Homeschool State Laws and Regulations

One of your first tasks when considering homeschooling is to to research and become familiar with your own state’s laws and regulations as they pertain to homeschooling.

There are plenty of questions that come come up. Is homeschooling legal?

What is mandated that I teach?

homeschool-laws-and-regulations How many hours or how long is the school year?

Who do I need to notify?

There is no single source or authority on all the legalities of homeschooling on a state by state basis.

It is up to you as an individual parent to be responsible and familiarize your self with your state laws.

Disclaimer:

This website offers you an overview of the various state’s homeschool regulations and laws. The subsequent pages that feature these legal overviews are not intended to be legal advice or all encompassing of the laws. They offer you simple a starting point. Beyond this afforded starting point, it is up to you to continue your diligence and research of the applicable homeschooling laws for your state.

View Homeschool State Laws

Homeschool Curriculum Resources

On this page you’ll find some of the best resources that I have used throughout my years of teaching and homeschooling, as well as those that have been favorably commented on through the years from other home educators.

If you check out some of the links provided for you on this page you’ll find a wide variety of resources that I’ve attempted to organize a bit for you to save you some time and also to give you a page to come back to work from as kind of a base for your resource searching and seeking.

Check back here now and again as I’ll do my best to keep up with the new additons and the hot products and trends!

#1 In Home Education – Switched-On Schoolhouse (SOS)

Children excel using Alpha Omega’s award-winning CD-ROM curriculum.

This curriculum is a multimedia and interactive type that stimulate and establish the learning. There are five core subjects:

homeschool-curriculum-resources Bible – Language Arts – Math – History – Geography – Science

With Switched–On Schoolhouse, there are also plenty of electives you can choose from as well.

Switched–On Schoolhouse is a comprehensive, Biblically-based curriculum for grades 3-12. The interactive learning is outstanding! There are video clips, 3-D animation, along with a variety of other multimedia.

Grading and record keeping, and even lesson planning is made simple via the computer interactive program. Minimizing the time you spend on these tasks allows you more time to spend with your children.

One of the best aspects of AOP curriculum is that they are written on the principle of “mastery learning.” Mastery learning allows for different kids to learn at different paces and to spend as much time as necessary in order to ‘master’ a concept before moving on.

Learn more at the Switched-On Schoolhouse (SOS) website

LIFEPAC

LIFEPAC is a K-12 Christian curriculum that contains five core subjects and a variety of electives that you can choose from.

Based on ‘mastery learning’ in which the child truly masters the objectives of a subject before moving to the next level.

The LIFEPAC curriculum uses consumable textbook/workbook that handily knit together subject text, exercises, projects, review, and testing.

LIFEPAC® successfully combines a Biblical foundation with academics. In fact, both SOS (Switched–On Schoolhouse) and LIFEPAC are stand-alone curriculum programs that can be used separately.

Each subject from LIFEPAC uses ten small workbooks that generally take 3 to 4 weeks to complete.

Learn more at the LIFEPAC website

Horizon’s

The Horizon’s curriculum builds skills in math and language.

Horizon’s is an alternative to the LIFEPAC curriculum for elementary age kids. In Math, beginning and intermediate core skills and concepts are mastered by the child.

With the Horizon’s curriculum, children will develop basic communication skills via a variety of lessons as well as activities from reading, phonics, penmanship, spelling, and vocabulary.

Courses:
Phonics and Reading (grades K-2), Spelling and Vocabulary (grades 1-2), Penmanship (grades 1-5), and Math (grades K-6).

Horizons is extremely popular with our parents and ideal for the child who can multitask. Horizons utilizes the “spiral learning” method.

This learning methodology is very smooth and well designed that your child can learn difficult concepts quicker than they might otherwise with other programs.

Learn more at the Horizon’s website

The Weaver Curriculum

The Weaver Curriculum is a very unique program because of the way it is Biblically-integrated. It starts with Scripture and then draws in the various topics and subjects to be studied.

