By ZOHRA SARWARI

What Is Home Schooling?

HOME SCHOOLING is simply schooling school aged children at home. Many people are choosing to home school their children today for many reasons. Some people believe that children should be taught at home and some people like the freedom that it gives the family to do other things and still teach the children to read and write. Home schooling has gotten more popular in recent years but it was used all the time in families long ago. Farmers that keep the kids home to help farm use to teach their children at night after the chores for the day was done. Many of our early presidents were home schooled because there was no school to send the kids to. Home schooling is typically done by the parents and in some cases a tutor is hired to teach the children.

There are several ways to home school. You can choose to use an internet school where you use a school that is on the internet. The children log onto the internet to get their daily assignments, take test and even meet with a teacher on a daily or weekly basis. Some parents like this way because it helps keep them and the children on track. Some do not like this way to home school because if the child has difficulty with a certain subject or lesson then you may fall behind helping the child learn the lesson at hand.

There are books and lesson plans that you can purchase if you choose to teach your child offline. There are websites of books you can order and you can also visit a book show that has books designed for home schooling students. Doing your home schooling this way the parent or tutor has complete control of what the child learns. If you want to add in certain electives like Islamic studies, or cooking this is fine and there is no one to tell you that you can’t do that. One common downside to this is that there is no accountability. You have to keep yourself on track and if you are not easily motivated this is not the way for you.

A parent that is thinking of starting to homeschool your child should have a lot of patience. If you start yelling at the child when they want to take a break and you want to finish the math lesson home schooling is not for you. There should be a special place in your house for home schooling so that your role of teacher and parent has their own places. It is also hard to eat dinner at the table where all the school books are stacked or where you have placed Ali’s art project to dry.

The decision to home school is a tough one and one that your family should sit down and discuss. There are advantages and disadvantages. If you and your spouse work then it may be difficult to work and do the housekeeping and home school especially if you have more than one child. If possible if you choose to homeschool your child start when they are young and homeschool them all the way through high school. This way the relationship is stronger and they may respect you more.

5 Benefits of Home Schooling

Many people cringe when they hear the word homeschooling. They feel that it is a term only for people living in the amazon or in rural areas where schools are not established. This article will share 5 benefits that homechooling has which other schooling systems do not have.

1. Being able to control what your child is learning and when they are learning it, and how they are learning about it. This is vital for any parent who wants their child to become a righteous, pious person. Garbage in, garbage out. What the schools choose to teach our kids nowadays can be very disgusting and inappropriate for them. Why do I know this I went to public schools, and am regretful full of how much times was wasted on books, stories or videos of things that I found inappropriate, nor productive to know. These were topics really that did not benefit me.

2. Making sure that your teaching style is one that is tailored to your child’s learning abilities. This is vital for your child’s success. Each of our children learn a bit differently, and in order for them to love learning and want to continue to learn we must discover their learning styles and try to teach them in that way inshAllaah.

3. Help your child love learning. By being there to teach your child and being
supportive you will be bale to help them have a love for learning versus just making them memorize facts that they will never use. For example, when I am doing science with one of my kids, and realize that he isn’t get the concept, we go to google, and search for a video on that topic. This helps him visually see what we were just talking about. So he reads about it, and then see’s it in the video. This helps him understand the concept much deeper.

4. Keep your children away from negative influences which can destroy their lives. Nowadays you hear about kids doing drugs as early as 10 years old. Early peer pressure of drugs, alcohol, smoking, bullying, food, and immodest behavior is what is ruling the schools nowadays. Our kids are taught to be disrespectful to their teachers and parents, and defy adults. So much evil is out there, and unfortunately much of it is coming to our schools, and influencing our kids. You’re a product of your environment, so a negative environment will make you negative, versus a positive environment will make you positive, inshAllaah.

5. Make a schedule that fits your lifestyle. For example, we all wake up for tahajjud and pray, and we pray our other 5 prayers, and in between we study, take classes, do projects, take field trips, travel for events, etc. When everyone is stuck home from school on a snow day, and don’t study we study, so that when spring and summer are here we can have more outside time and activities. When the kids are sick the rest until they get bored, then they do something creative so they are not bored.

Is Homeschooling Right For Me And My Family?

Finding out if homeschooling is right for your family should be a family decision. There are a few things to consider before you can decide to or not to homeschool. Sit down as a family and discuss the following topics.

Why do you want to homeschool? When thinking of homeschooling the first thing that you need to ask is why do you want to homeschool. If your reason is because you do not like the teacher or school that your children are in is not a good reason to consider homeschooling. Maybe you don’t believe the things that the school is teaching. Maybe you are a family who loves to travel and unenrolling the children every time you get to travel then homeschooling may be a great fit for your family. Maybe your child has a learning disability and it is hard for them to be in a classroom where they cannot get the one on one attention they need.  Maybe you are like me and want them to love and know their faith- Islam, and practice it to the best of their ability- inshAllaah!

Do you have time to homeschool? Homeschooling takes a lot of time and it can take longer if you are teaching a child with a learning disability. Homeschooling children can take hours a day and if you are planning to homeschool several children then you could find yourself spending most of your time teaching and less time doing other things that you need to do.

Do you have the space to homeschool? When you enroll your child in a homeschool you will be shipped boxes of things that you will need to help your child learn during the school year. If you have more than one child there will be a shipment for each child. All of this material takes up a lot of space. When you are considering homeschooling then it would be best if you had a space in your home designed especially for homeschooling. Otherwise you may be trying to eat dinner with stacks of books all around you.

Do you have the patience to homeschool? When you are thinking of homeschooling you will find that you need books and material, time and a reason but the thing that you will need the most is patience. This is where you have to be honest with yourself. Can you teach your children without losing your cool the first time they get distracted or have trouble with the math lesson you are trying to teach. If a child sees you begin to scream at them when they have some trouble then they will not be happy. And if they are unhappy because you are always yelling it will not be a pleasant experience for either of you.

Ontario Home Schooling Law

Books on Home Schooling

Setting Goal for Home Schooling

Homeschooling High School

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Source:

http://www.superchargehomeschooling.com/

http://torontomuslimhomeschoolers.com/