Top five critical areas of childhood development.

Homeschooling young children as they begin their childhood education produces unique challenges. In the United States, early childhood education (pre-school and kindergarten) is a term generally used to refer to the formal education of children under the age of eight – or five years old, in most foreign countries.

Sometimes the hardest thing about homeschooling is making the decision to do it.  Often parents wrestle with questions like “can I do it?” or “will they miss their friends?” or even “what will we do all day?”

We owe them our rights.

It is interesting to read the speculation on why parents are homeschooling.  Many articles skirt the issue of our failing school systems, illiterate or low functioning adults, and the dangers of the school system.  Many still try to play homeschooling up as a religious movement.

One of the greatest freedoms in homeschooling is the freedom to explore your child’s interests.

• If your curriculum provides an introduction to medieval history and your child is enthralled, take the time to pursue it further.
• If you know your child has a passion for the study of electricity, give him the tools to dig deeper.

Before you embark on the incredibly rewarding homeschool journey, you need to examine yourself.

What kind of teaching role in the home do you want to take?

Do you enjoy pulling out all the stops and making a mess while you dig into learning with projects and experiments?
OR
Do you prefer an orderly home with a set schedule where you can plan out any such experiments and ensure that you have just the right materials before you begin?

This is step one in a ten part series on the ten steps to starting homeschooling.  To skip to step two, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Step One-Commit to Consistency

1. Be sure to commit to a full year-one year at a time. For many first time homeschoolers, the thought of years of running a homeschool can be daunting-in some cases, so much so that they have trouble making the decision. And although we believe that you will continue for years to come, your level of commitment should be one year at a time–one full year.