This curriculum is divided into volumes. Each Volume is one year’s study in Bible, language arts, history, geography, and science for grades K-6.

Supplements cover the same topics for grades 7-12.

Weaver uses every teaching method at one time or another: lecturing, reading, experimenting, brainstorming, murals, timelines, drama, and collections.

Learn more at the Weaver curriculum web site

Power-Glide

This award-winning foreign language series offers age-relevant language courses for children, teens, and adults. Books and audio CD based, Power-Glide courses thread an exciting adventure story through each lesson.

Courses include Spanish, French, German, Latin, Japanese, and English for Spanish speakers.

Learn more at the Power-Glide web site

Homeschool Curriculum – Teaching Phonics

Essentially teaching phonics ties together the sounds of the alphabet and their spellings. The reach of phonics instruction is to teach the child the most common of the sound and the spelling of relationship.

When working with children for the first time you will look for the child’s reading readiness skills and how they relate the sounds of the alphabet to the spelling of the words.

In other words, the knowledge of the alphabet itself, recognizing the letter symbols, and the phonetic sounds the letter makes, and some of the more common combinations of letters and phonetic sounds.

This is a very important first step in determining the child’s awareness. There are many ways you as a parent can instill and improve this skill in your child and have great fun while teaching phonics for children.

homeschool-curriculum-teaching-phonics There are some excellent packaged phonics instruction for your child available.

Also, with a little creativity, your child will have great fun learning phonics. Just about any activity that involves matching a letter of the alphabet is good practice for your child. Have the child cut out some of their favorite pictures from magazines such as Zoobooks Magazine for Kids. Then, have them cut out matching letters that the picture begins with. Use upper and lower case letters as your child begins to master the alphabet letter and phonic sound recognition.

You can also reverse this process by having cut-outs of all the letters of the alphabet and have your child randomly draw one then have to find a picture of something that begins with the letter they just picked out.

Using the same basic premise an around the house scavenger hunt is also a great learning tool for phonics learning. Riding in the car is also a great vehicle (sorry… couldn’t help it) for teaching phonics to your child. As you take care of your errands around town point to many of the objects and encourage your child to tell you what they are and what letter they begin with.

These exercises are great fun! In fact, I would guess that you may already have used this type of teaching phonics or even something similar and didn’t even realize you were already getting a head start on teaching your child to read using phonics!

Homeschool Curriculum Teaching Options

Regardless of whether you are new to homeschooling curriculum and the field of home school education, or vastly experienced, getting your initial research gathered and getting yourself ramped up with some online learning is much less time consuming with today’s internet.

A couple of comprehensive sites come to mind you at this point for you. With websites like Teacher Created Resources you can find great educational products, software, and planning materials.

Also, if you are looking for a very comprehensive site for teaching at home, you owe it to yourself to check out Learning Things.

This is a great site that everything you could possibly want for you and your child’s educational needs. Learning Things carries teaching resources on activities, all the various types of curriculum packages, teacher resources, record keeping and planning help even arts and crafts and a bunch more. I have used Learning Things on many occasions and would encourage you to check them out.

homeschool-curriculum-teaching-options What Should I Teach?

O.K. this sounds a bit remedial doesn’t it? But think about it for a moment. Where’s your lesson plan? You know. Your road map. Gotta plan your work and work your plan! What requirements must I follow? Teaching a child at home is a serious commitment. And it certainly does not mean you determine and free lance the entire home school program. In fact, in most places, you will be required by law to follow a curriculum for home schooling that has been established by the school district governing bodies.

Some experienced homeschoolers will choose to assemble their own home school programs that meets the requirements of the local governing districts. Tailoring the home school learning progression within the guidelines to their children’s known interests. However, needless to say, if you are starting from scratch, putting together an entire homeschool curriculum can be very time consuming.

