You begin your African adventure when you step off of the airplane. Instantly, you are struck by how different this place is from back home in Texas. Although it is difficult to believe, it is actually hotter here than back home. The sounds here are unfamiliar, and even the smell of the air is different from the air in the States. You soon begin to taste the strange foods and decide that you like some of them, but some of them you decide you can do without! As you go into the wild places to see animals different from any you have ever seen before except in books or on television, you truly realize that this is a unique and blessed place. When you go into the animal’s habitat, you realize that this can be a dangerous place; but if you follow the rules and guidelines given by those who have been here before, you will be protected and guided. You adapt and learn, and eventually you begin to feel that perhaps you can adjust to living here. You even begin to like it! You begin to welcome others to this great adventure! One day, you realize that you are no longer new to this life; although you don’t have all the answers, you have come to love your new home.

Welcome to home schooling!!

It is a jungle adventure for most of us! There are not very many second-generation home educators – yet!! We have all walked the trail-blazing path of “something new here,” and we have, generally speaking, come to love it. Most of us remember the strong emotions, the fears, the questions, and the tears. If we are honest, those of us with some years of experience will probably confess that there continue to be days when we endure similar things. But all of us were new at it once-exactly as at some point we were new, first-time parents! God can give you the grace to tackle this job and to come out at the other end with the satisfaction of a job well done!

Welcome to your great new adventure! Welcome to home education!

As you begin this adventure, ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” Keep in mind that there is no “right” answer, but when you know the answer to the why question, even if it is not a perfect answer or as complete as you want it to be, you can begin to determine how to pursue this task. If your desire is to do this forever, your plans will be long range. If your desire is to bring a child up to a school district’s qualifications for grade level, your plans will be shorter in term. If your desire is to build stronger character in your child, your goals will be different from someone whose main concern is strong academics. None of these choices necessarily have imputed values. They are just different; however, they do have a major impact on how you make your choices as you begin to educate your children at home. Once you have at least a general idea about why you have made this choice, your next step is determined by how much time you have before you are going to begin your schooling. If you have a few weeks or months, we recommend that you spend some time educating yourself. If you have to begin schooling tomorrow, your immediate emphasis needs to be on obtaining curriculum. You will have to educate yourself on the practice and principles of home education as you go along.

To educate yourself, peruse the listing of recommended books in THSC Association Resources. (See p. 6-5.) This list is by no means comprehensive, but it is a good place to start. Many of these books are available in local libraries; all of them can be requested through interlibrary loan. They can also be ordered at your local bookstore, through various mail order sources, as well as through the THSC Association.

It is impossible to emphasize strongly enough how very important it is for you to read much of this material. Not only will it help you to have an understanding of the movement and how to educate at home, but it will also help you when you encounter the various questions from family, friends, and strangers whom you will encounter.

As you begin to make decisions about curriculum, realize that Texas law requires a written curriculum pursued in a bona fide manner. The curriculum must include reading, spelling, grammar, math, and a study of good citizenship. If you are withdrawing your child today from an institutional program, whether public or private, you need to get something quickly. (For information on withdrawing from a public school, see question 1 on page

2-3.) If you have some time, you can research curriculum at your leisure and take longer to make your decision.

Whatever your situation, there are some common variables that you must consider.

What type of learner are you? Do you like workbooks, textbooks, schedules, and organization? Do you like free-form learning which allows your interests to take you to depths of knowledge and understanding in a more unstructured environment? Are you somewhere in between? You must come to understand at the beginning that home schooling is absolutely a learning time for the parent as well as the child. If you cannot get enthusiastic about what you are doing, you will never be able to convey a love of learning to your child. What type of learner is your child? Does he sit quietly in a chair while you read? Does he squirm every time you try to sit together and read? Does she like neat things all in a row, or does she prefer frogs and snails and puppy dog tails? You must understand your child and have at least a glimpse of his learning style, so that this experience can be rewarding for both of you. Learn and accept that each child is different and unique and that each child is different from you. Many children cannot sit still if they must sit in a chair but can spend hours reading if they are upside down on the stairs. Conversely, other children must have structure or they become as stressed and frazzled as any overworked mom or dad. While there has admittedly been too much emphasis placed on the learning style of the child in today’s educational modes, there is some validity to accepting the differences and working with them instead of fighting them.

How many children are going to be involved in school at home? A mom who must make lesson plans for only one or two children will face different challenges from the mom dealing with five or six grade levels. If you have children who are on roughly the same grade level, can you combine their lessons? If you have different age groups, can the older children help the younger children? If you have a younger child, can he help his older sister as she memorizes multiplication tables or a poem? You will be amazed at the creative ways your children can help you solve these sticky problems. Remember that all of the family can read books aloud together; you then simply adjust the assignments to the abilities of each child.

