Discover Your Homeschooling Style and Find Your Homeschooling Tribe

For a happier homeschool life you love, you want to decide on your style and you have to find your people

A quick post today, talking to you about two things that will have a huge impact on the feeling of your homeschool life:

The first is how you homeschool.

The second is who you homeschool with.

How do you want to homeschool?

Do you dream of reading the classics on a picnic blanket by a creek while kids run around finding butterflies to sketch in their nature journals? or having a young scholar whose grasp of world history and Latin grammar make your heart swell? Then you’ll want to check out Charlotte Mason method and Classical Education, respectively. There are home ed styles for people who like worksheets, people who like project-based learning, people who like to leave their days unstructured, and even people who really like tea. I’ve linked here to three companies/styles I happen to love and use pieces of in my own family’s homeschool. But your style will likely be different from mine. Most likely you’ll create something new from several methods. (Eclectic homeschooler, are you? Me too!) To discover your own favorite method, you’ll want to read and follow method- and curriculum rabbit trails. A fun way to know where to start is by taking an online homeschool philosophy quiz. 

Who do you want to homeschool with?

Find your people. Join your local homeschool groups. Search Facebook and Meetup for “homeschool [your town]. You don’t have to know yet what kind of homeschooler you are, you just need to meet other moms and your kids need to meet other kids so you aren’t making this awesome lifestyle 180 alone. I homeschooled for a few years before I found the homeschooling group of my dreams, and finding it made all the difference in my own happiness. I can’t stress enough that finding people who know what you’re going through, and who can give you ideas and support in your journey– it’s priceless.

Conclusion

Once you have your mission, your vision, your style and your people, you will be thinking about curriculum. I’ll share my thoughts on curricula in a post next week. Until then: how do you envision your homeschool days, and with whom? Please share in the comments!