Homeschooling vs. Schooling at Home

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Taking a brief pause today to talk about homeschooling vs. schooling at home for those of you considering a change in education delivery this fall. I have heard some chatter online about frustrations with the recommended guidelines for school, when and if school resumes. I know that they don’t have plans set in stone yet, but based on the survey they sent to the families in our county it seems they are gearing up for maybe starting back in person in the fall but going online again if the COVID cases get out of control.  I have many friends that are considering homeschooling their little ones instead of doing schooling at home again and I just thought I would offer my perspective, for what it’s worth, based on our experience with homeschooling.

First of all I will say it’s a lot of work and the task is not to be taken lightly. We had 5 sweet years of homeschooling followed by one year where I feel like I just said, “finish your math!”, on repeat and was counting the days until they started at the local public school. This last year was largely due to being overcommitted – splitting my kids schedules (two kids at public charter school & two kids homeschooled), as well as welcoming a foster baby into our home. It was too much, I don’t recommend trying all that at once! My cup was full.

When I first started homeschooling I decided to enroll the kids in K12, which is a virtual public school. The things I liked about this program were the cost (free), and the fact that we would have a certified teacher overseeing my guidance/teaching and evaluating the kids, making sure they were getting what they needed. The thing I didn’t really like about that program was the amount of time it took (all day!) Also the times we needed to be online and present in a virtual classroom really took the flexibility of homeschooling out of the equation. The worst part of this program was the amount of testing that the kids had to participate in. I felt like we were taking some sort of test almost every day. Eventually the virtual classroom times just became teaching to the test. I specifically remember one PowerPoint slide shown that said if you see this question you are going to want to answer “B”. That was our last year with that particular program, but from what I have heard, the other free online public schools are much the same. I had some encouraging homeschooling friends that helped me find a better fit for our family; I’m so glad I didn’t give up on homeschooling after that one bad experience.

Through friends’ suggestions, homeschool conventions and lots of research we found what worked for us, and if you’re thinking of homeschooling the elementary years, I’ll share some of my suggestions. It was very easy to get set up homeschooling. In fact, I was expecting so many more hoops. Every state has its own laws, so if you’re considering the switch to homeschooling be sure to check out the laws by state. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) website is a great resource if you’re just starting out. There are a couple of options for being official, but for me the best fit and simplest route to legally educate my kids at home was to join a local Academic Association and educate my kids in the required subjects, adding some extra subjects that we felt were important or interesting, for 180 days per year.  Of course finding and committing to what we would actually learn for those 180 days took much longer, but that’s why I thought I would share here because we loved what we found.

For homeschool curriculum we loved Trail Guide to Learning by GeoMatters. The teaching is all based on learning by reading books and then each child gets a workbook based on their academic ability for daily studies. It was fun for me to teach the same general thing to all levels at the same time. Also this made school related field trips so much more interesting to all. This curriculum advertises to cover everything but math, but we added some Easy Grammar and Spanish with La Clase Divertida: “The Fun Class!” to the mix. For math we used Saxon Math – that worked very well for all the kids. At one point I wanted to add a bit more science to the mix and we opted for Jay Wile’s Science In the Beginning. If you want a science curriculum where all the experiments recommended are easy to execute with common household materials that actually work, check out Science In The Beginning. We joined a local homeschool co-op, hosted an art class, and also participate in a local PE class weekly, but that’s totally up to your preference and your child’s interests.

There are so many options for different curriculums to choose from that just planning what your homeschool is going to look like can be quite overwhelming.  Curriculum can be very expensive, but usually if you find what would fit your family you can find used options within the homeschool community, Facebook marketplace or online selling sites; or if you’re lucky enough to have a local homeschool resource store, you can use that. In Greenville I would highly recommend The Learning Cycle where they have a knowledgeable staff and plenty of selection at different price points. Some of my links that point to particular curriculum in this post are affiliated, but I would definitely check out used or local resources first. There are many free resources online that you can definitely build a full education for your child with, but I tend to prefer resources that are ordered and include a plan to follow. The easier it is for me to access and follow, the more successful I tend to be.

So although we loved our 5 sweet years of homeschooling, we decided to send the kids to the local charter middle school. Around here the charter schools are lottery, so we thought we would go to the informational meetings and see what we thought. When we liked what we heard, we applied, and thought we would attend if we got in, and if not, we’d continue to homeschool. Both my husband and I experienced public school and thought we would give our kids the experience of being in that learning environment as well. My kids ended up loving Biology, and thriving in Spanish. These two success stories alone would never had happened with me as their teacher. I enjoyed having instructors who were passionate about and skilled in their field of study instructing the kids and influencing their experience with that particular subject matter. The kids also learned the hard lesson of how to deal with difficult people that have authority over you or that you have to collaborate with. I mean…we have that lesson in our home everyday, but for once it was nice when the difficult person wasn’t related.  It was also a good lesson in time management. Due dates and deadlines were more concrete than our in homeschool, and some of the kids needed that additional pressure. Another positive thing public school brought to us was built-in structure. I am very flexible with all my plans as I often need to be with 5 children. Most of my kids do better with a consistent schedule, and I wasn’t always able to be the most consistent. We were very prepared to change course if we saw things we didn’t like, but it turned out the local charter schools were a perfect fit for us.

Al least it was a perfect fit until e-learning reared its ugly head. It brought the kids home, but not on my terms. They had so much screen time in those 3 months – it wasn’t even healthy. They had books they brought home, but they hardly used them. We had some of the perks of homeschooling, but no control. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having the kids at home. The temporary pause on my constant taxi routes to/from school and extracurriculars was worth its weight in gold. Our hobby farm definitely felt the perks of having so many on hand at all times. I guess I just want to send out a PSA that school at home is not homeschooling. There is much more involvement and decision making on the parents part to setting up and maintaining a successful homeschool. That extra effort is totally worth it when done and received well, but you have to be up for it.

So now we have two high schoolers that cannot wait to back to school, and two middle schoolers that are begging to be homeschooled, and a preschooler that NEEDS to go to preschool. I would love for them to return, but I’m not a big fan of online school. I’m not sure the direction we will all go, but we will be forming our plan as our local schools form their plans. Strange times my friends.

I’m not sure if that helps anyone out there as they make decisions on education paths this fall, but I thought I would just put it out there. Maybe you have a totally different opinion, or completely different advice. Let it be heard! Feel free to chime in here to me or on the site in the comments below.  Any questions let me know!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!