Five Homeschool Tips for New Homeschool Mama's

I found this on another blog and was impressed with the reality of it. If I only realized the truth of this when I started. :)

1. Give yourself some time to deschool. Letting go of preconceived notions about school and learning, is a gift you can give yourself, and your child/ren. My own deschooling is a work in progress and the more I see unschooling first hand, the more I question what I once thought about education and learning.

2. Expect a period of deschooling from your child/ren. It's been said that one month per every year of school is common. As I said in this post about deschooling, "your child/ren has probably their natural desire to learn squashed and will need time to recover from that. With a parent's help, they can gain back most, if not all of what they lost and begin to see the world as a place where learning is enjoyable, and all around us."

3. Let your children feel your energy and passion for life. Light a fire within yourself. Let it burn so bright that they see it! What are your interests? Is there something you've always wanted to learn? Do It! Let them see YOU learning and living life to the fullest. Be curious. Be interested.

4. Don't make the mistake of duplicating at home, what you didn't like about school. Sometimes we just automatically repeat the same patterns, without even thinking about it, just because it's all we know, it's what we're used to or it's what we've always done. Replace school with a full and interesting life. The public school system can not compete with that. They can't even come close.

5. Don't make cookies just to teach math. Make cookies because they taste good. :-)