Wondering how to make the most of home school? Here are some key insights.
Here's what you'll learn in this article:
- How to help your child maximize the learning benefits of homeschooling.
- Four important insights to help your family get the most out of home school.
- Answers to common questions about making the most of home school learning.
- Key takeaways to start getting more benefits out of home school today.
- How to learn more about making the most of the home school experience.
With Intentional Effort, You Can Maximize the Benefits of Homeschooling
Like most things in life, your perspective and effort profoundly affect the experience and outcomes of homeschooling. You can spend an infinite amount of time on home school. If you have the resources to devote your full-time effort to homeschooling, both you and your children will benefit from your effort. However, most people who home school have other priorities, so it is important to be intentional about how you utilize your resources to get the greatest return.
Homeschooling is a great opportunity for you and your family. You can adapt it to make the most of your time with your children while also giving yourself a creative outlet and your own opportunities to learn. Your children can learn how to learn in a safe and supportive environment that cultivates their independence, while having your encouragement to engage in critical thinking, discovery, and creativity.
4 Key Insights for Using Your Resources Intentionally to Maximize the Benefits of Homeschooling
If you have competing demands for your time, here are four key insights to help you and your children get the most out of your home school experience:
1. Prioritize Home School
To crush home school, you need to make it a priority. If home school is a means to another end, like avoiding a traditional school schedule so you can travel, that’s completely fine. However, if you allow home school to consistently fall through the cracks because homeschooling itself isn't your primary motive, this will compromise your child’s education and the opportunity to have a varied and rewarding home school environment.
If you are fitting home school in amongst other priorities, view this an opportunity to get creative with how you incorporate home school into your family's life to keep it a priority. Creating a routine for the day and a weekly schedule can help you prioritize home school without excess effort. When prioritized, home school is an opportunity to guide your children to a life filled with learning.
To help yourself prioritize home school, make sure you have a home school planner and that you are managing your home school materials effectively, too.
2. Make Home School Work for Your Family
Home school has to work for your family, which is unique in its needs. It is important to be realistic about what your family’s needs are and how you can adapt home school to meet them.
If you fantasize about home school in the backyard, but you home school because your child is deeply committed to training for a sport, then you’ll need to save the backyard home school days for special occasions and focus on having a home school “go bag” for the majority of the time spent out of the house at sports training. Make the most of the flexibility of home school to adapt it to work for your family so you can do more of what you want to do.
3. Cultivate Learning
Home school can simply be a way to meet your state's minimum educational requirements. However, at its best, it is an opportunity guide your children toward becoming adults who value learning, who can make the most of their strengths, and who know how to cope with their weaknesses.
Between the library and the Internet, most homes have a plethora of options to cultivate learning. As a parent-educator, stay open-minded to all that is new to your child—even simple practical life activities like making a deposit can be educational and engaging.
To get the most out of home schooling, you’ll want to emphasize distinct learning experiences that offer a challenge for your child. Once your child masters a skill, it is time to level-up that skill in home school. Likewise, if an experience doesn’t offer an opportunity to practice a new skill or provide a new challenge, then it isn’t a learning experience to incorporate into your home school schedule.
4. Keep Learning Yourself
Getting the most out of home school means that you are always observing and noting opportunities to enhance the home school experience. The routines of homeschooling are a frame to create the space for new approaches and learning experiences.
For any parts of home school that you are less interested in, seek supplemental resources to give you support and space to focus on your strengths. As your children are exposed to new topics, pursue the ones that interest you too, and share this with your children. Model your passion and joy for learning. Invite your children to give you thoughts and ask questions. Making the most of homeschooling is about learning how to learn for a lifetime. When you keep learning yourself, you will remain open and curious about the world, and you will always have something to share with your children.
FAQs: Intentionally Use Your Resources to Capitalize on The Benefits of Homeschooling
What if I feel pulled in too many directions to prioritize home school?
It takes time to build new habits and routines, so start small. Try spending five minutes at the end of the day to reflect on what pulled your attention away from prioritizing home school.
It might be as simple as having outsized expectations for the day. For example, if you thought you’d be able to home school and launch a new business or make gourmet meals each day, that might be too much. If you are trying to launch a new business or have some other short-term priority, can you rely on more homeschooling resources? If you have long-term competing priorities, can you shift your expectations to also prioritize home school (e.g., cooking a gourmet meal one day per week and creating a learning experience around it)?
What if I just want my kid to be a kid and have more space to play and pursue their own interests?
There are 168 hours in each week. Do you want to have no responsibilities, challenges, or new experiences for 168 hours each week? Even a six-hour school day is only 30 hours per week.
What if providing your children responsibilities, challenges, and novel experiences propelled their play and own interests? How can they discover new ways to build a fort without physics concepts? How will they know their interest in animals can lead to so many professions? It can help to think of yourself as a guide who is providing your child resources and supports throughout home school that will make them more capable when they are engaged in unstructured time.
Key Takeaways
- Home school is what you make it. Be intentional with your effort to capitalize on the benefits of home school
- Make it a priority. Keep home school at the top of the list to benefit from an enriched environment that promotes well-rounded learning.
- Adapt home school. One of the greatest benefits of home school is the flexibility to make it work for your family’s needs.
- Learn at home. Getting the most out of home school means learning every day that there is more available to consider, explore, and create.
- Model your learning. Learning is a lifelong skill that you can model to your children by pursing your own interests and incorporating them into the home school experience.
Where to Learn More
If you would like more tips for improving your children's home school experience, consider becoming a member of Crush Home School! With our membership plan, you get monthly guidance delivered to your inbox with downloadable resources and much more. Learn more about becoming a Crush Home School member.