When the moon’s minimal, go outside and look up! You don’t even need a telescope. Try to find a space away from city lights, and enjoy it with a friend.

Some meteor showers are more spectacular than others. This one is expected to pick up tonight 4/20 and tomorrow 4/21, and we’re expecting to see between 10 to 20 meteors per hour at the peak. You’ll want to look near Vega, use a stargazing app to help you find it.

Comet Thatcher is the source of the meteors for this particular meteor shower, because every year in late April our planet will cross the path of this comet. The last time it visited the inner solar system was in 1861, so it hasn’t been here in a while, the orbit is about 415 years.

Comets leave a trail of particles, and when the Earth sweeps through that particle trail, we get meteor showers! That’s why meteor showers are stronger some years and not as much in later years. The years they are strongest is when the comet has made a recent pass!

Guess what? We have a SPECIAL GUEST just for Supercharged Science students! You’ll get to learn about volcanoes in our Solar System with NASA Scientist Dr. Rosaly Lopes!

We were originally going to do this class when we studied volcanoes in May, but everyone’s schedule was too full, so we rescheduled this presentation/interview for summer.

Dr. Rosaly Lopes, a volcanologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), began her college studies in astrophysics but was soon inspired to study volcanoes on Earth and in space. She knew from when she was seven years old that she wanted to be an astronaut and work for NASA.

Her first job at JPL was with the Galileo spacecraft that flew by Venus to study the volcanic features of Jupiter’s moon Io. She has worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn studying data captured by Cassini about the moon Titan.
By studying volcanoes in space, we can better understand volcanoes on Earth because other planets have other variations like different gravitational fields and atmospheres.

Dr Lopes has visited over 50 volcanoes and has written seven books including a guidebook that describes every volcano on our planet.
Students will be able to ask questions and interact with Dr. Lopes through a special class presentation!

You can read more about her here:
https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Lopes/
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/119/rosaly-lopes/

Become a summertime astronomer as you study celestial objects such as stars, planets, moon, asteroids, comets, galaxies, and more that exist outside our planet’s atmosphere. Discover black holes and pulsars, how to collect meteorites, and the top ten summer targets for binoculars.

Launch several different kinds of rockets, including: stomp, slingshot, rocket ships, puff, pop , balloon racers, and magnetic rocket launchers. As you build dozens of rockets, including chemical, water, and air pressure designs, you’ll learn what it’s like to be a real rocket scientist.

Learn how to build several different kinds of kites, including a comet kite, rotating rotor-kite, and a diamond kite that can lift you off the ground! And the bat kite doesn’t even need wind to fly… just you.

Soar, twirl, gyrate, float, and fly with our hands-on flight lab where you’ll get to experiment with over 30 different flying contraptions from airplanes to helicopters to things that shouldn’t really fly at all… but they do!

SAVE THE DATE!  This is a great way to not only CELEBRATE all your hard work this month, but also to review the month and be totally amazed by how much you’ve learned.  I’ll send exact details by email on the Sunday before our party date so you will have the special ZOOM LINK to participate with us! ALl ages, all levels welcome.

~Aurora

If you are curious how airplanes fly without flapping like a bird, how to read aircraft instruments and tell which runway to land on, what it’s like inside a real cockpit, then this is the class for you! Aeronautics is the art and science of flight. Aviation is the practical side of aeronautics. It’s the design and building of airplanes, and how to fly the thing from point A to B. Aerodynamics is the motion of air, and the way air interacts with aircraft, like how air flows over a wing.

In November, we went on an Airplane Field Trip with a real flight instructor! During class, students were able to ask questions and interact with the pilot in this online learning field trip class. Here’s the video recording:

We will be doing another field trip soon, so please look for an email about this in the coming months. I hope you enjoy the kesson!

On Friday, June 19th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time I am hosting an ASTRONOMY SCAVENGER HUNT GAME. Your kids can tune in to participate and win prizes! I’ve sent you an email with all the details for classes for the week, including this one. It’s a Zoom call – please email us if you can’t find it!

We’re stargazing soon, so save the date! This will be a live class with both Aurora and a real astronomer (Kent Wallace). We will be taking you on a tour of the night sky so you can star gaze right from home!

