speaker, and mentor. To find out more visit her at http://www.TheScienceoftheLawofAttraction.com .


Friday, October 1, 2010

Home School Software


Home school software breaks down into 3 basic categories. There is the curriculum that you buy, which includes book, study guides, cd ROMs, access to web sites, etc. There are stand alone websites that offer many different varieties of help with numerous different subjects. These range from simple multiplication flash card varieties to more sophisticated language learning sites. Many of these online resources are free and can provide a homeschool family with much needed resources and variety. Lastly, there are the downloadable software packages that are usually some type of platform that assist with structuring the environment of the homeschooler. These packages may also assist with grading and identifying problem areas.

Curriculum is possibly one of the most valuable components of a homeschool classroom. It is also easily the most expensive. Some curriculum programs that offer online assistance and include all of the bells and whistles easily cost thousands of dollars, and while they may be fabulous programs most home school families that I come in contact with do not have the resources to pay for programs like these. Another problem with any curriculum is that parents often fall in the trap of sticking to closely to the curriculum. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I have received is, that if it doesn't work for you don't be afraid to toss it. Home school networks can often have resources for parents to exchange curriculum or obtain used curriculum.

Free online resources are an excellent source of new dynamic learning material. There are new resources everyday and I am continually surprised by the quality of content and applications being generated on the internet. Homeschool parents would be foolish not to take advantage of the many wonderful tools available on the internet.

New homeschool software that allows parents to keep detailed reports, chart progress, set goals, and basically keep their finger on the pulse of how their children are doing is becoming much more widely available and more reasonably priced. This is software that allows parents to optimize their time in the classroom and be as effective as possible.

Many homeschool parents fall into the trap of using fairly outdated rudimentary methods of schooling because that is all that has been available in the past. For homeschool kids to continue to excel and put their forced schooling counterparts to shame they must have access to today's cutting edge technology.








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Home Schooling Numbers Increase Steadily


More families each year are taking their children out of public schools and home schooling them instead because the parents believe that their children can learn better and faster without the many distractions and negative influences that are part of the package with public school environments.

Even though it is often viewed by those in the mainstream as revolutionary or eccentric, the trend toward home schooling is growing and is gaining in popularity and respectability and is winning over an increasing number of supporters.

According to researchers who study such trends, the numbers of home schoolers in the U.S. has swelled considerably, growing from approximately 15,000 back in 1970 to over 500,000 by 1990, and estimated at over 1.1 million as of 2003.

A good indication of the interest and strength of the home schooling movement the number of support organizations that are in a particular country. The United States has long had a good variety of support groups and the increase in such groups from other areas of the world such as Europe, Australia and Asia.

To many, there are persistent questions such as: why are so many parents are choosing to teach their children at home rather than in traditional settings? How effective can home schooling really be?

Will my children be prepared for college? Can they gain the social skills they need without the interactions that are part of traditional schooling?

It is interesting to consider that while some people think about home schooling as radical, rebellious, or even extremist, the reality is that home schooling was the original system of education for centuries all around the globe.

The fact is that it was not until the last century that children started school so young as they do now. Typically, most of the children who did go to school started going at age twelve or later.

Many notable people from American history were educated in their homes and at their hearths, such as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, and even Albert Einstein.

The fact of the matter is that school attendance did not become compulsory until in the United States until the later part of the 19th century, and in light of that, home schooling really isn't just a recent fad, but actually the old educational standard.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, estimates are that anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of homeschooling families choose it for religious reasons, primarily because of the desire to protect their children from atheistic influences in public schools.

And, according to an article in Time magazine, the very backbone of the movement toward home schooling education practices is the Christian Fundamentalist community that strongly believes that religion is either ignored or debased in public classroom settings.

However, some parents have stated that their reasoning for removing their students from public education is in order to limit their exposure to damaging and immoral influences during their early years.

Still, other families decide to go the home schooling route primarily for educational reasons. Many are discontented with the overcrowding of classrooms, the low academic standards, and the many safety concerns rampant in many public schools.

It's really not so important why parents end up deciding on home schooling for their children because the major benefits, in the eyes of many parents, is that they are able to have much greater involvement in their children's lives and they remain influential role models during a time when it matters the most.








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Home School Tips For Kids


Home school tips for kids are very important. It is imperative that kids start well in home schooling. They need a good healthy attitude toward homeschooling right from the start. Parents can help new home school students develop a good attitude in several ways. Some of these are:



Talk with someone famous who was home schooled. Depending upon where you live, the chances are that there is someone famous close by that was home schooled. Most people who are famous and were also home schooled would jump at the chance to talk about their home school experience and what it has done for them. Some quick research and word of mouth from support group to support group and you will have your key note speaker. We cannot stress enough how much this will mean for your student. It will make a huge difference in their attitude to talk to someone famous who was home schooled.


The Parent should set down and talk with the prospective home schooled student. The parent should have goals written out on paper for the student to see. It is also advised to have drafted a list of all the great things about home schooling for the student to see.


The parent should have a list outlining several great advantages for homeschooling. Some are:





Later wakeup call: The student will get to sleep later, much later. This is very exciting a young teenager who is all about the sleep.


Relaxed atmosphere: Students are usually not required to dress up for class and take the courses in comfortable attire. They can take the courses at the kitchen table, by the pool, in the living room, or even in bed. The students get very excited with the freedom they are allowed while home schooling.


Clothing: Home schooled students get to wear the clothing they want to when studying. That is not limited to some stupid Kaki outfit. This is important to home schooled students. They resent being told what they can wear while at school.



The parent should also have a list of long term goals. Students and parents must set down and talk about these long term goals. Be realistic and set goals that are meet able.

The biggest tip for new home school students is discipline. Self discipline is the key to succeeding at home schooling. You must be able to make yourself study instead of watching Television. It is very hard, but you can do it. Keep focused and tell yourself that this truly is the first day of the rest of your life.








About the author: J. Vincent is the founder and creative force behind one of the premiere childhood education sites. Check it out for all your homeschooling needs.