An alternative when determining how to homeschool for your family is to select a packaged homeschool curriculum program. This approach will definitely help minimize your preparation time while maximizing your teaching time. This will also help insure that there are no gaps in the subjects, as well as keeping the at home learning focused. There are many choices available to you no matter what style of homeschool education program you may wish to draw from. Alpha Omega Publications. is a very popular choice in homeschool curriculums and highly recommended.

As parents, we are the children’s primary educators. So, it would only seem natural that we continue as their educational teacher and mentor. A packaged homeschool curriculum program is perfect for those who enjoy additional learning structure and expectations. These curriculum packs are perfect for parents who are perhaps a bit daunted by the enormity of completely starting a curriculum from scratch.

For most they offer the additional piece of mind of a well tested home school curriculum. And with a home school curriculum that you can follow and teach from, your homeschooling efforts will be far more successful.

Homeschool Preschool

A homeschool preschool curriculum, is it right for you? Well, let me ask you this. Do you think parents know what is best for their children?

Of course we do.

We do because we unconditionally love them and have a personal interest in their lives! What better qualifications to guide their early childhood education. And you don’t have to be an expert in preschool home school to know that kids learn best in an environment of love and caring. What better environment than your home! In fact, the preschool years might be the most enjoyable time to homeschool.

Kids at that age are naturally curious with a true thirst for knowledge and zest for learning. Talk about self motivated learners…. Just turn them lose and follow them around! They explore and study everything that comes their way.

I don’t think its ever too early after you have started your family to start thinking about building your family knowledge library. And a good set of encyclopedias is a must. As much as I believe and love the instant information you can find online, I am still a huge believer in the merits of reading and ‘book learning’.

There is no better substitute for learning than being able to grab a book and look something up for reference. So, if you haven’t thought about it yet, do consider getting started on your reference library for your at home school house.

Preschool homeschooling doesn’t really require any formal instruction or structure just creative ideas or themes. Zoobooks is a really cool animal magazine the kids just take to. Our kids really took to Zoobooks when they were younger!

Here is a great listing of a bunch preschool materials, preschool activity ideas and guides, learning materials for preschoolers and great resources beyond the preschool age.

homeschool-preschool Allow your child plenty of time to do their own thing. Don’t rush your child all the while thinking what a great parent you are giving them such a good head start on the academics. Subtle academics certainly has its place in the preschool homeschool environment, but be careful not to sacrifice your child’s own natural curiosity of the world around them.

Children at this wonderful age do not separate learning from life. Undoubtedly in observing your child, you see that they are constantly learning. You should also note what type of learner they are. Early on, catering to what type of learner they are will add to their enthusiasm about what you are presenting to them.

You can get some phonics and basic core workbooks and puzzle books. This is a good idea if you want to keep the learning as natural as possible but feel more comfortable knowing that you have your child on a natural learning progression that you can, for your own comfort level, bookmark.

Not matter what you decide, just spend time with your child reading to them. Read to them often. Even if it’s the same book or story over and over. Early on this will enable the child to get ‘an ear’ for the different sounds and rhythms of the language.

And finally relax… …there’s no need to hurry, no need to worry – there are no insurmountable educational mountains when it comes to your preschool home school environment!

Homeschool Materials

So you’ve done… well gobs of research on just what type of homeschool materials do I need to get started!

By now you know the drill.

The library, internet homeschooling material is abundant. The only problem you’re having now is probably information overload! No two articles of information you read seem to agree on how to homeschool.

Not to worry… you will be homeschooling your child in your own way ensuring success as only a parent can.

For now, I just want to mention just a few ideas for your homeschool materials. Not a complete list to be sure but maybe to get you started.

homeschool-materials If you haven’t yet… one of the first areas to become familiar with is the legal requirements of homeschooling in your state a good place to start is our web page that has an overview of all the state’s various homeschooling laws and regulations.

After becoming familiar with your state and district’s, you’ll want to choose your home school materials and supplies based on your objectives for your child for the year. Again, don’t worry if one size doesn’t fit all. Your homeschool educational material can certainly be eclectic. In fact, most all home school parents are. So, if you end up using a few parts from one, and a few chapters from another is quite o.k.

