After over 15 years of homeschooling, I remind myself to learn and re-learn these same lessons.  And, yes, next year will teach you a whole new set of lessons!!

Thank you, Jennifer!  As a fellow introvert who has thought about homeschooling (in large part because so many other Catholic moms online seem to!) it was very helpful to hear about your experience.

another introverted homeschooling mama here! My big kids are no problem- choir, ballet 3 times a week, Shakespeare, church- I have to make an effort to ‘do’ outside things with the two little ones, but I am always glad when I do.

Everybody- homeschooler or not, young or not, get yourself to Khanacademy.org NOW!

Khan Academy has a new IPad app.  Love!

You are to be commended for your diligence. The arguments in favor of homeschooling are numerous and persuasive. I hope you continue to discuss the topic, particularly from the angle that a generation ago few if any Catholic would have homeschooled. I do not say you should stop but I do think homeschoolers should continue to impress upon their pastors what needs to change for this group of parents to return their children to Catholic schools.

Good for you!  I was able to homeschool for about 3 years and it was great for all of us.  I don’t know how Texas handles reporting, but I found it helpful to keep part of my brain in homeschooling mode during the summer, so that I would remember to record things we did that could count toward the mandatory subject-hours.  That gave me more flexibility during the “school year.”

When I lot of people comment about “how much work” homeschooling must be, I usually point out your #1.  It’s really all about picking your poison.  I would personally prefer to spend an hour and a half going through schoolwork with my 3rd grader in the morning (although she can do a lot of it on her own now) when we are all fresh and rested than have to spend an hour and a half going over homework when we are all tired.  Someone else might prefer dealing with the homework…

May I ask what curriculum you decided on? Just curious since I can relate so much to this article and our kids are the same grades. :) I would love ideas! If you’ve written about it before, would you mind giving me the link? Thanks!

Here’s a homeschool Latin lesson :) http://www.gettingstartedwithlatin.com/index.php

I’m pregnant with my first, with several years before any schooling decisions, but I’ve always been interested in it. This is very helpful, especially the point about not needing to sit at a desk in “school mode” for 7 hours a day. I’m glad you entered with trepidation but had such a good experience!

This is such a great overall perspective of a first year!!  How encouraging to new homeschoolers, and veterans that may wish to check into traditional school.  I’d like to add alittle something to consider as I finish up year #9.  While discernment is important at all times and an openness to God’s will is crucial in everything we do, I have heard it said that year-by-year or even semester-by-semester is the way most homeschool parents discern.  While it’s important to be open anually for the sake of the child’s needs, it is also important to consider making a more longterm goal for a period of time.  The benefit to sinking yourself into God’s call for more than one year at a time will yield greatly so many blessings:  it takes time and a pattern for God to reveal the many blessings that take place as a matter of repeated commitment.  (This is also true of long trials given to us by God)  For example, we had to homeschool for several years in order to see the independence, confidence and driving desire to self-teach that was developed through time.  By 7th grade my 13-year-old was teaching herself and the younger ones, all on their own the entire rosary in Latin.  It was something she wanted to accomplish and the others looked up to her and followed suit.  They felt very accomplished after, and they taught us to do it also! 

Not to be missed also is the benefit of great spiritual growth in the child that is not stressed by deadlines and fixed time constraints, and that allows time for life experiences: daily mass, Adoration, a daytime spiritual event, abortion clinic prayer, etc.  May God bless your homeschooling!

This is such a great article, especially since I am considering homeschooling.  I am curious about college and acceptance rates.  Has anyone had problems with kids going to college or being accepted?

