Many people ask me about the benefits of Christian homeschooling.  The reality is that these conversations usually turn into addressing people’s trepidation about the idea of ‘Christian’ homeschooling.  What people need to remember is that Christian homeschooling is one of the greatest manifestations of liberty and freedom in the US.  That means that whatever Christian homeschooling means to you, then that is what you implement.  You are not under any strict rubric to determine the level of religiosity in your teaching.  Clearly, this is one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling.  It gives you the opportunity to direct your child’s learning based on your own family’s values, not the values of the local school board or government.  That’s not a swipe at my own local school board, but merely a recognition that I am the best person to share my values with my children.

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Summer is summer for a variety of reasons.  It should be time for your children to find balance in their lives.  I know many families that continue school work through the summer and do a good job with it.  Personally, I feel as if the summer is more of a time for personal growth and experimentation for children.  It’s a time to allow them to develop their interests.  Read what they want to read, play what they want to play, create games and activities on their own as opposed to being directed.

Personally, I use the summer to work on christian homeschooling curriculum.  This is nice because things with my kids are slower and I am not always worrying about this or that lesson.  It’s time to do some real theoretical thinking on my curriculum and goals for the next year.

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If you haven’t started planning your 2009-2010 curriculum, I suggest doing so immediately.  Many ambitious homeschooling teachers will start making their entire curriculum before the summer, to truly have a great summer vacation.  Online homeschool curriculum also, however, may be able to make things easier for you.  No longer do we have to come up with everything on our own, but a good mix of online curriculum sources and our own innovativeness can make a robust curriculum.

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One of the great parts about homeschooling is that you don’t really have to worry about snow days. Everyone loves snow days, but they can really interrupt the flow of your curriculum. That said, snow days can provide a really important opportunity to add ‘balance’ to your child’s life. Especially, so for high school students who are working really hard.

That said, you may not want to interrupt your curriculum.  I found what works best is a compromise.  Don’t think that your child won’t know that the public school kids are out for the day.  What I learned worked best was offering the student the morning off.  Sleep, play games, read, do whatever.  During that time I took 30 minutes to 1 hour to come up with a very interactive or ‘fun’ lesson that supplemented the curriculum that we were already working on.  I didn’t simply go into the existing curriculum, but did something more hands on and interactive.

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Teaching history in your Christian homeschool setting can be difficult.  Some of the best activities in history class necessitate group learning.  The sheer amount of facts that come into play, especially with the advanced curriculum in history (high school, AP), can be daunting to teacher and student alike.  One of the ways that I have overcome this problem is through the use of narrative.  Historical narrative, or stories, can be extremely instrutive when teaching concepts.  Moreover, it provides a depth of knowledge that purely analytical learning cannot.  This does not necessarily take away from learning dates, facts, and figures, but can help improve your student’s cognition of these more rote items.  Coming into a unit with a good basis of knowledge, using a story to underscore a concept, can be incredibly impactful.  I suggest you give it a try.

I will give one example here.  There was a great story in the Wall Street Journal about the inauguration of President Andrew Jackson.  One of the main themes of this presidency was the ‘Jacksonian democracy’ and the emergence of new people into the democratic process.  This is best expemplified in a narrative format by discussing Jackson’s racous inauguration party that included all members of society, even those rough a tumble type who had stayed away from politics previously.

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Teaching Science in homeschool can be one of the most appealing subjects for both parents and their children.  Often, however, many homeschool teachers feel intimidated by Science in the higher levels of school.  I was reminded of this when I was reading a post called Gross Mold Update on another homeschool blog.  It reminded me that the solution to science at all levels is practical experimentation.  The goal of your science curriculum should, in my opinion, be largesly about investigative inquiry and research.  Facts are facts, but learning how to address a problem, hypothisize a solution, and act on it are priceless and valuable in many aspects of life.  Anyway, in the above posting the teacher cultivated mold spores with her students and found out the one that grew the best came from her own mouth – – a classic!  It keeps the kids interested though and they will likely never forget the principles.  This idea is valid at any grade level.

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I’ve been using Alpha Omega Publications’ LIFEPAC mathematics curriculum for some time.  I figured I should give it an honest review on the blog first, since it was one of my first ‘purchases’ of their curriculum.  I especially like how the curriculum is set-up to include repetition, drill, and application.  I know that drill is somewhat passe, but from my experience a simple ‘application’ curriculum that avoids rote drill totally trulys affects the depth of knowledge of my students (my kids ).  The curriculum is set-up to allow both guided and independent learning.  This was the key for me.  I am never looking to fill up my child’s time with ‘busy work’, but independent learning is one of the best parts of homeschooling and you need a curriculum that supports that.  I also found that the early chapters do a good job mixing a seemingly ‘play’ mentality into education, which ‘tricks’ the students into learning (was good for my son with ADD).  This may be a difficult curriculum in the upper grades for parents who are totally clueless as to Algebra as the teacher’s edition certainly isn’t for the novice, but any parent with a working knowledge (even at the basic level) will have no problem wading through this curriculum

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Welcome to my new blog, Christian Homeschooling Help.  I am a mother of 3 children, two of whom successfully completed their elementary and secondary school education in my Christian homeschooling program.  I have one more ’student’ working to complete his high school degree and head to college.  In this blog I hope to provide help and resources for other Christian homeschooling families.  Best of luck with your own Christian homeschooling curriculum, if you have any questions, please post them in the comments.

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