Summer is filled with warm, late nights sparkling with stars, planets and meteor showers! We are going to focus on objects you can see with binoculars or small telescope.

(Aurora uses Orion’s UltraViews and also recommends the less expensive Celestron – Cometron 7×50 Bincoulars

We’ll also show you how to use Star Charts to help you navigate and find objects. You can download your sky map free here: Click here to download the current SkyChart.

During our time together, you’ll be able to interact with Aurora and Kent, ask questions, and gain insight on the next objects to search for to take your star gazing to the next level. It will be like watching a planetarium star show only from your computer screen!

We will bring you you a virtual “tour of the night sky” where you can discover, learn, and ask questions as we go along! All you need is an internet connection. You can use an iPad, laptop, computer or cell phone. When 7pm on Saturday night rolls around, click the link below to join our class. (Link coming soon!)

On the Road to a Billion Planets!

TONIGHT May 28th at 7pm – We’re streaming a live presentation from an astrophysicist from NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute at CalTech about “On the Road to a Billion Planets”. This astronomy talk is especially extended to K-12 students interested in astronomy! All ages are welcome, and you can ask questions during her presentation as well!  Click here for Jessie Christiansen’s Talk

Dr Jessie Christiansen is an astrophysicist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech, where she searches for, characterizes and catalogues planets orbiting other stars.

In 2018 she was awarded the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal for her role with the successful NASA Kepler Mission, which discovered thousands of exoplanets and revealed that rocky planets are common throughout the galaxy.

She now works on the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to find the nearest planetary systems to Earth – systems that will be ripe for further study with the next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes.

There is nothing as frustrating as seeing healthy children stuck indoors while watching something on a screen like a zombie. Most homeschool students need a bit of extra help to get them away from the screens of the smartphone, the tablets, the television or the video gaming consoles. Here is a list of ideas for the homeschool parent to ensure time away from the screens for the children.

Walk the Dog

Even if you don’t have a pet, enlist the help of a neighbor who does. The interaction between a pet and a child helps develop empathy and is joyful for both parties. Get your homeschool students into the habit of dog walking regularly.

Write a Journal

The simple Dear Diary notes that your child writes down can help with emotional well-being. The younger homeschool students merely need to write between three to five sentences daily about their day. The elder ones may be more expressive, and be prepared to allow them the privacy of not showing you exactly what they have written.

Find a Job

Whether it is doing small errands for people in the neighborhood, or getting a paper route, the idea is to get them to generate their own pocket money. Be sure to have the safety first conversation with your homeschool students before they take off to look for work.

Be Artistic

Help them to develop their talent. Some homeschool students show great skill at art, others with words. Encourage them to draw, paint, or write short stories. Find them appropriate places to showcase what they have created. Encourage them to build up a portfolio of their work. This is a great stress buster for kids of all ages.

Get Physically Active

Shoot hoops in the backyard. Play tag with the children in the neighborhood. Learn some yoga asanas. Fly a kite that you have built. Build a fort, a snow man or even an obstacle course, depending on the time of the year it is. Homeschool students need the time and opportunity to expend the energy that they have stored up inside of them. Encourage physical activity.

Not everyone has the extra storage space to catch all the material that homeschooling a couple of kids in different grades can throw out of the homeschooling classroom. Here are some tips to make your classroom more spacious by eliminating unwanted junk from the area. Feel free to add your own twist to this version of the clean up crew.

Separate the Stuff

Ideally put all the stuff into the following categories – Keep, Recycle, Trash, Donate and Sell. You can physically place the cardboard boxes for items that you want to donate and sell. Mark them with a permanent marker so that you are sure what each box is for. This saves time when you are in the middle of a big clean up pile and wondering where the coloring book you hold needs to go.

The stuff that you need to keep can be placed on the table or shelves in the homeschool classroom. The things that need to be trashed can be placed in a nice big garbage bag. The stuff to sell and donate can be boxed. Using this system is easier because you are not thinking of an intermediary place to keep everything before you dispose of them.