Here are just a few ideas to get you started on your searches and research:

Homeschooling Text Books And Workbooks:

Sometimes it is the simple, unexpected discoveries that really give you a boost. I recently found a software program that is a full year planner and organizer that works great for homeschoolers. It is offered by Julie Anderson who’s been a homeschooling mom for some 12 years now.

This nice aspect about the Full-Year Notebook System is that you can use it every year (over and over again) for all of your curriculum needs and with all of your school age children! So, the one time purchase price with the ability to use it over and over makes this a very economical buy for the budget.

Look for ones that not only match up with your objectives for your child but contain good ‘teacher side’ material such as manuals, child evaluation tools, and supplemental activities and ideas. If you are PC active check out the extensive list of software available at Broderbund. They have very good educational software for all ages. Broderbund is where I first realized and got started thinking and eventually making the transition to homeschooling. Their software is very good homeschool material and kid friendly!

Perhaps you’re just starting or new to homeschooling, if so, here is a great website in Lifepac. The Learning Things website is quite the homeschool and educational website. It is extremely well organized and user friendly. They have everything from complete curriculums to every subject served up a la carte for you.

We all want our homeschool endeavor to be successful and we all certainly are driven by wanting the best for our children. This is what makes homeschool both the toughest and most rewarding jobs you’ll ever have…. ever! If you want a teacher resource book that can help you on your quest for success then You Can Teach Your Child Successfully is a must have.

Audio Tapes And CD’s:

Aside from the obvious use of this home school material in the classroom, audio tapes and CD’s are absolutely great when traveling in the car. Even if to just run some errands….. One of the greatest features of this is the replay button. A unit or concept is easily replayed as many times as necessary until the child has a good grasp of the subject. Make use of this travel time with these invaluable materials.

Computer Courses And The Internet:

If you have found this website you are probably aware of the vast amount of homeschool materials to be found on the web. If you really haven’t taken the time to effectively use search engines…. Do so… the internet is boundless and learning to target your searches can save a bunch of time. There are many home school online resources available.

Homeschool Information

The decision to begin homeschooling is not a decision to be taken lightly or without much fore thought. One of tasks at hand is to sort through all of the homeschool information that you will come across as you research and learn more about homeschooling.

Don’t panic. There is a lot of information out there on homeschooling and teaching your children at home.

A good place to start is would be to take a look at the homeschooling laws that pertain to your state. You can get off to a start on this website by taking a look at an overview of your state’s homeschooling laws.

You’ll certainly find different information about all the different areas, techniques, and methods of homeschooling. Always try to keep in context what you are finding out and how it pertains to your family goals and values. After all, it is probably your values and philosophical beliefs that have driven much of your decision to actually home school.

homeschool-information Homeschooling is a wonderful road to take in your child’s educational journey and great sites like Teacher Created Resources. TCR has an abundant amount of quality home school information available and is a website that I used quite extensively.

There are certainly many aspects to consider and decide upon, as they relate to how to homeschool your child. However, before that, let’s look at a few of my thoughts as they relate to making the decision to home school itself and some of the thinking process that we went through.

All In Agreement:
Are both parents in agreement? Certainly there are many different parenting and family architectures these days. But, the bottom line is it will be more difficult to homeschool if one parent is against the idea (or any family members for that matter). Remember folks, this is about the child’s success….. Not yours. If you feel part of the objection is because certain family members or friends haven’t enough homeschool information available, be sure to provide it. Homeschooling information is everywhere…… including this website!

Time:
Home schooling equals time commitment. Remember you are the teacher. The commitment to your day isn’t just the time you spend in front of the books with your child. As a teacher there is much lesson planning, projects, field trips, testing and grading, and the list goes on and on. And having said this, you still must find time for you personally….. your occasional alone time is not easy to find; essential, but not easy. If you are reasonably comfortable with software might I suggest you seriously consider a record keeping software designed specifically to simplify such a time consuming homeschool task. And that will help you to recover those lost minutes and hours each day.