Loved your list, Jennifer, especially the item about not having to deal with homework.  After four years (preschool-first grade) in a local Montessori school, I put my then 7 year-old daughter in the local public school for 2nd grade.  She had at least an hour, if not more, of (usually math) homework each night.  Not very much fun after six hours of sitting still, and there were other problems, mostly related to the behavior and language (!) of the other second graders.  She lasted for one semester, and I pulled her out in Jan 2011.  We’ve been home schooling for one year and are about to wrap up 3rd grade.  It is wonderful to incorporate daily Mass when we can and to teach her things like cursive, Catholic Catechism, Latin (prayers, songs, and language), French, the states/capitals… all of these she would have never learned in a traditional school setting.  Just a side note - your C.D. blog was instrumental in my own conversion, June of 2011.  We love being Catholic home schoolers!  Have a great week!

So very true!  We’re finishing up our second year of homeschooling, and I still struggle with #6.

All my kids received academic scholarships to college. I homeschooled through high school and two of my children have joined religious communities after college. I absolutely loved homeschooling. I learned so much and got to spend time with my kids (my favorite people in the world). But it all went by too quickly. They are gone before you know it.

I’m finishing up my second year of homeschooling.  I am a bit of an extreme introvert so socialization activities for the kids is also a problem for me as well.  It doesn’t help that we live in a small town.  The Catholic homeschool group we are part of is based in a city 35 miles from where we live and all the activities they host are too far away for us to go to.  We are struggling financially with me no longer working and gas is simply to expensive for us to go anywhere.  The parish we attend is small and there are no activities for children there. We walk to a park which is a couple blocks away and that’s about it.
I am planning on homeschooling three of my kids again next year.  They will be in 8th, 5th, and 4th grade.  But I don’t see myself homeschooling through 12th grade.  I know absolutely nothing about computers, chemistry, physics…etc.  Plus my oldest would like to try and play football and he needs to attend the public school in order to play.  My youngest will be in kindergarten next year, but he is way behind in his speech development skills.  He needs to receive some speech therapy classes, and he will not be able to do so unless he attends the local school.  So, I am planning on sending him to the public school for kindergarten, maybe first grade as well.

Give yourself a pat on the back and take a guilt free day off soon!

It is true, a lot of time is wasted in public school…at least it was at mine, and that was a decent one.

We’re in our first year of homeschooling as well; and I would say my number one things has been “do what you need to do, not what you think you should.” and this applies to non-homeschool specific things as well. For me, I always think I “should” get out of the house for a walk first thing in the morning, but I find that what i really “need” to do to have the day going well is to start off with the house clean and meals be planned so they can be a little oasis of calm in the middle of the day.

I think I “should” put the kids in a co-op so they can have “socialization” but what I really “need” to do to ground my son in learning is to spend good one-on-one time with him in basics (right now). IMO, socialization and co-ops are overrated. I’d rather focus on making sure my children have two or three good genuine friends than a random and ever changing group of kids they just “see.”

GREAT list! We are finishing our 3rd year of homeschool, but it is my 1st year being involved, and our daughter’s 1st year.  I too have learned a lot.  Thanks for sharing!

There should be no worries about college acceptance.  Most colleges and universities actively recruit homeschoolers because they are more likely to succeed.  My daughter has been accepted in the honors program at the university she will be attending next year. (She was accepted at every college to which she applied.)

It is helpful to create a transcript in the high school years. If you live in a state that requires specific subjects be taught be sure to include them in in your course of study. You can do a search of the prospective colleges and see what they require for admission.

Ask God to guide you in your endeavor to homeschool.  Connect with other homeschoolers for support even if it is only online.

This is my first full year of homeschooling and I love it!!  It has reinforced the importance of family time for us.  My oldest daughter is just finishing Kindergarten and did wonderful.  We have found a mix of homeshooling styles to work in our home too.  Sometimes she does sit-down work.  The other day her math and reading consisted of reading and doubling a single layer cake recipe for her brother’s birthday!  Then she actually made the cake!! I was so proud of her! Yesterday and today for her schooling she is out turkey hunting with daddy.  They only came home with two quail yesterday but she was able to clean them with her father, a wonderful science lesson.  She is learning all about the habbits of Turkeys too, and gun safety, and so many other things she would never get in a classroom.  I think everyone should try homeschooling for at least a semester.

