Anyone can home their student as long as the law allows it.   In more practical terms however, it very much depends on your personality as well as your child’s personality and your own education as to whether or not you are able to give your child a good educational experience that they deserve.You are the one that knows your child better than anyone else, and if you feel that the current school environment is detrimental to their education or that the student would be happier at home with you, then it’s worth considering the possibility of home schooling.  The first step you must do however – once you know that it’s legally possible – is to do a skills and personality evaluation of yourself.  If you don’t have the right kind of aptitude for teaching oar the right kind of personality, then your child may have a worse experience at home as far as learning is concerned.  So what does it take to home school your child?  Organization is primary.  Home schooling may be done in an unconventional environment, but in order to keep your child up to the acceptable standard for your area, then you must cover all of the subject matter that other children his age will cover.  This means that you will need to be focused on teaching, and ensure that all of the subjects are learned.  You’ll need to keep notes of what needs to be taught, and if necessary, at what grade.  You need to be firm enough to make sure your child realizes that school time or the hours you set aside is for study.  You may decide to have different school hours to traditional education institutions, but that just means that you start school at a different time to normal students.  You should still have the same amount of study hours per week.  You also need to ensure that you are able to commit those hours to your child’s education every school day of every school week.You need to be innovative.  Sometimes there will be subjects that your child hates or is slow to learn.  You’ll need to have ideas on how to get those ideas and concepts through to your child in such a way that they understand the material.  In this you have a greater advantage than a school because you are working one-on-one with your child and can be instantly aware of problems and be ready to work on correcting them.You need to be patient!  Just because you understand something and think that it’s an easy point to learn, doesn’t mean your child necessarily will.  It could be that you cover the same ground many times before you are confident enough that they understand enough to move on.  Are you patient enough to keep repeating the same thing over and over without getting frustrated?

As far as your own education is concerned, you don’t need to have a college degree in order to teach your child.  However you do need to have the ability to communicate information effectively, and to be able to understand educational subject matter at the level your child is at. If you can’t understand it, you’ll find it difficult to teach.  Should you think you can do most subjects but have a problem with one or two, get in touch with other home schooling parents in your area.  It could be that you could do an exchange where you teach their child something you are strong in, and they teach your child the subject that you have a problem with.  Tutors are also handy at this point and also can break up the monotony of teaching for both of you.

Home schooling isn’t easy, but many parents find that with the help of specially designed material that educational businesses have produced, they are able to cope with giving their child at least the same level of schooling that they would have received in a traditional classroom.  In some cases they even thrive academically.  But before you get your child excited about the possibility, make sure that you have the right kind of personality to be able to lead your child’s learning process. 

#1: Make the rules clear.
Whether it’s grammar, math or biology, students can’t be expected to follow the rules of a subject if they are not aware of them.
#2: Allow for Mistakes.
Your child will make mistakes and this is alright. Try to resist pointing out their errors. Do, however, take note of the areas that your child is struggling in and make sure the rules are clear that they should be following.
#3: Listen.
Listen to what your child says about the assignments. Coming up with a lot of objections and complaints may be his way of telling you that he doesn’t understand the instructions or that he needs some help.
#4: Read out loud.
Have your child read his assignments to you out loud. As he reads encourage him to look for and correct his own mistakes. Over time, he will be able to do this on his own and at some point in time prevent them from happening.
#5: Give Constructive Feedback.
Don’t criticize or scold your child for his mistakes. When you do see a weakness in writing or errors that he keeps repeating, point them out to him. Be sure to emphasize the mistake, not that the child is wrong.
#6: Give Honest Praise.
Tell your child how proud you are of his efforts. Be specific when giving compliments. Consider displaying his assignments on the refrigerator door to show how proud you are of his accomplishments.

With Fall here there is no better time then now to give children something fun to read. Check out Zootles, our new wildlife series for children 2 - 6.

WHAT’S HOT

Just like Zoobooks, Zootles is full of animal fun. And Zootles is written to be shared with young children: pre-readers and beginning readers.

Each new issue delivers:

• A featured letter, phonetic sound, number, color or similar educational focus… concepts to encourage young scholars

• A wonderfully illustrated animal story for bedtime, story time or anytime

• Fun backyard games and challenges for beginning scientists

• Hidden pictures, mazes and activities to captivate little problem solvers

• Otto and Allie, a curious cartoon otter and his funny hedgehog sidekick

I know that when my children were smaller, I was always concerned about what they were doing on the computer (other than their homework!).  For a long time, I had the computer near the kitchen so that people were walking by at any time and even though that might seem to be the only thing you have to do to keep your children safe, there are others as well.

1. Have House Rules about Computer Use:  Have a list of rules for using the internet posted near the computer and they don’t do any good unless you enforce them!
2. Security Software:  There is a variety of security software available that might include parental controls, pop-up blockers, anti-spyware, anti-span and firewalls.  Also, learn how to look back into your “History” which will show you all the sites that have been accessed from that computer.
3. Computers in Open Area:  One of the best precautions I took was to have the computer out where anybody could walk by at any time and to make a point to go over while they were working.
4. Have Passwords:  Accounts should be in the parent’s names controlling passwords along with utilizing blocking and/or filtering devices.
5. Sit down with Student at Computer:  Go over with your children the sites they like to frequent and get a little familiar with them yourslef.
6. Find Sites for Them:  You might look for some ‘friendly’ sites for them to get homework help with and then ‘bookmark’ them so that they have some guidance when surfing the net.
7. Chat Rooms:  Chat rooms are not for the young at all and probably not the best thing for high school age either except for IM, etc. where they chat with their friends.  Warn them never to give out personal information (last name, address, phone number, etc.) and to never arrange a meeting without you no matter how ‘nice’ they are.
8. Spam:  Show your children what can cause spam by replying back to certain messages or to open attachments from people you don’t know.
9. Scary E-mails:  If you encounter any e-mails that are scary or have bad words they are to let you look at them so that you can delete them and/or take further actions.
10. Music Downloading:  Make sure your children know the difference between illegal copyrighted music and legal sites to download music from.