Your Child’s Willingness:
Ultimately it is your decision as a parent. But, really… no explanation necessary here, right?

Money:
Homeschooling can become very expensive. The thought here is that will one of the parents have to perhaps quit their current job, go to part-time, find a different job that will accommodate your homeschooling schedule, or be able to work from home on a more flexible schedule.

What will the financial impact of the potential shift in income that homeschooling your children have on the family? Be very honest and realistic with this one. Crunch the numbers. If you have never actually put your budget on paper or a spreadsheet it is time to do it now. Financial pressure can be a daunting obstacle to overcome.

Household Organization: Do you have, or can you create a separate space for your home school classroom? Remember all those regular household chores and duties? They aren’t going away either. They still need to be done. And plan on, at least at times, your house, quite frankly, will be a mess.

The aforementioned certainly isn’t the entire pre-flight checklist on all the homeschool information one will need before getting started. Hopefully this short list will get you thinking in the right direction and stimulate some pre-planning and discussion amongst both parents and the entire family. The goal is to insure proper expectations being set and the best chance for success is laid in the foundation early on.

Homeschool Forms

Homeschool record keeping and the various types of homeschool forms although not the most exciting topic is certainly one of the more important ones.

Don’t leave these decisions on which home school forms and record keeping supplies you will be using until the last minute.

Some of the basic types of record keeping for homeschooling are traditional grading, daily planners, portfolios, or journaling.

The one that will work for you will depend on not only your preference and needs, but more importantly by the laws governing home schooling in your state.

Your homeschool record keeping should begin immediately. Don’t wait to begin! Make this a part of your home school daily schedule. Don’t wait and try to recap all that has occurred over the past few days or even a week’s time. Make a home school planner a part of your home school materials list. There are even some very good home school software programs that include forms and record keeping.

homeschool-forms One of which is the Year Round Preschool Lesson Planner.

This planner features plenty of space for writing notes about student activities and for recording student contact information. Handy extras include reference charts for physical and academic stages of development as well as information about multiple intelligences. If you are looking for homeschool and classroom organizational ideas, take a look at Classroom Organization & Management.

Classroom Organization and Management is a teacher resource book to help you as a parent organize and manage everything for your young child. This is a valuable resource that offers ideas and strategies to create a positive environment and manage your classroom. If you’re in need of record and planning books and forms, the Perfect Plan Book and The Professional Planner For Teachers are excellent choices.

The weekly planner includes anecdotal record sheets for individuals and classes. You can easily use the Professional Planner for Teachers as a home school resource to help you organize your child’s home school by the week. It also contains weekly student challenges for both primary and intermediate levels.
I have a homeschool schedule / homeschool calendar that I used that I has various monthly activities, days, arts and crafts and such that might help give you some ideas for your home school schedule and planning. Just click on this monthly homeschool activities link.

Your child’s report card is a manifestation of your homeschool record keeping and your daily planning. Also keeping good records and lessons plans enable you to look back on what you did the semester before and when you did it.

This will enable you to make natural segue ways into each level of your homeschooling curriculum and allow to keep notes on what worked well and perhaps what you need to improve upon. Teacher Created Resources (one of my absolute most favorite resources for teaching materials) has a wide variety of supplemental material and you can find it by grade level! If you are just starting on your first child’s home school education, good record keeping will be a huge head start when you once again prepare for your next one!

Good homeschool records are a source of confidence that you can use if your child wants to get involved in any activity that may require you to produce records of their qualifications or educational level. And good records can also be used to create a needed transcript for educational consideration down the road.

So don’t wait, don’t put it off, and don’t procrastinate! Good homeschool record keeping is a must. And will greatly enhance your chances of success.

Educational Software

These days, computers and learning go hand in hand.