#11 Do not compare your families progress with other families. There will always be someone “better” or “worse” than you.  There will be times when you will doubt your competence for the job. There will be moments when your child surprises even you with a response to a stranger about their homeschool. Keep up the good work!It sounds like you are on the right track! God bless

This is a great wrap-up post for the year, and I so agree with all of these points but especially #1! It’s amazing to me how differently I feel about homework now as a parent than I did as a teacher. I never was a huge fan of assigning homework and I tried to make it beneficial versus just busy work to make the kids feel like they were learning something. Still, I just assumed that kids spending at least a couple of hours on homework each night was a good thing.

But one of the reasons we homeschool now is so that our children have lots of unstructured time in which to read, go outside, and be creative. That’s so important to us and very difficult to provide for kids who are burned out after a day of school and then more work at home. I remember the histrionics involved with first-grade homework and am glad that we have…moved the histrionics earlier in the day, basically. Gotten them out of the way, as you put it.

Congrats to all of you home schooling parents! Since my “baby” turns 29 and gets married next month, this is obviously not in my personal future, but I do wish this had been around when my boys were younger.  The groom-to-be would have been a perfect candidate, due to his sky-high IQ combined with very poor impulse control and maturity.  Frankly, he was an adolscent until he was about 25!  What saved him was a magnet high school for computer science, where many of his friends were the same….smart geeks.

Not to mention, in the pre-net world, there were only correspondence courses and zero Catholic support for homeschooling (the only homeschooler I met was the leader of our La Leche group, and she and her then-eight kids were very fundamental protestants, probably like the group the Duggars belong to.  It was not a “Catholic” thing to do at all).

Keep the flame burning, ladies!  This Nana is proud of you!!

Yesterday my homeschooled 1st grader made a comment to me regarding our 8 yr. old neighbor who attends the public school.  He said “do you know she has to do math homework with her mom everyday after she gets home from school?”  I told him all kids who go to school have homework they do when they get home.  He replies “that means she has to do math at school and then do it again when she gets home, that sucks!”

I’ve been reading your blog for a little while, and every time I do, I’m more convinced we were separated at birth.  (Of course, as the mother of identical twins who are very different, I say that in the figurative sense.)
Anyway, I’m taking the plunge next year with one of the kids- the one who can’t sit still.  He’s in kg torturing his teacher and other students while reading at a 3rd grade level (with very little action on my part) so I can’t do too much damage, I figure.  As my oldest get ready to enter middle school, I’ve been pondering that maybe now is the time to take them away from “socialization,” but it’s scary to think about taking on.  So your list came at a good time.  I plan on starting with the 1st grader for one semester before we move again, and then deciding what to do then.  Glad to know “one semester at a time” is actually the prevailing attitude, or at least one that’s okay to have!

I am concerned about posters like Julia who claim they have no resources locally and are too poor to drive to anything. 

First, you do NOT need a local speech therapist for your little one’s language and speech issues.  You need to read aloud the beauty of our English language to her, immerse her in language that challenges her sense of beauty.  Second, wanting to be on the football team is NOT a good reason to abandon your principles of freedom in educating and learning our faith.  Homeschooling is not a separate option from embracing the totality of our Catholic heritage.  Home is where that is begun, not on the football field or in the cement walls of an atheistic public school. 

If you can post a response on the Internet, you can avail yourself of the most state-of-the-art Classical Catholic program in the world.  It is called Classical Liberal Arts Academy.  Though based in North Carolina, they have students all over the world.  They teach both solid orthodoxy and heritage liberal arts.  It is not education from the “catholic perspective”—it is education that once was wholly Catholic in the first place.  It is the Catholic Church that built the modern University system (University of Paris, Bologna).  We do not need to borrow from Protestant errors in our schooling either. 

Classical Liberal Arts Academy
http://www.classicalliberalarts.com/

As an added bonus, their web site above has numerous articles by William Michael the headmaster, and they address once and for all many of these issues, and especially of college and career for Catholics.  His calculation of the price/value ratio of a current college education is worth a serious look. 

