*Guest Post
Home-schooling can be a frustrating experience especially if you have active kids that keep getting distracted. But that doesn’t mean that it is impossible to home-school your kids with success. If it is done correctly, it can be a rewarding experience for parents. The following are 5 tips on home-schooling your kids.
Keep the Study Sessions Short
Parents should not force the children to sit down for a long time and finish all their studies at one time. Children have a short attention span so parents should create short learning sessions. In this way, the child will be eager to sit down and finish all the study assignment since he knows it will be soon when study time is over. You can use persuasion to make your children sit down to study, for example, no study no TV, cook his favourite food if he studies, or take him cycling at the park if he studies.
Make Lesson Learning Fun
Parents should try to make the lesson learning fun. Research shows that kids tend to retain information better when they are having fun. There are a variety of fun ways to learn things such as playing games, playing puzzle, watching educational cartoon video, and etc. Look at the area your kids show interest and try to create a learning experience based on his interest. For example, if he likes building crafts, then try to get him to make some crafts.
Set Goals to Keep Track of Home-schooling Milestones
You need to plan out the entire studies of your child since he/she will not be following a school curriculum. Set goals on what you want your child to learn in each year so that he will be able to keep up in his studies and be ready to sit for the exam when the time comes. You can divide each year into the quarterly semester and set the goals for each semester accordingly. Every child learns at a different pace. Some children learn faster while others are slower so you should avoid setting high goals that are not matching with your kids learning speed. You can make changes to the goals according to the children’s performance as time passed.
Keep Home-schooling Record
In many states, parents are required to submit records of the home-schooling quarterly. Some districts have this requirement but they do not require the record to be submitted in the form of paperwork. Regardless of that, it is important for parents to keep records of their children home-schooling so that they can enter college one day. You can use a home-school planner template to keep a record of things like reading the log, course name and letter grade, and attendance record.
You can use a PDF editor like Movavi PDF Editor for Mac to enter the home-school record in the planner template. The Mac PDF editor allows you to draw text-book on any area in the PDF and then typing the information directly. You can edit both existing text and add new text in the PDF with the PDF editor software. Sometimes, you need to put down the signature, for example, in a home-school attendance record, there is a field for the chief administrator signature. The software lets you draw your own signature with a tablet that is connected to the computer. You can also upload an image of your signature and paste it in the signature field.
Watching for Home-schooling Pitfalls
You need to watch for pitfalls to ensure successful home-schooling for your kids. Many kids claimed that they feel like they have been isolated since they did not join other kids by attending a public school. To prevent your kids from having this feeling, you can join a support group. In this way, your kids will be able to connect with other kids of the same age like them. Parents should not be too excited about getting their kids into school early as it could lead them to make the wrong decision. Take thing slowly, if you decide to buy a curriculum package, first test your kid to see if he is ready. This can prevent you from wasting a lot of cash on buying a curriculum that is too early for your child.