Finish Discarding First

The usual tendency while cleaning up is to find the right place for things that you need to keep, while ignoring what needs to be discarded. Instead get started with taking out the stuff you need to trash first. Then take over the things that you need to donate to the place or people you are planning on donating to.

After this there will already be a lot more space to play with in the homeschool classroom. Next get going on pricing the material that you want to sell. Put up the online ads, the flyers around the neighborhood and notices for sale. Take the box of stuff to sell out of the homeschool classroom and place it in the garage or other area where it won’t come in the way. Now you can finally allow yourself to settle the remaining stuff into the homeschool area.

Over a period of time the homeschool classroom can become the dumping ground for a lot of material which is not in regular use. Regularly decluttering this mess can make a huge difference in the energy of the room. Here are some ideas to help the busy homeschool parent to keep the homeschool classroom decluttered.

The Sorting Basket

Often when you come across something that you have not used in a while, and know that you may not be using again, you simply place it back in the shelf and move on to looking for what you need in the moment. Instead of doing this, keep a basket on hand to put such things into. Then once a week empty out this basket by putting things in the trash, or recycling them, or even giving them away to someone who you know will use it.

Clean Up the Home School Area

Have a policy of empty desk tops at the end of the day. This will ensure that all the papers get put away and that you have a nice clean surface to begin studies on the next day. Also put away any art work, projects and worksheets that the homeschool students have used that day. Regularly go through these and discard the ones that will not be used again. You can take pictures of the art work and projects before you let them go. These can be stored virtually and will not take up any physical space in the homeschool area.

Less is Better

Most homeschool teachers will download, print out and store a lot of material that they nearly never use.There are so many teaching tools that are usually lying around the homeschool area, that if you pick up a few and put them away, you will end up making a lot of space for yourself. It’s okay to not keep everything. If you can’t bring yourself to chuck it out, think of someone who can use it and deliver it to them. This will make it seem less wasteful, plus give you more area to use as you actually require.

There is no denying the teenage fascination for screens. Be it the television, the laptop computer, the tablet, the video game console or the smartphone, the average teenager spends way more time in front of screens than in front of their family members.

The excessive screen time affects their eyesight, their anxiety levels and even their cognitive functioning. A break from screens is a must have in the daily schedule of homeschool teenage students. Here are some ideas for things that they can do instead of sitting in front of a screen.

Cookbook Experiments

Gift your homeschool students with time in the kitchen, even as you gift yourself with a break from meal prep. Have the teenager come up with a one dish meal for your family. Allow them to experiment with new recipes and don’t forget to teach them how to clean up after themselves. This is an important life skill and your teenager will be grateful for it when they first begin living alone.

Create Art Work

Draw, color or paint something new. Give your artistically inclined homeschool teenage student a wall in their room to decorate as they see fit. Or allow them to come up with art work that may be gifted over the holidays and birthdays to family and friends. It’s a good self confidence boosting measure for the talented teenager.

Visit or Call a Grandparent

Take a couple of hours off in the week to go visit a local grandparent. Or if they live in another town, take ten minutes to give them a phone call and check how they are doing. Make sure that the call is placed on the regular land line and not the distracting smartphone. This helps foster the bond between the grandparent and grandchild, even as it keeps the teen away from the screens.

Play Outdoor with Siblings

While you may not enjoy playing referee for your children, sports is a good way to tire out the hyperactive siblings. Basket ball, baseball, hopscotch, or tag, let them play for at least an hour with their younger siblings. The time will be well spent and the homeschool parent can get some chores done during this time.

There is no denying that technology has invaded our lives and homes to such a huge degree that living without it can seem downright scary to us. Yet as homeschool families struggle to find the balance between using technology to ease teaching, and letting their homeschool students figure out the old ways of doing things, there is an appeal of returning to simpler times. At least for a couple of days in the month. Here’s how homeschool families are implementing tech free days.
A Camping Trip
One of the easiest ways to avoid the internet, and all related technology is to take the whole family off grid for the weekend. One weekend a month is easy enough to plan outdoors. The homeschool students could go the full camping route with setting up a tent in the wilderness and learning skills of bonfire building. Or the family could simply take a day trip to trek out in the closest national park to reconnect with nature.
Either way, it makes for a tech free weekend where the children get to commune with the local flora and fauna. Of course you may still need the GPS navigation to get to where you need to be…so instead you may want to introduce the concept of paper map books. This adds an additional life skill to the homeschool students.

