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Read NHEN's online newsletter:
New Homeschoolers' Encouragement Newsletter (N-H-E-N)
Each issue addresses a topic of interest to new homeschoolers.
Find out more about N-H-E-N!
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Thinking About Homeschooling
Homeschooling is an increasingly popular educational alternative in which children learn outside of conventional schools under the general supervision of their parents.
- Reasons to Homeschool
The results of a survey in which homeschoolers gave over 50 reasons why they decided to start homeschooling.
- Are You Considering Homeschooling?
This article discusses some of the most common types of reasons that people choose to homeschool.
- Pictorial Description of Homeschooling
This is a lively collection of photographs of homeschoolers in action, collected by a young homeschooler and intended to help answer common questions and correct misperceptions about homeschooling.
Getting Started
Ready to take the plunge? Long-time homeschoolers offer information, advice, their personal stories, and the benefit of their experience.
- Words of Advice
Experienced homeschoolers were asked, "What short piece of advice would you offer to new homeschoolers?" These are their responses.
- Introduction to Educating Your Children at Home
Gain confidence and a better understanding of this successful alternative to school-based education.
- Deschooling - What it is and Does it Apply to My Family?
This article examines how children and parents can best handle the experience of transitioning from school to homeschooling.
- Schedules and Homeschool Burnout
New homeschoolers frequently want to know "What kind of schedule should we keep?" This article responds to that question and also to the problems that can result from inflexible scheduling or over-scheduling. As the author says, "There are so many viable alternatives and variations, and you can have a lot of fun experimenting with them."
- Dealing with our Doubts
One family's homeschooling story, with a close look at how self-doubt plagued them, periodically, and how they came to achieve ever higher levels of confidence in their homeschooling decisions.
- "Not That it's Any of My Business, But..." Dealing With Criticism of Your Decision to Homeschool
Now that homeschooling is in the public eye, everyone seems to have an opinion. This article addresses how we might respond to criticisms and even turn them into support.
- Your Trusty Homeschool Emergency Kit
"Take heart in knowing there are no educational emergencies! Whether you are find yourself bewildered by the avalanche of wonderful resources you've discovered, or completely unable to lay your hands on even ONE single resource that could possibly work for your family, this survival kit will help you to a gentle and fun beginning. "
Learning About Learning
Most of what we need to know about learning, we can learn by observing and interacting with our own children. They are our best teachers. But, it is also useful to understand something about research on how children learn.
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Learning About Learning - The First Step In Homeschooling
How to create a learning environment filled with resources that honor your child's learning styles, abilities and level of understanding and encourages deep learning that is motivated from a sincere interest. This is an article you will want to read over and over again.
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Multiple Intelligences Information
This site is a wonderful place to learn about Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences work. It not only gives a good overview, includes an interview with Howard Gardner, and gives specific information, but it even has many internet links categorized specifically by which of the multiple intelligences they support.
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Funderstanding - ABOUT LEARNING - Theories
Although most of this website promotes a particular brand of educational reform, this page contains good, understandable brief descriptions of a large number of different learning theories, including: Constructivism, Behaviorism, Piaget's Developmental Theory, Neuroscience, Brain-Based Learning, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Right Brain/Left Brain Thinking, Communities of Practice, Control Theory, Observational Learning, Vygotsky and Social Cognition, and Problem-Based Learning.
Homeschooling Methods
Some homeschooling families operate like small-scale versions of conventional schools, with textbooks and tests and traditional grades. Other families freely adapt ideas from alternative educational philosophies such as Waldorf or Montessori. Many give their children considerable control over what is learned and how learning takes place. Some of the variety of methods of homeschooling is represented in what follows.
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A to Z Home's Cool
These pages have been created by homeschooling moms and they each describe a variety of homeschooling methods including: unit studies, classical Christian, Charlotte Mason, unschooling, distance education, Waldorf, Montessori, and more.
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Invited Teaching
A homeschooling mom tells how her family developed its own homeschooling style.
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Unit Studies
This article is an in-depth look at unit studies, what they are, why to use them, and even details on how to create them.
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Unschooling Basics Email List
A list designed for those new to the philosophy of unschooling. Ask experienced unschoolers all those niggling questions, and find out how unschooling works in real families. If you're familiar with John Holt's work, but unsure of how to begin or what an unschooling day really looks like, this is a place for you to discuss, question, ponder and become deeply familiar with natural learning and how it affects our entire lives. From parenting issues to learning from the whole wide world and beyond, come explore the issues that unschooling families have dealt with in the past and how to get beyond "school-think" to a joyful unschooling lifestyle!
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What is Unschooling?
Unschooling is also sometimes called interest-initiated learning, child-led learning, natural learning, or life learning.
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Side effects of standardized testing - by Ann Lahrson-Fisher
Written by someone who regularly administers standardized tests to homeschooled kids, the article takes a look at some of the unintended or unexpected lessons that testing might teach our children.
Homeschoolers call it the S-question. The most common question homeschoolers hear seems to be, "But what about socialization?"
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The Truth about Homeschooling and Socialization
From this article: "It's time for homeschoolers to tell the truth about "socialization." It is a problem! The phone never stops ringing, the teenager's email has crashed the computer, and the front yard is patches of dandelions and dirt because there are always kids out there socializing!"
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Dispelling Myths about Homeschooling and Socialization
This article responds to many common myths about homeschooling, including the myth that "Homeschooled children are lacking in opportunities for social interaction," and that "Homeschooled kids lack real world experience."
