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1. Notify your school district that you are now home schooling your child. The district will send you a form to fill out. The form should ask for very minimal information — the names and ages of your children, and an agreement that you will hold school for 6 1/2 hours per day 180 days per year. You should not be asked your reasons for home schooling, your qualifications, or your curriculum. The Utah state government school system employs of 39,000 people. These people differ greatly in their understanding of parent rights in the education of children. Some will applaud your decision to home school and will be sincerely helpful; others will feel threatened and may be mean spirited or try to intimidate you. If you have any problems, contact the Utah Home Education Assn. 2. Plan with your children. Each child comes to Earth with his own set of talents, and perhaps with some Divine expectations of the work that he will do. In home schooling your child can get off the cookie-cutter conveyor belt and become an individual. Help your child understand that his education is his own happy duty. Manage less and lead more. Most children have only known a system in which their every move was arranged for them; if some "detox" time is necessary, take lots of field trips. 3. Identify your family mission -- what you do well together, then do more of it. Then plan ways to upgrade all that you do. 4. Decide on a curriculum style. Some people want to purchase an entire curriculum and operate pretty much like a private school classroom at home. You will probably soon tire of that method, and the children may rebel -- and then you'll think you failed. Government schools get away with this type of education because they have power and can force compliance; it doesn't work well at home. Some parents just let their children go where their curiosity leads them. This is usually called "unschooling" and it works very well for some students. What's often missing here is leadership. And that is the real key to home schooling: parental leadership. Parents who will have the most success if they are themselves lifetime learners and if they purposefully lead their children to becoming self-directed students who understand that their duty to God, their future family, and their fellow man is to develop their intellect and talents. Curriculum materials abound, especially on the internet. Avoid textbooks for the young; go for games, puzzles, kits, etc. We suggest that your first and foundational studies should be your religion and your country. Consider beginning your study of American history with the George Washington Project from our LDS-HEA bookstore. You will want to build a library of great books for everyone to read so you can have meaningful conversations around the dinner table. Our favorite source of great books is Wholesome Books You will also want to study home schooling itself. Here is a recommended list of home school books: from the LDS-HEA
bookstore
from the public library or a bookstore: 6. We suggest that you start your day with music, even if that simply means putting a good CD on when you get up. Singing and playing instruments helps format the brain and improve learning, so make music a priority. Then structure your day with time for learning. You do not need to be lecturing to your children 6 1/2 hours a day, but you must spend some time with them reading from good books and helping them with their individual goals. For instance, you might start with a family devotional, then read to everyone from both non-fiction and fiction. Then set aside 1 to 2 hours as study time in which Mom may be studying too, but she will be available to help her children with their personal studies. Little ones may be working with puzzles, pattern blocks, or Legos.™ In classroom school, the teacher faces the student and does most of the talking. In the family, the parent (usually mom) sits beside the student and the conversation is quiet and gentle. In the afternoon older children might spend a little time on their own reading from good books, listen to tapes, researching, etc, but there should also be plenty of time for other types of learning activities — music, drama, creative play, sewing, bicycle building, exercise, inventing, and so on. The creative talents may be the most valuable; we can't over-stress their importance. Too much structure of activities, as in school classrooms, causes children to lose their ability to create and invent, to find new solutions to problems and to figure out new ways of doing things. They are the abilities that may make your children rich and you comfortable in your old age! 7. Keep individual or a family home school scrapbooks or notebooks so your children will feel a sense of accomplishment. Set short-term goals and find a way to recognize completion, maybe something like:
8. Enjoy! Remember your first objective is to rescue your children from an undesirable social sub-culture and build a strong family culture. Then secondly, everyone -- parents and children -- should be about the business of self-education so they can better serve their family and their fellow man. How blessed your family will be!
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