Making Do Without the Internet
For one day in the week stay away from the internet and all related streaming technology. Put the smart phone, tablets, and laptops away. Go back to board games, cards and singing together for entertainment. The idea is to come up with old favourites which allow the homeschool students to enjoy their time bonding as a family rather than simply disappearing down the funny cat video whirlpool on YouTube.
This will take some effort from the homeschool parent initially to think up a list of activities and games that are tech free. In a few months time the day off tech will actually become popular for the limited activities that can only be done on those days. Make it fun and functional.

Watching movies can be turned into a learning experience. There are so many movies that can teach the homeschool students about different times and history. Whether it is the ancient past, or more recent events, many movies have been made to cover almost all important events that affected the course of human civilization.

Create a movie club with some other homeschool families in your community. The club can meet once a month to begin with. Curate a list of 12 movies which have significant learning potential for the homeschool students. This could be in terms of life lessons, such as staying the path, or history lessons, such as how the monarchy functioned in Europe.
Pick a good mix of movies that would appeal to all ages of the children in the movie club. Remember there needs to be a fun element as well, not just gory and gruesome stuff. You may even show some animated movies if you have a a crowd of mostly younger aged homeschool students in the audience.
The Movie Quiz
After the movie finishes, let the children present discuss it. How they felt about certain actions taken by the characters, what changes they would have made had they been in place of the protagonist, etc. One homeschool parent needs to have some questions ready to ensure that the discussion does not lag.
Once everyone has had a turn to express themselves, the homeschool parent in-charge of the movie must present a quiz based on the movie. Let the questions be a mix of objective questions which ascertain the observation of the viewer, as well as subjective questions which invite the viewer to express their own opinion.
The Lessons
It’s a good idea to sum up all that was seen and lessons that can be learnt from the movie at the end of the session. Think of basic moral values and positive behavior that needs to be encouraged and add them to the lessons summation. Just ensure that this does not take too long, or become too preachy for the homeschool students. Keep it light and fun.

Playing while you learn is always much more effective than simply memorizing by rote. One way to introduce the fun element of play into a homeschool classroom would be to use educational puzzles. The homeschool teacher can take any topic and create a quiz, or a jigsaw puzzle with ease. Here are some ideas.

The Word Search

Easy way to do this is to start with ten words in a grid of 15 by 15 letters. You can make the grid using the table feature in the software that you are using. Simply add the words into the grid and then fill in the remaining spots with random alphabet. If you want to make it easier for the homeschool students to solve the puzzle, give them the hint of words to be found below this table.

The Cross Word Clues

This works best if there is a steady theme. So take a theme like New Year in the month of January, or Valentine’s Day in the month of February. Pick something relevant. Now put together ten clues to words that are related to this theme. You can past them into the file on top of the page.

Again create a table and fit in the words five in down and five across. Blacken out the remaining spaces. Save this as the solution document. Now copy it into another file and delete the words to leave blank white spaces for the homeschool students to work out the solution in.

The Visual Jigsaw

Pick an image that may be required to be memorized. For instance the planets in the solar system for younger children, or the periodic table for older ones. Print out a good resolution picture on a glossy photo paper. Now cut up the jigsaw puzzle using a pair of scissors. To make it easier to put the picture back together, you may print out another image and give the homeschool students. Ideally do this after they have spent some time trying to figure out where all the pieces go.

Such puzzles can be made in advance and kept ready to use in the homeschool classroom when required.

The idea of a formal curriculum for pre-school may seem outlandish for a homeschool teacher. After all how difficult can it be to get your baby ready for schooling? Yet, when push comes to shove, just what all do you need to ensure that your little one knows before stepping into the formal education system? Here are a few tips to consider if you need to invest in a formal curriculum.