As to socialization, you have to ask:  Socializing for what, exactly?  For the skills of being a mall rat?  Going on spring break to Mexico? 

Our founding fathers learned their Latin while resting in the fields after farm chores.  Our most educated President, John Quincy Adams, became aide to the Russian ambassador at about the age of 14, due to his being aide to his father John Adams in Paris for the previous two years.  He was taught the classical masters, “world is your home” model.  His astounding career is not something you can learn in any school. 

But he is just one great example.  Saint Thomas More is perhaps our best patron saint for the success of homeschooling.  It is worth watching “Man for All Seasons” just to see his daughter embarrass Henry VIII with her fluent Latin conversation.

Adrienne, sometimes a child DOES genuinely need a speech therapist. I can think of a few older homeschooled children I know right now who would have benefited from one. You shouldn’t question the need for one, but offer alternative options for finding and paying for one. A friend of mine found out by asking around that a SAHM in her neighborhood was a trained speech therapist. They worked it out where the therapist gave her help at a much reduced rate. It never hurts to ask around and offer unconventional ways of payment.
The founding fathers were sort of the aristocracy of the American republic, it’s a trifle inaccurate to talk about them “resting in the fields after farm chores.” (Actually, it’s grossly inaccurate - especially in the case of Jefferson). Most of them had slaves to do their farm work. It’s also simplistic to say it was the knowledge of Latin that got them ahead - they had ties and “knew people.” Regarding, Thomas More’s daughter - I’d probably be pretty fluent in Latin if I was living with a fluent Latinist too. I have quite a few friends who are fluent in two languages - English and Spanish.
My point? Be a little realistic. You don’t need to go overboard to justify homeschooling.

for help with numbers 5 and 10, we use http://www.hssegue.com to find new homeschooling classes and events in our neighborhood.

Might want to check it out!

Needing a speech therapist to correct a stuttering problem, and so forth, is certainly one thing.  But you also have to look at how language is being heard and spoken, and for most children that begins at home.  They do not hear and speak elevated language enough in a regular classroom.  Here is one free resource from Andrew Pudewa of the Excellence in Writing program.  He speaks eloquently on the need to READ to our CHILDREN.  Adults to children, and children to adults.  You can see from their website the nuts and bolts of his approach and materials.  They are also quite popular with homeschoolers. 

Nurturing Excellent Writers and Speakers
http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/files/NCC Handout.pdf

My phrase about learning Latin in the fields after farm chores is taken directly from the biography of Noah Webster by Harlow Giles Ungar (an inspirational book).  He was not an elitist—which is why this brilliant man had to become a door-to-door Yankee peddler of his own bestselling Grammar and eventual American Dictionary. 

You do not need to accuse the slave-owning signers of the Declaration.  John Adams already did that for you.  Most people who extol the virtues of our American heritage and founding documents have acknowledged the source of their brilliance.  These were not extraordinary men because they were elitist or had connections.  They were extraordinary because the education of their day was classical, and had been for hundreds of years.  Thomas More’s daughter was only notable as a female who benefitted from the same education as her male friends. 

The Classical Education of the Founding Fathers
http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/founding-fathers.html

Lastly, to dispel the idea about this being overboard:  you deserve to read the free articles and audio at the CLAA web site.  The founder of the program runs a farm in North Carolina and the large family is devoted to the simple life.  The article I link below is astounding. 

The Formation of Good Habits - by William Michael
http://www.classicalliberalarts.com/library/goodhabits.htm

I hope these resources might help.

I am so excited to start offically homeschooling my kids. #10 is so true. The internet has so many resources, you could even teach yourself how to teach! Thanks for sharing your wisdom. www.trueaimeducation.com

There are certain drawbacks to homeschooling, at least from the child’s perspective: http://politickles.com/blog/?p=953

Been at it 14 years.  It has been a wonderful blessing for me and for my children.  Except for the algebra.  I’ve done algebra 6 times now (including my own experience in high school).  I hate algebra.