How much money do you have available for the purchase of curriculum? A complete program for one child can cost several hundreds of dollars per year, or you can design a program that mainly uses your local library and items which you already have around the home. No matter how much money is available, it is helpful if you realize early in your adventure that you will not be able to use every great idea or every great book that is calling out to you to buy it. Be thoughtful when you make the purchasing decisions and commit to doing some researching, meditating, and praying as you seek those things which will make this a valuable experience for the entire family.

As you ask yourself these questions, remember to stay as relaxed as possible. You do not make a lifelong commitment when you purchase a curriculum or a book, and you will make some mistakes. If you decide you have made a mistake in a purchase or see that it is time for a change in your approach, your local support group will probably sponsor a used book sale at which you can sell and buy used curriculum. Just take it easy and do one step at a time. Remember the old military saying, “A poor plan well executed is better than a great plan poorly followed.” Be excited about new challenges. Desire to try difficult things. Break out of your fear and try something new. You will discover as you go along what works for you and your children. You can rest in the assurance that you will make mistakes, but you and your children will all survive them and adjust.

A few suggestions to help you on the way

If you are a first-time home educator with no teaching experience or need to bring a child to grade level to return him to public school, we suggest that you choose a comprehensive curriculum which covers all of the requirements of the state law. Contrary to popular opinion, this does not have to be expensive; although, it can be extremely expensive. If you want to try a less structured approach which also covers all of the requirements, look for a unit study that is grade level appropriate for your family.

Everything that is good or bad about education can be said about both kinds of curriculum. Course studies (a book for every subject) versus unit studies (studying a specific time period or concept while incorporating all subject

areas) is really a matter of choice. This choice is like the foods in Africa. Some of the choices you will love; some you will dislike. You may be amazed that your friends like different ones than you like, but each of you has the freedom to do what is best for your family. One of the wonderful things about home education is that you can try both methods or use only one. The final choice is yours! We praise God for this freedom!

It may be helpful to have these incidental items for your great adventure. We recommend a chalk or dry erase board, maps as you need them, bookshelves or bins for child and teacher, markers, pencils, pens, glue, and paper of all sorts. A refrigerator or a blank wall can be the bulletin board. A table and chair or desk that is just the right size for your child or a special room for school is wonderful if your house has one, but many families do not have that luxury. A kitchen table works great!

Remember that trip to Africa?

As you continue on your adventure, you will recall that you would not have considered going into the strange areas of the country without guides. Likewise, you do not want to homeschool without the support and guidance of others who have come before you in home education.

On the local level, most areas have support groups which provide a variety of events and services for a nominal yearly fee. Large metropolitan areas usually have a variety of support groups to meet many different needs. There are regional groups in some areas of Texas which work to network the local support groups. On the state level, the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) not only provides support to families as they begin and continue to homeschool but also provides ongoing public policy information and training, THSC Association provides lobbying support to ensure that Texas remains one of the best places in the world to homeschool. They also have a program which provides legal services to its members if contacted by the school or government officials concerning home-school issues.

These organizations exist to provide support and guidance to individual families as the parents independently school their children. These are not regulatory agencies, and they are not designed or intended to govern the home school community. They do consist of moms and dads who have years of home-schooling experience and whose desire is to make home education a very positive and effective mode of education while maintaining and ensuring the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to each American.

Finally, remember that school starts every day-and ends every day-and tomorrow is another day! We hope you will find a point in the day when mom becomes mom again and school lets out. Enjoy the Great Adventure!

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When we were deciding to homeschool, my lack of self-discipline was one of my husband’s greatest concerns. What he did not know was that as a classroom teacher I had a method for overcoming my disorganization, and I thought it would also work at home. I believe time has proven me correct.

My organization method takes several hours of a week about three times a year. I begin by deciding on the curricula we are going to use for all the different areas we want to cover in approximately a semester’s time. (I have one great secret for making that decision—prayer.) After that most difficult decision is over, I sit down with each textbook, workbook, and other materials for each subject. I briefly look over each one, just to get a good feel for what the materials cover; then I group the materials that belong together. Here is where the fun starts.

For example, I want to organize Bowie’s Guide to Texas, Stephen’s Texas History, and Sam’s Fun History Activities for the State of Texas. I get out notebook paper, pencil, and the textbook, workbook, and test book for Bowie’s Guide to Texas. I title the notebook paper, Bowie’s Guide to Texas, skip a line, and write “1.”