The Purpose of Pre-school

Remember it’s about having fun and building curiosity. The homeschool teacher must ensure that the little baby is now willing to learn more about their world in a formal context. The idea here is to give the new homeschool student a lot of different experiences. Remember to engage each sense. The five senses are the gateway to learning about their world, and the children are quite enthusiastic to learn new things. All you have to do is be a guide. Give them small tasks and stand back to see how they accomplish them.

The Need for a Preset Curriculum

It comes down to a simple question, how creative are you? As the pre-school child needs all kinds of stimuli, will you be able to match their curiosity with your own creativity? If you have the time and inclination to come up with interesting tasks for your little one each day, you may not want to consider a formal curriculum. However, if this the first time you are homeschooling, and have no previous experience with teaching, you may find a ready made curriculum handy as a ready-reckoner.

Is it the Right Choice for You?

If finances are a not an issue, you may want to consider studying the market for the preschool curriculum that you feel would make the best fit for your homeschool classroom. However, if you feel that you can do a good job of building a curriculum on your own, I would still suggest taking a look at what is available. By simply going through the main features of different curriculum that already exist, you will have a much better idea about what you need to do in your homeschool classroom.

The New Year is a good time to begin new habits, try out new ideas, or simply re-evaluate what you have been doing and letting go of what does not work anymore. People talk about new year resolutions, and how they end up breaking them each year. Almost every resolution that was made in the month of December does not survive the month of January. So how do you make resolutions that actually work? Here’s the main point, don’t call them resolutions, call them goals. Then set these goals in a very measurable manner. Here are some ideas for your homeschool family.

Evaluate What You Have Been Doing

It’s about mid way through the academic session and you have been using your lesson plans, schedules and homeschool curriculum long enough to see what’s going right. More importantly you are in a much better position to identify what’s going wrong. You know what you want to let go and what you want to add. Write down five points about changes that you may want to make. This could be stuff like doing writing work when the kids are fresh instead of later in the day. Or adding extra worksheets after completing a lesson. Or using art and craft to reinforce classroom learning.  Just jot down five points that you want to work on in the new year in your homeschool classroom.

More Extra Curricular Activities

The homeschool parent often is in a quandary about what more they can offer their homeschool children. Again make it a goal to add five new activities to the homeschool student’s schedule in the new year. This could be something extra like a musical instrument or a sporting activity that they have not tried out so far. Or it could be an added number of errands and chores that the child needs to learn. Or it could be adding a weekly field trip to the schedule of the homeschool family. Just make sure that you have five goals in the area of doing more with your homeschool students. It will be that much easier to follow through on the new year resolution to bring more into their lives.

Can You Work a Full Time Job and Still Homeschool?

If you are not willing to forego the second salary, and still plan on homeschooling your children, you need to be really well organized. With efficient planning and creative scheduling, you can make homeschooling work for your family. Yes it would be much easier if one parent was able to work from home, but even if they both need to leave the house, it’s still possible to ensure that your homeschool students do well.

Alternating Lessons with Your Spouse

In this case it’s not possible for one homeschool teacher to be solely in charge of the children’s education. Both parents will need to pick up lessons for the homeschool students. If it’s possible, try work alternating shifts so that at least one parent is always available with the children at home. ideally have a schedule made out in advance about what each homeschool teacher needs to cover with the students. Also have a check back system visible in the homeschool classroom to see what all has been finished. Both parents need to be able to contribute to the children’s education. If that is not possible, you will have to find another responsible adult to watch the children, as well as supervise their homeschooling tasks for the day.

Getting Help from Grandparents or Professionals

Ideally involving family members like grandparents or younger uncles and aunts would work well for such a homeschooling family. This is an option even single parents may use if they want to homeschool. If you don’t have any extended family to fall back on, you can always hire a professional. A nanny can be present to supervise the children when both parents are out. Or you can schedule extra classes for music or sports for them during that time. These can be arranged around the shifts that the parents need to work so that pick up and drop offs can be coordinated. In addition, the regular household chores like cooking and cleaning need to be taken care of. Have another visible chart for this so that nothing gets done twice and everything actually gets done.

While you will not be having a school day in the homeschool classroom on Christmas Day, you can do some of these activities beforehand to prepare your homeschool students for the holiday.

