Parents choose to homeschool for a gazillion different reasons, and there’s been a huge rise in homeschooled children since 2020. No matter what your personal reason is, we’re here to help you get started and come up with a plan.
So you’ve decided you want to homeschool your kids — now what? There are so many websites and blogs out there that it can be overwhelming to know where to even begin. The first thing you should check is your local homeschooling regulations, and a good place to start is https://hslda.org/legal. While HSLDA is a non-secular organization, they offer a great resource where you can look up homeschooling laws for any state or country, and that specific page doesn’t contain any religious material.
After checking your local laws and regulations, the next step is to join a space specifically for homeschool parents so you can get an inside look at their day-to-day struggles and successes. There aren’t many online spaces for homeschool parents, but the largest is Reddit, especially r/homeschool, r/homeschooling, and r/homeschoolresources. I’ve also created a Discord server you can join to chat homeschool parents in a smaller group setting.
Next, you’ll want to think about curriculum and what your daily schedule might look like. Do you plan on creating your own lessons and worksheets? Do you want a curriculum that lays out all the subjects week by week? Or do you want to come up with lessons on your own and purchase worksheets to supplement them? There are so many curricula out there, but every child learns differently and at their own pace, so there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to homeschooling. My hope for Secular Explorers is that as I grow the library of learning materials and resources here, it will become your one-stop shop for all your homeschooling needs and it will take the hours of research out of planning your homeschooling year.
Once you have a general idea of what you’ll need to homeschool your children, you’ll want a way to plan and keep track of their lessons and assignments. I use a digital planner on my iPad with an Apple Pencil so I can keep everything organized and make sure each assignment is dated and saved in a document folder. It’s also a huge help for planning ahead so I’m not scrambling when it’s time to learn. Some weeks I plan everything out in advance, and other days I do it in the morning before my kiddo wakes up. There’s no right or wrong way and staying organized just makes the whole process go more smoothly!