Now I try to decide about how much material we can cover in one class period. In looking at chapter one in Bowie’s Guide to Texas, I think we can cover pages 2-8, so I write “read pp. 2-8.” Now I look at the workbook and test book and see that there are no activities in those items which correlate to pages 2-8, so I go to the next line and write “2.” Again I try to decide about how much material we can cover in one class period, and this time I think it is pages 9-12 and Activity 1, page 3 in the activity book. I write “read pp. 9-12; act.1, p. 3.” Going to the third line, I write “3.” I see that for the third day, we need to read pages 13-17, do Activities 2 and 3, and take a quiz over the previous material. So I write, “read pp. 13-17, act 2-3, p. 4-7, quiz 1, p. 3.” Then I continue, breaking each segment of all the related materials into daily bites of information. For some days I may choose enough material to take only twenty minutes, but other days I think will be more challenging or interesting, so I will select enough material for an hour or two. Never is this intended to be exhaustive in everything I want to do with the material, but this is my skeleton on which I will later put meat.

Once I have finished Bowie’s Guide to Texas, I will proceed and do Stephen’s Texas History in the same way; when finished, I will organize Sam’s Fun History Activities for the State of Texas. After I finish organizing each individual component that I will use to teach Texas history, I sit down with all of the materials, my lists, and a traditional teacher’s plan book. I label each row with the different subjects we are going to cover during the year, but I leave the column headings open. The row for this will be labeled, obviously, Texas History. In the first grid space, I begin to tie all of the notebook pages for each of the resources together. If I think that we should read pages 2-8 in Bowie’s Guide to Texas (BG), read pages 1-3 in Stephen’s Texas History (STH), and do Activity 1 in Sam’s Fun History Activities for the State of Texas (Sam’s), I only have to write in my planner, “BG#1, STH#1, Sam’s #1.” For the next day, I think we only need to do the next work in Sam’s, so I write in my planner, “Sam’s #2.” When we get to the next day, I think we can do work from BG and Sam’s only, so I will write, “BG#2, Sam’s#3.” Looking at the fourth day, it may be “BG#3, STH #2.” I will keep on doing this until my planner is full of my abbreviations from my notebook pages.

Once Texas history is done, I proceed to plan math, science, reading, grammar, spelling, and everything else in the same way. I always do all of this in pencil and never go too far ahead. I always leave time for creativity by not putting dates or days at the top of the columns. I may put notes to myself on a teaching strategy that I want to use, but the bare bones are my main concern. When we begin school, we are always on the first page and in the first few columns, and I expect my children to look at the planner and the notebook pages daily to get their assignments. As the days and weeks go by, we naturally go faster in some subjects than in others so that we may be on page ten in the planner for science but only on page eight for reading. As time passes, I check off both on my lists and in the bottom right corner of my planner grid as we complete each section. Sometimes I use color-coded checks for each child because one moves faster than the other when they are using the same materials. This keeps me in touch with how we are faring time-wise and lets me know if I need to consider speeding up or slowing down.

We have never stuck with my plans exactly because there is always something I did not expect that happens, whether it is a child loving the subject and wanting to delve deeper or a family member getting sick who requires weeks of care. When the latter happens (sometimes it is Mom–I once had pneumonia for four weeks), my system can be a lifesaver. No, the teaching and enrichment that I wanted to do and would have done if I had not been sick did not get done, but my sons knew just how much they were expected to do each day without Mom there. My planner was my substitute teacher. The system worked because the boys had become accustomed to looking in the planner and then to the notebook sheets each day to see what their requirements were for that day.

When I am really, really organized, I even leave a spot for housework, piano lessons, baseball games and practices, family time, and whatever else we have going on in our lives at the time! One of the great things about this system is that I can use it for traditional textbooks and workbooks, for unit studies, or for a combination. I also use the planner to designate which material I want my child to do on his own, and which material we will get together to do either one-on-one or in a group. I have used this system for different age levels using the same materials by giving more challenging assignments to my more advanced students while allowing younger students to learn at their own paces. My system also prevents me from losing a great supplemental activity, because I make sure that idea is written down in the planner for the appropriate lesson so that I will not forget it.

The penultimate step in this process is to take all the activities I need to copy to the photocopier and to secure all the note cards, construction paper, folders, and whatever else I think we will need. I try to put this into a folder, box, or tub labeled either by child or by subject. I try very hard to anticipate everything I could possibly need and have it on hand so that when we reach Sam’s #72 three months later, I already have all we need available.

Finally, I complete one of my three organizing weeks for the year, and we start doing the schooling. There were about two years when I did not use this method, and I feel like those were lost years; because I am not sure what we did. I know we schooled and worked, but I do not have a planner to reassure me. We moved recently, and I got to see how much we had really accomplished using this plan.

When we began home schooling, I was always afraid that someone was going to knock on my door and want to see proof of our schooling, so I kept every paper and every workbook in boxes with my planners on top. As each box was stuffed full, I put them away in the attic. When we were packing to move, I sent my two nearly grown sons into the attic to get “those few boxes of school work” out of the attic. After what seemed to all of us to be hours, they finally came out of the sweltering attic after having retrieved twenty-five or so boxes of schoolwork. There it was–years of planning and working and schooling–all coordinated by a disorganized mom!

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