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How to Answer the Socialization Question Once and for All
"Socialization" is the buzz-word among the Official Homeschool Nay-Sayers Society. This essay urges us to stop telling others about all the opportunities our kids have for "socialization" and start gently exposing them to the real issue - a lot of what kids learn from other kids in social situations is simply living according to "The Law of the Jungle." And wouldn't we really prefer a higher set of laws to follow?
Support Online and in Real Life
Some families want to connect regularly with other homeschoolers; others are not as interested in group activities. Homeschooling support can be just another family or two spending some relaxed time together or it might be a group of hundreds of families and involve many organized activities. Support might even be an email list, message boards, or other online mechanism.
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Finding Support Groups
Link to NHEN's support group database where you can browse or search for support groups in your area or online.
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What's a Support Group Anyway?
"Homeschool support groups, like clouds, take many shapes and forms, each group changing to meet the needs of its members." Learn about homeschooling
support groups, how to find one and how to maximize your enjoyment of it.
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I Sought, I Found, I Joined; Now What?
You did it! You made the decision to homeschool, and you found other homeschoolers to help enrich your homeschooling experience. Great! But, for some reason, you still feel like you're always on the periphery of the group. This article helps you figure out how to get the support you came for.
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Online Support For Homeschoolers
Many people have found tremendous support from other homeschoolers by turning to email lists, message boards, websites and other online forms of communication. This article discusses these various forms of "cyber-support."
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Homeschooling Conferences
New homeschoolers often find that conference attendance is a way to quickly leap into the homeschooling world. Find homeschool events and conferences for your state.
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Why go to a homeschool conference?
Who needs conferences? Why bother? What good are they anyway? These and many other questions are answered in this article which describes some of the wonderful benefits of attending a homeschooling conference.
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Thinking of Attending a Homeschool Conference?
This article offers the voices of many different homeschoolers explaining what they have found to be the most enjoyable and useful aspects of conference attendance.
Learning Resources
There are many many sources of curriculum materials and other learning resources available to homeschoolers. We constitute a sizable market and many companies wish to sell us their wares.
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Resources
In this article, one homeschooling mom advises us on how to think about what resources we really need when starting out as a new homeschooler. Truly valuable words of wisdom.
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Links to resource listings
It isn't difficult, these days, to find learning resources. The real problem is sorting through them without being overwhelmed. There seem to be a million places on the internet to find resource listings and a million people trying to sell them to us, too. Here are a few places to get you started.
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Resource guides
These books contain hundreds of reviews of learning materials.
The Home School Source Book
by Donn Reed (Brook Farm Books; ISBN: 0919761267)
This book is an international seller. The most complete guide to home schooling available. Full of helpful essays and commentary...even cartoons!
Recommended by John Holt's Book Store, Home Education Magazine, and Priority Parenting. The Whole Earth Catalog calls it the Whole Earth Catalog of Home Schooling. Lists more than 2,000 carefully selected and thoroughly reviewed books and related materials. Emphasis on liberal arts global education from birth to adulthood.
The Complete Home Learning Source Book : The Essential Resource Guide for Homeschoolers, Parents, and Educators Covering Every Subject from Arithmetic
by Rebecca Rupp (Three Rivers Pr; ISBN: 0609801090)
752 pages of annotated lists of books, videos, magazines, catalogs, timelines, kits, hands-on activities, board games, CD-ROMs, educational web sites
Christian Home Educators' Curriculum Manual : Elementary Grades
by Cathy Duffy (Grove Pub; ISBN: 0929320131)
Over 500 pages of reviews of hundreds of books, games, videos, computer programs, parent helps, and much, much more. For all subjects grades K-6.
Christian Home Educators' Curriculum Manual : Junior/Senior High
by Cathy Duffy (Grove Pub; ISBN: 092932014X )
Over 500 pages packed with reviews and recommendations for teaching teens at home for grades 7-12.
Financial Considerations
Most beginning homeschoolers are concerned about the potential cost of homeschooling including the possibility of giving up income-earning potential and worries about the costs of learning materials.
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Living the Single-Income Lifestyle
One woman's experience with living more frugally as her family gave up her nursing income and she became a full-time homeschooling mom.
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Financial Considerations
A homeschooling mom describes how she saves money on curriculum materials for homeschooling her four children.
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Homeschooling Freebies and Cost-Cutting Ideas
This website is filled with all kinds of ideas, but it is especially good for finding online bargains. It explains, for example, how to comparison shop on the 'net using "shopping bots."
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Used Curriculum
This site has lots of information for finding used curriculum materials. There are websites and email lists, auctions and classified ads. Even information about where to complain if you have problems with your purchases. Very extensive site.
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Resource Books
Homeschooling on a Shoestring:
A Jam-Packed Guide by Morgan, Melissa L., Judith Waite Allee, Jonni McCoy (Harold Shaw Pub; ISBN: 087788546X)
This book is great for all home schoolers that want to watch their budgets. Lots of practical tips on freebies and low-cost activities and teaching aids, as well as other tips to make homeschooling inexpensive. Written by two homeschooling moms who, themselves, take very different approaches to educating their children.
Legal Issues & Information
There are families happily homeschooling all over the country, but homeschooling law varies from state to state. It is important for new homeschoolers to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the law in
their state.
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Homeschooling Legalities
An overview of legal issues involving homeschooling in the United States.
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NHEN's Legal and Legislative Page
Find out how to connect with other homeschoolers to discuss legislative issues. Learn how to track legislation in your state. Read the state laws regarding homeschooling.
Beyond Homeschooling
Homeschooled children move on to find work, go to college, and become more and more independent.
References for Further Reading
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