Santa’s Letter

Writing practice can become easy when the homeschool students are writing a letter to Santa. Have them format and write a formal letter to Santa Claus telling him how they have behaved through the year as well as ending with what they want for Christmas. Do tell them about what they can and cannot ask for before they write out the letter. In fact the second part can be done post the holidays in form of writing Santa a thank you letter for what they have received.

Decorations for the Tree

Arts and crafts gets taken care of by making decorations for the Christmas tree as well as the rooms of the house. You can search sites such as Pinterest or Instagram for easy to make handmade decorations which can be made in advance and hung up during the week before Christmas. Have the homeschool students pick out one decoration each that they will make for their craft project. It’s an activity which will require less supervision in the homeschool classroom, leaving the homeschool teacher free to catch up with other chores.

The Baking Party

Cooking is an essential life skill. Baking cookies is a great way to get the homeschool students to practice mathematics for the measurements, learn about the chemistry of baking soda and creating food for themselves. Pick out one cookie, one cup cake and one savory recipe in advance. Have it printed out on index cards and have a copy for each of the homeschool students. Supervision is a must for younger children and only adults open and close the oven.

Wrapping Gifts

Have the gift wrapping ideas ready for each item that is being gifted to each family member. You can ask the homeschool students to wrap each other’s gifts so that the element of surprise is maintained. It will also cut down on the total time it takes the homeschool family to get all the gifts wrapped if everyone contributes.

Homeschooling is a choice made by the parents, however not everyone may be as comfortable with the concept. Also there may be actual valid reasons why you should not homeschool your children. These are a few.

When Parents Disagree About Homeschooling

Homeschooling involves the full support of both parents. The stay at home parent will be monitoring the actual education of the homeschool students, but the earning parent is just as important. If either one is not in favor of homeschooling the children, it will lead to a very dysfunctional family. When the parents are unable to present a united front to the children on this main issue, they undermine each other’s authority.  The children go through a lot of upheaval and it can all be quite a strain. Emotionally and financially the situation will be a mess. So unless both mother and father are excited about the idea of homeschooling, don’t venture into it.

Finances and Hidden Costs

At first glance it may seem that teaching your children at home is a cheaper option than putting them through regular school. Incorrect. If you homeschool your children, one parent will be giving up their job to stay at home with the kids. Survival is not easy on a single middle class salary. If you have financial obligations such as mortgages, elder care, or even medical conditions, homeschooling may not be a good idea. The extra income from the second parent working is not a luxury in these cases, it is a necessity. Better to let the children go to school. Also the study material and other resources that you need to invest in while homeschooling can turn out to prove rather expensive. Can you afford it? Take a good look at finances before making the decision.

Temperament of the Homeschool Teacher 

Basic nature of a person can not be changed. If you are a patient person who will plan with meticulous detail about the lessons and activities that your homeschool student needs to cover during an academic year, you are off to a good start. However if you think that you will simply buy a homeschool curriculum and let your children study while you supervise them from a distance, just don’t think about the option to homeschool. A homeschool teacher has to be involved in every aspect of their student’s lives. If you lack the patience and tenacity to do so, this is not meant for your family.

A college education is expensive. Most parents save for years so that their children can experience one. Financial aid is always welcome at this stage in the student’s life and a number of them will apply for scholarships that they are eligible for. How about if your child is homeschooled? Do homeschool students get scholarships? Yes they do.

What Types of Scholarships are There?

There are need based scholarships which are usually awarded by the government to students from the financially weak sections of society. Then there are merit based scholarships which are earned by students based on the marks that they have scored. These scholarships can be bestowed by the school, the state, private institutions, or organizations. Student specific scholarships are created for individuals who meet a specific set of criterion, such as those with specific disabilities, or religious affiliations, or students of particular ethnicity and even students of military parents. Then there are career specific scholarships that may be awarded by leading corporate companies in a specific industry, for students who are studying to join that industry. These can be in healthcare, engineering, or even teaching.

Where Can Homeschoolers Find Scholarships?

