Hi ,

 

We made it through our first graduation party here over the weekend and watched our oldest go through the process of being homeschooled all the way through her years of schooling.  As you can imagine, I've seen lots of changes over the years and so I thought I would mention some of those here.

 

There have been many changes in homeschooling since the beginning of the movement and there are still many changes happening today. It used to be that you had to teach your child with textbooks and workbooks. Now there are so many programs available online and offline that it can make your head spin.

 

I thought I would mention a couple of resources that I have seen that I like that might help you wade through all the things that you COULD be using.

 

1.  One option available to us that was not available to the early pioneers of homeschooling is the homeschool DVD. I've collected a list here http://www.homeschool-how-to.com/homeschool-dvd.html of just some of the video options available to homeschoolers. Although some people like to use DVDs exclusively for teaching, most homeschool parents choose to use some DVDs to help in certain areas of study. Sometimes it can be a whole course and sometimes it can be an instructional video for parent or child.

 

2. Online programs - I know I have written to you before about Super Charged Science, but they have such a good quality online Science program, that they are worth mentioning again. I like them because they offer lots of no cost videos that you can view first to see if they are a good fit for your family. http://www.homeschool-how-to.com/supercharged-science.html

 

3. The Internet offers a great deal to homeschoolers although homeschool parents don't have a great deal of time to spend searching the Internet for what they need. That's why I compiled over 350 websites that you can use for homeschooling. These are all sites that I looked over and reviewed and deemed worthy of  our time. They are organized by subject and contain information from preschoolers all the way up to college. You can click on the link in the ebook and it takes you right to the website. I spent some time putting it together so I do have to charge $9.95 for this resource. http://www.hjresources.com/book

 

4. Personalized handwriting sheets - Now instead of using workbooks for handwriting practice, you can use the computer to enter your own text and let it print out the handwriting sheets for you. These are much more interesting for your children to fill out because they can be customized to their interests. Startwrite - http://www.homeschool-how-to.com/startwrite.html

 

 

I know I have thrown a lot of things at you this week, but there are so many different ages of children, methods of homeschooling and personalities represented here, that I had to include a little bit of something for everyone.

 

I hope these sites are helpful to you. Feel free to post any homeschool questions to me at the bottom of this page - http://www.homeschool-how-to.com/homeschool-help.html

 

Take care,

 

Heidi