Homeschool software is no exception. If you incorporate educational software into your daily homeschooling activities, your home computer can provide a myriad of directed learning experiences for your children. Software today has come along way in the field of child education.

Your child will not only be developing the skill set of the given subject matter of the home school software,

but they will soon become comfortable with navigating around the computer and have fun learning the study unit while enjoying the software program!

educational-software There are many types and combinations of educational and homeschool curiculum software available. Broderbund.com has a very extensive line of educational software I think you’ll like. We certainly did. Learning Things is an exceptional place for children’s educational materials and one of the featured sponsors on this web site. The site is very easy to navigate and has much to offer.

Try to keep your selections to ones that offer natural progression in the child’s education. Also look for software that enables you to track and keep records your child’s progress.

A side benefit for the use of homeschooling software programs comes in the form if you have 2 (or more) children you are homeschooling. Since much of the programs are self directed and self administered, once the child is comfortable with the computer or you get them started on a particular program, it will free you up to give your attention to others while one child works their lesson on the educational software program.

The use of computers in the home school schedule can greatly enhance the child’s educational development. And can be a source of education for you too! And get started at the earliest of age with learn to read programs.

With some simple guidelines when using the computer as an education tool such as:

Take frequent breaks from the computer. The more time spent at the monitor isn’t the better. Get outside and participate in activities such as catch. The goal here is hand eye coordination and to force the eyes to track objects to and from various distances.
Young children are still at an age where they learn with their whole body and senses. They should spend less time at the computer at an early age.
Make sure that some sort of physical activity is planned into each of your homeschool daily activities. This should be a part of your daily schedule, computers or not!
Work with the recommendations of your family eye doctor for scheduled vision evaluations.

Being attentive to the amount of time spent on the home computer with homeschool software or working on the lessons is a great tool. But like any tool that you use to assist you in teaching your child. Don’t let the tool do the teaching. That’s your job. Use them wisely, rotate their usage and constantly aspire to find new more creative teaching tools, while improving upon what you already use.

Keep the suggestions in mind and logon and have fun!

Homeschool Curriculum

No matter what the reasons, many of you have decided to home school your children.

All require a quality homeschool curriculum.

Hi, my name is Mary Joyce. I am a former long time educator, that well quite frankly, early on decided that I could teach my children better than anyone else.

Initially, as you can imagine, for a teacher the decision was extremely difficult.
No matter what the reasons, many of you have decided to home school your children. All require a quality homeschool curriculum.

homeschool-curriculum Exploring the different types of home school curriculum possibilities is both exciting and educational itself!

But once I took the leap I never looked back and I couldn’t be happier with the results (no bias of course).

You can homeschool successfully too. Just like you. I have a passion not only for my children’s education, but how they are brought up as well. Both my kids are doing quite well with the foundation we provided for them through our homeschooling efforts. And although, with a tear in my eye my kids are now out successfully carving their own niche, I still have the passion to teach.

So take your time and peruse my website… and thanks for coming by the way. I’m not the sole authority on homeschooling, but that’s the beauty of homeschooling… nobody is!

Except you.

Your love for your kids will guide you as mine did. It will. Trust me. Just because you’re here tells me it will.

To begin with, you may have thoughts if you really can homeschool your children. First of all these are quite natural thoughts that everyone goes through. Or, maybe your are reasonably confident in your ability to homeschool and just need to get your momentum going by perhaps knowing how other homeschooling families operate.

Paul and Gena Suarez publish The Old Schoolhouse Magazine have published a neat little book that is easy to read and has some heartfelt writings that will help get you going. The book is “Homeschool? YES, You Can!” The book has some well know authors in it as well as homeschool moms that will cover many of the questions that you may have.

If you are just considering home schooling or just getting started you are about to embark on the most wonderfully difficult and rewarding task a parent could undertake! I hope that by adding my experiences and articles on this website, I can be in some small way a contributor to your success… that’s just the teacher in me.