Specialized search engines such as the College Board’s BigFuture search or FastWeb are a good place to start. If you come across a specific scholarship that doesn’t state the eligibility of homeschooled students, you may want to get in touch with the organization and ask them. Often the scholarship may be available, but they don’t mention homeschool students in the description. Some homeschool curriculum publishers such as Sonlight, offer scholarships to students who are using their curriculum. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) offers scholarships to students who are active athletes. Go through their eligibility criterion on the website, call to clarify any questions. The Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) offers four annual scholarships. They also carry a list of scholarships that homeschool students can apply for on their website.

It’s a good idea to search through the scholarships that your homeschool student may be eligible for and keep all requirements ready at least a year before you plan to apply for the scholarship.

The decision to homeschool is usually taken by the parent, but at times as the homeschool student who has never attended regular school grows up, they may question this decision. The portrayal of regular school in books they read and movies they watch, may give them the impression that they are missing out because they are being homeschooled. What does the homeschool parent do in a situation like this, where the homeschool student wants to go to regular school? Here are some suggestions.

Explain Why You Thought Homeschool Was  a Good Idea

The homeschool student should be told about why the homeschool parent thought it was the right educational choice for them to make. The stronger bond between the children and the parent, the flexibility to teach what interested them, no early morning rush to catch the bus, no cancelling family road trips because of missing classes, and so many more reasons. If the child understands why they are being homeschooled, it makes them more accepting of the option.

Ask What They Want to Do in Regular School

Each child is unique and will have a different reason for wanting to go to regular school. Some may want to make friends with other classmates, while others may feel that they want to explore the more traditional approach to education. Get them to express what they feel they are missing out on while they are being homeschooled. This is the first step to making a joint decision about their future studies. Just because they have been homeschooled so far does not mean that they can’t switch to regular school at a later date.

Give Them Options for a Compromise

Suppose they were allowed to join a homeschool co-op where they would have the opportunity to make new friends and forge life long bonds? Would that make them happier? Allow them to participate in organized sporting activities where they will be forced to interact with all kinds of children and adult supervisors. Check if that makes them feel part of the main stream. Music lessons for singing, or playing an instrument can also help if conducted by a teacher other than the parent.

To begin with homeschooling your children does not mean isolating them. A homeschool family may choose to be a part of a homeschool support group in the area, which allows them many opportunities to pool resources and socialize. However, a homeschool co-op takes this basic interaction to another level.

What is a Homeschool Co-op?

In a Homeschool Co-op a group of homeschool families join together to share the responsibility of educating the children. Classes are offered for children and parental participation is a must. While each parent is likely to take up classes based on subjects they can teach, other parents are present to help with the activities and cleaning up. There will usually be a coordinator who will find out how each parent would like to contribute and the classes that they will take up based on the needs of the children in the group. The meet ups are generally bi-weekly, so parents have the time to teach their children in the homeschool class as well.

Is a Homeschool Co-op just like regular school?

Not at all. A regular school has very little participation of the parents, while the teachers are present all the time. The active participation of parents is a must in a Homeschool Co-op. It’s not a class to which you drop off the homeschool students and return at the end of. Each parent contributes to the knowledge base that the students are exposed to. Plus the learning in a homeschool co-op setting also allows the children to socialize with their friends of different age groups. While in a regular school they would spend time only with students who are mostly their own age group. They frequency of the meet ups is also different from the daily regular school routine.

Is a Homeschool Co-op the right choice for your children?

The group learning culture in the homeschool co-op is a good experience for the children. Homeschool students learn skills such as raising their hands to speak, taking turns, and waiting in lines, which would not happen with just a couple of students at home. They get to hear other people’s perspectives and how to share their own in a respectful manner. Friendships that may last a lifetime get forged at such regular meet ups. They will also learn how to deal with peer pressure and bullying behavior. Overall it can be a very positive experience.

There is always a way to contribute to society which begins within the home. Homeschool parents can instill good values in their homeschool students by setting up minor projects which allow them to contribute in a socially and economically positive manner. Here are some suggestions which may be modified for use by homeschool families.

Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

That’s a good mantra to start with. Teach the homeschool students to maximize potential and minimize wastage. The single use and throw philosophy needs to be addressed when they are young. Teach them how a simple tin can be reused with a little up-cycling as a pencil holder in the homeschool classroom. Let them reduce the number of plastic water bottles they buy on field trips by carrying a glass bottle from home and refilling it from water fountains. Help them to recycle their clothes and toys, first withing the siblings themselves and then maybe by contributing to a local orphanage.

Environmentally Conscious Behavior

Educate the homeschool students about the waste that is piled up in landfills. If possible find out about one nearby and let them see the slow poisoning of the land. It will motivate them to minimize the waste they produce. Explain about the unseen pollution and carbon footprints. Show them the practices that can help reduce their own carbon footprints. Teach them that society and community needs can be met without running through the resources of the planet. Everything does not need to be new or top end luxurious. Being eco-friendly and conservative is actually a better choice in the long run.

Volunteering

One of the easiest ways to teach homeschool students about life and responsibility is to have them volunteer their time to people who are less fortunate than them. By spending time working for a charitable organization they will learn that life is not always fair and that there are people who struggle with very real issues. This will teach them compassion for others, and give them skills that allows them to help out when needed. It will also give them social skills which will be useful all through their lives. In addition the work experience that they gain will be an added bonus on their resumes when they go job hunting.

Setting up a schedule that works is one of the most important and complicated tasks that a homeschool teacher needs to do. There needs to be a yearly schedule for everything that needs to be done in the academic year. A monthly and weekly schedule to break all the work into manageable sized pieces. Also there has to be some back up plan in the contingency that the scheduled work did not happen the way that it was supposed. It can be quite a headache to reschedule hours of the homeschool classroom mid session. Here are two ways to schedule subjects that may work well together.

Block Schedules

As the name suggests in block schedules you block off a period of time for fixed activities or subject studies. For example you can block two hours of study for Mathematics and one hour for Science on Monday and Tuesday. Then you can block of one hour for reading and two hours for writing on Wednesday and Thursday. Followed by two hours dedicated to arts and crafts, and one hour of current affairs on Friday. The idea is to have a large chunk of time available to your homeschool students in which they can explore the subject in as much depth as they want. It also has the added benefit of keeping the daily schedule simple for the teacher. The actual subjects will depend on their grade level and subjects.

Loop Schedules

This is a concept where you have a list of activities that you want to do with the homeschool students, but you don’t fix a time or date for them. For instance cooking, singing, musical instrument practice, sports, are all things that you want them to do, but don’t have a fixed time slot on the schedule. You can get to these activities on the list when you have a relatively free day from the block schedule. The idea is to use the list to keep the homeschool students gainfully employed even when they have finished the formal studies for the day. Block and loop schedules tend to work well together.

A High School Diploma marks the culmination of the basic education of a school student. The diploma is necessary for further admission to college, joining the military service and even other venues of employment. Many homeschool parents worry about their homeschool students not getting a High School Diploma and being at a disadvantage later in life.

Types of Diplomas

There are essentially two types of diplomas- accredited and not accredited. Most public schools and institutes have to meet a certain number of hours of teaching and specific courses in different subjects to be completed before the students are eligible for the diploma. These schools have been verified to meet this criterion and the diplomas that they issue are accredited.

On the other hand, there are individual homeschoolers, and even some private schools which do not meet the state prescribed criterion and the diplomas that they issue are not accredited. Homeschool students may enroll in a distance education or an online school for the purpose of obtaining an accredited High School Diploma.

Parent issues diplomas may not hold the same weight as an accredited diploma, however in some states there exist strict stipulations for graduation requirements. The state monitors the homeschool parent and observes the homeschool student’s performance at regular intervals. These states offer umbrella schools from which the homeschool student can obtain an accredited diploma.

Working Towards the Future

Plan ahead about getting an accredited diploma if your homeschool student wants to gain admission in a specific college or wants to get employed in a specific industry. Get a hold of the requirements and speak with the concerned person to understand how the process works and what all documentation will have to be submitted.

Many colleges tend to welcome homeschool students with open arms these days, as they find them to be self starters who are motivated to do their best. They are okay with parent issued High School Diplomas as long as they mention all the courses that the child has completed to earn the diploma. Student transcripts can play an important part during the admission process, so make sure that yours are updated regularly.