Homeschooling is a perfect alternative for children who face issues with conventional teaching in public school due to inability to keep pace, humiliation from other kids, social anxiety or lack of individualized teaching. It can help reduce anxiety as well as stress faced by your child in these scenarios. Educating your kid on your own can be a great way to ensure that he or she is trained properly. With school education proving more and more insufficient these days, parents are increasingly considering homeschooling their children for providing them with the individual attention that they need for proper education. However, it is not easy to homeschool kids and the following tips will help teach your child at home in an effective manner.
- Teach beyond textbooks
Learning does not stop simply with textbooks. Use newspapers and comic books to impart teaching in an effective manner. Your kid needs to know about current events and you can give him magazines to know about current affairs. This will encourage interesting conversations from his end and will improve his ability in thinking critically. Remember that textbooks cannot offer complete knowledge which is reason enough for going beyond typical lessons.
- Teach in different ways
You can teach kids throughout the day in different ways. Listen to them while talking and help them gently in rectifying their spoken grammar. You can allow them to help with cooking, so that their skills in measurement and conversion are improved. Make use of images and charts while teaching and you will be astonished at how fast they learn.
- Let the older sibling take charge
In case of two or more kids at home, you can allow older kids to assist you in teaching the younger one. When you let the older child teach, he will feel special and also be encouraged to act and behave well to serve as an example to the younger sibling as well as show you that he is up to the task. But you should always monitor and ensure that your younger child does not pick up bad habits from the elder one. Give individual attention to pre-schoolers and do not let your older child take complete charge.
- Try varied styles of learning
Try varied styles of learning. When it comes to teaching kids, there is no single approach that can work equally well for every child. This is because some kids learn better with audio, while some need visual teaching and others prefer hands-on or practical learning more. Find out which learning medium makes your kid respond the best. Use that approach to ensure fast, effective learning. This will allow them to learn the best.
- Allow your kid to socialize
Make sure that your child does not get stifled at home as you attempt to homeschool him. Provide him with enough opportunities for socializing with other kids of his age. As he will not be a part of a standard classroom environment, he will need some special care. Arrange group trips to zoos and local museums with other kids in your community or locality who are homeschoolers. Let him take part in community sports activities. Girl Guides and Scouts are some organizations that will teach him comradeship, team-work, co-operation, humility and social skills.
- Allow breaks between studies
During lessons, schedule breaks so that your kid can get some much-needed exercise and feel refreshed to go back to his lessons again. This will keep him relaxed and allow complete focus on the studies. Schedule the off-times at specific intervals in between the lessons, which would allow him to understand when he can take a break.
- Have a strong social network
While homeschooling, you need to find ways to help your kid as well as yourself in staying social. Teaching your kid can be very time-consuming and prevent both of you from socializing. With a strong social network consisting of parents of other homeschoolers in the community, you can be confident of your efforts. Interact on online homeschooling discussion forums and stay in constant touch with local support groups for homeschoolers. You can get a lot of new, valuable tips from such networks.
- Get support from other families
Try meeting with other families that homeschool their children in your area. With a cluster of families who believe in homeschooling, you can build a terrific support system for discussing your concerns as well as getting necessary advice from. Similarly offer advice to other parents and form a relationship. In order to expand his social circle, you may form groups on your own initiative. He can feel slightly isolated with homeschooling, and having such groups can allow him in getting friends from his own age-group.
- Use family vacations to your advantage
Even when you are going on family vacations, you can continue teaching your kid. You can visit science centers, botanical gardens, zoos, historical landmarks, museumsetc. Where he can learn something useful and correlate textbook lessons with practical studies. This will ensure absolute success of homeschooling efforts and also keep him motivated in his studies. Even while he is having fun in a family adventure, he can gather enough information which can be helpful during study time.
Create your own tests
Time and again, it can be necessary for you in personally evaluating how much your child is learning. You can do this by preparing some theoretical and practical tests at home, and asking your kid complete the same within specified time limits. Before starting every part of his syllabus, let him sit for a practice test. Evaluation is important for your kid so that he can overcome the fear of sitting in tests, as well as for you in understanding whether you are heading right with your homeschooling efforts with your kid.