Would you like to learn more about the various ways to successfully homeschool your kids?  If you answered yes, then you might enjoy the online course for parents called Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course by Stephanie Walmsley (Successful Homeschooling Made Easy).

Successful Homeschooling Made Easy

26 weeks of downloadable lessons for homeschool parents.
Easy to use.
For both new and experienced homeschool parents.
$9.50 a month for 6 months or $48.50 for a one time purchase.

Lessons are easy to read and complete.  Most lessons are 10 to 15 pages and include a very short assignment to complete during the week.  Some of the themes and subjects covered include: why homeschool, setting goals, methods of homeschooling, creating a schedule, time management, care of house while homeschooling, priorities, etc.

How we used this in our home

I recieved a subscription to the 26 week course Successful Homeschooling Made Easy.  Each week I receive an email with a PDF lesson attached.  In the lessons are reading material and assignments that can offer suggestions to help me manage homeschooling while also maintaining the home.  We have received close to half the lessons so far, so I can only speak from the experience I’ve had with this course up to this point.

It was easy to check my emails each week and download the PDF file I was sent.  I saved these to a file in my computer, and printed them off and put them in a three ring binder for ease of use. Though this is not complicated to do, I would have preferred to have all the lessons together.  But it is not hard to be disciplined enough to do one lesson a week and place it in your binder when you get it done.   To save money on the cost of ink, I chose to print my pages in all black/greyscale rather than in red and black as they were sent.

Stephanie points out 6 methods (there are more) of homeschooling, and encourages you to explore a method that works for your family:

• Text books
• Classical
• Unit Studies
• Charlotte Masson
• Moores Method or Delayed Academics (waiting to introduce formal schooling until student is older).
• Unschooling

We have six children and have been homeschooling since 2004.  Though this course did not cover all the homeschool methods, but gives you an introduction to several to explore.   We use another very viable approach to homeschooling called the Eclectic Approach.  It is a combination of many different methods, and in my opinion I feel we have choosen the best part of those methods and combine them into a flexible workable plan for our family.  We include a combination of Texts and student workbooks, Online Curriculum,  Charlotte Masson, Montesorri, Unit Studies, Life Skills, Weekly Field Trips, PE in the Park, Hands on Explorations, Coop Classes, Library Classes, Bible Study, Community Classes, etc.

As Stephanie points out, it is important to manage priorities, keep it in perspective, have goals and a schedule, and a flexible yet established routine.   A course like this would have helped me a lot when we were first starting out on our homeschool journey.    Through trial and error, and through reading a lot of homeschool web sites and books, I learned how to set up a functioning homeschool that worked for our family’s needs.

To keep our homeschool running smoothly, we have a daily routine for completing our school work, meal times, chores, and free time.  We keep records of attendance and each child has a binder full of certificates and progress they have made in their studies.  We also make a year book page filled with pictures of fun projects and activities they are involved in each year.   I like using a computerized tracking program to keep my records straight and it also helps me build a workable curriculum plan as well as a transcript of grades and achievements.

Why Homeschool?

People choose to homeschool for many different reasons, but one universal reason is to guide their child’s education, rather than allow the government to do so.  For most of human history, people were homeschooled.  Homeschooling is the way education was done until the past few generations.  Some of those who were homeschooled went on to study at a university to specialize in a certain profession such as medicine, science, or law, such as President Abraham Lincoln for example.   Some families were able to afford for their children to learn at privately run preparatory schools.  This education phenominon was true for thousands of years world wide.

About 150 years ago, compulsory state run education was introduced by political leaders with a socialist agenda.  Their goal was to remove individual variations in values and create a melting pot of one new idea for culture and government.   Their experiment didn’t preserve cultural heritage, but instead replaced a persons culture with a new revised cultural experience that included becoming similar to each other.   Removal of the Christian God from education was a primary goal.  It took a few years to spread and for each state to adopt a plan, but was widely accepted in the United States by about 130 years ago.

Take a minute to think about that.   That means my Great Grandparents were some of the first people in my family to attend public education.   It was all new back then, but today it is the cultural norm.   However, for thousands of years people learned the majority of their learning in their own home according to their faith, family, and cultural traditions.   They built great societies and governments and armies.  They had their own books, or they borrowed books, and many used the bible as a text book too.

Even though they were homeschooled, they became the leaders and scholars of yesterday that we still admire and quote today.   Homeschooled men and women founded this great country we live in.  But for the last 130 years, our culture has turned the care and education (as well as health care, and even religion) of their children over to the government.   The family unit has lost it’s primary purpose to nurture the next generation in a close nit family unit according to their faith and culture.   Instead, they have addopted the values and culture of the state to raise their families.   But looking at society today compared to 130 years to 250 years ago, our country has lost many of the values that made us a great country.   As the disintegration of the family unit has taken place, the break up of families and social ills of society have increased.

Homeschooling offers a solution.  Parent guided education can provide a wholesome learning experience for the next generation.  Homeschooling provides a safe environment for a younger person to mature and develop and explore various subjects of learning they are interested in. This option is not available in a public school as teachers are mandated by the government what they are allowed to teach and everyone within the classroom must study the same subjects.

Though there are several more recent studies, this course quotes some results of studies from 2003 proving the ongoing success and satisfaction, community involvement and service, and political involvement of adults who were homeschooled.  By far, the numbers for ongoing community participation, service, and politics, as well as satisfaction and feeling like you can make a difference are higher for adults who were homeschooled verses adults who were public schooled.

This course is a good introduction to homeschooling and has many helpful tips and tricks to get you going on a smooth journey and find the right fit for your family’s needs while raising up a generation of people who care about family, community, faith, society’s needs, politics, etc.  As parents, we can guide education and raise up future generations of strong, caring, wise leaders of tomorrow.

Social Media

Follow Stephanie on her social media links for all the latest news and updates.
FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/TheBroadRoom
BLOG Homeschool Family Life

Be sure to check out what other families on the Schoolhouse Review Crew had to say about using this product in their homes.