For part of 2025, I have decided to do blog posts centering around frequently asked homeschool questions. I have been asked these questions or seen them in various online spaces. This post will cover how to start homeschooling.
Starting to homeschool is very easy. I have narrowed it down to Five Simple Steps.
1. Know Your State Laws and Requirements
2. Know Your Child
3. Choose Your Approach
4. Choose a Curriculum or Not
5. Begin a Slow Routine
These five steps are just the basics needed to get started. Plenty of other online resources to take advantage of if you need further instructions or help.
Know Your State Laws and Requirements:
I sent most of the people who asked this question to the HSLDA website. It gives clear instructions for each state and what is required to homeschool your child. I can only speak for our state (Wisconsin) and what is required of us.
For us, I have to fill out a form online every year with the Department of Instruction. I tell them how many students I have and their grade level (or ungraded, as in our case, our girls are in different grades depending on the subject) by October 15th each year. That's it! Now, just for our records, I record attendance and hours along with our subject progression. I have only begun recording grades this year as I will be issuing our oldest a diploma in four years.
Other states require may require more. I know some states require state testing, and some require parents to operate under an umbrella school that oversees and approves curriculum. Some states have evaluators that require the submission of a portfolio and/or interviews with homeschooling families. This can be overwhelming, and for more complicated requirements, the HSLDA is a great resource to have in your back pocket.
Know Your Child
You have been teaching your child from the moment they were born. You are the one who taught them how to walk and talk. You have no doubt also been teaching and guiding their moral compass. You can take that knowledge and now teach your child. Do they prefer to play and act out things? Do they love listening to you read books or read themselves? Do they like to sit still, or do they like to run from one activity to the next? No matter the combination of the things that make up your child, you know them, and you can teach them. Please take into account your child's personality and transfer this to their schooling. There are different learning styles out there, and there will be one along with probably a curriculum or two that will align with your child well, and they will not just learn but thrive.
My girls love books and books and more books. They are also very hands-on and learn well using manipulative and being able to do things themselves. I chose a curriculum that allowed us to read a lot and allowed them to use different manipulative to learn (for math, reading, spelling, and science later on).
Choose Your Approach
Knowing your child and their learning style can help them meld together with how you want your homeschool to look. Decide if you are the artsy parent or one that connects well with nature. You can mold your approach to what makes you just as comfortable as your child. Setting up a vision board or making a mission statement for your homeschool will help you when making decisions. You can take the board or statement, look back at it, and see if it aligns with the decisions you make as you homeschool. If anything doesn't align with that vision, it shouldn't remain in your homeschool. This is also where you line out your year. How long will you attend school each day, and what will your calendar look like?
For me, I envisioned sitting on the couch, reading, and having discussions. This translates to a lot of read-aloud and book discussions over textbooks, worksheets, and lots of testing. It works really well for all of us. After a few years of trial and error, we have chosen to go to school year-round, taking breaks as we needed. We also slow down by November each year and take December to come together as a family to do Christmas. School Birthdays are school holidays, and we travel for work and as we please. We bring school with us when we need to or leave it behind and pick it up when we come back.
Choose a Curriculum or Not
Now, you need to decide what to teach with or not. This means whether you will use a curriculum or not. Some families are very successful with unschooling, but I am not one of them. I need a little bit of structure and order. Another key thing to remember is that you should make the curriculum work for you, not just work the curriculum. If you need to alter how things are down, slow things down, speed them up, or break them down differently, do that.
I did a series of blog posts related to how we use the different curriculums we have chosen. I loosely follow the instructions from the curriculum but have adapted things to work in our schedule. Some wanted us to use a timer and only do work for a certain amount of time a day. Timers bug me, and I don't like being tied to time, so I set out a natural pace to work through things, and it then developed into a routine for us.
Begin a Slow Routine
The next thing to do is begin. Once you have gathered your curriculum or set out your style and plan, start. I suggest, though, for those not used to teaching that you start small. Start with the basics first (like reading and math). As you develop a routine with those, slowly begin to add in other subjects until you are fully engaged with all of the plans you have laid out. This will get easier as the years go by, and soon, you won't have to start slowly each year; you will be able to start and go.
I hope this post has answered any questions about how to start homeschooling. If not, feel free to comment under this blog post or contact me via our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.
Remember that this post is part of a series of FAQ's regarding homeschooling. This is the proposed schedule of past and future topics:
How do I start?
Am I even qualified to Teach My Child?
Who Holds You Accountable?
But What About Graduating and Issuing a Diploma?
What Should My Child Be Learning?
How Do I Choose Curriculum and What About the Cost?
How Long Does It Actually Take?
But What About Socialization?
What is the Hardest Part?
What Types of Schooling Are There?
What Do I Need to Homeschool?
How Can I Be Around My Kid All Day?
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