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Resources to #HelpAmericaHomeschool – Part 1

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Children all across America are being homeschooled! Their families need help!

So in response, people have been posting on social media with ideas and resources. When they included the hashtag #HelpAmericaHomeschool in their post, it showed up in search engines, like this:

We also took a survey to see how people are responding to needing to homeschool during the Coronavirus.

Do you feel more Americans will choose to homeschool long-term as a result of COVID-19?

83% of our respondents said that yes, they think more Americans will choose to homeschool. My opinion is that this is likely, too. Families have discovered that working at home is possible and that being with their children more is not as “terrible” as the media makes it out to be. In fact, it satisfies longings that I think God placed within each of our hearts.

However, it’s not easy — and if parents are working at home at the same time, it’s actually quite difficult!

Kids aren’t used to it either. There isn’t much the same about the classroom and home! Everyone can feel off-kilter for awhile, and in this situation, when families were thrown into this suddenly yet assignments are still being given out by the school system, it can be very frustrating.

One person summed it up well:

I put “no” to this question because right now, I’m hearing more parents complain about having to homeschool than being excited about it. I think some will choose to homeschool, but not as many as we wish. I could be wrong, just my thoughts. The challenges include that they have had no training or time to prepare themselves for beginning a homeschool lifestyle. They have to have the DESIRE. They need to unlearn traditional ways of doing school and trying to do public school at home, but most of them have no clue how to do that. They need very BASIC mentoring, teaching, modeling, encouragement, and learning the different ways/methods for their children as well as themselves. My decision to homeschool wasn’t reached overnight. I had to seriously educate myself and prepare myself spiritually as much as I could before I decided to commit. I had to weigh all the pros/cons carefully and decide if this was God’s calling on our lives. Some will jump on board, but right now, I feel like most parents see it as burden… which is extremely sad.

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges new homeschoolers will be facing?

Here are some of the ways people answered:

  • Understanding that they’ll still need a break from any schooling at all, and that homeschooling is nothing like what we’re all doing now.
  • Feeling a curriculum-option overload, trying to replicate school at home, and realizing that finding a groove won’t happen overnight.
  • Finding the right curriculum that fits both the needs of the child/children and the family unit as a whole.
  • Striking a balance between school, chores, etc. — and feeling confident about being able to do it!

As one person put it, a huge challenge could be finding “good curriculum,” which she defined as “well written and easy for new homeschooling parents to use” — but being able to find all this at an affordable price!

This is indeed an issue, because not only are these families completely new to the concept of teaching their own children from home, in a way that might be very different from how the schools do it, but if one parent is no longer working so that she (usually the mom) can teach the children, they won’t have much money to buy resources!

If both parents continue to work (one of them from home), time will be a huge issue, and this raises the need for an amazing curriculum to help out!

So now the veteran homeschoolers chimed in:

Are there any new challenges your own family is facing because of COVID-19?

  • We are missing all of our extra things, library trips most especially. People assume this is easy for homeschoolers, bit this isolation is not what we’re used to either.
  • I have been homeschooling my children since infancy, starting with sign language and now the oldest is nine years old. The only challenges that Covid-19 has presented itself in regards to home life is not allowing our oldest to play with his friends and our grocery shopping online now takes longer. Other than that, our life is the same.
  • Not being able to see friends at co-ops and connect with friends in real life. We are doing the best we can, but like many people, we are not “home” 24/7 because we homeschool — so it’s been a big adjustment.
  • We are really having a hard time not being able to meet with friends. And, for me not being able to get a break.
  • Cannot use the public library, so we are more dependent on Internet use, which may not always be what’s best for our kids or families (too much screen time.

So everyone is facing struggles!

Do you have ideas and resources? Do you have thoughts on how to fix these solutions?

I am sure you do!

Veteran homeschooling families, you can join the conversation by going on social media and sharing what resources have helped you.

  • How did you make choices about your homeschooling philosophy? How did you choose your homeschooling methods?
  • How do you pay for homeschooling?
  • How do you manage your time?
  • How do you help your children “socialize” during normal life? How is real homeschooling different from times when we must be “socially distanced”?
  • What was the biggest reason you chose to homeschool in the first place?
  • Why is educating your children so important to you?

Make your post public, and use the hashtag #HelpAmericaHomeschool so that others can find what you’ve written. These posts could make a HUGE difference in giving new families the COURAGE to homeschool for the first time ever!

  • Need some images to include with your post on social media? You are welcome to download any of these pictures and share them!
  • Contact your favorite curriculum companies and encourage them to share resources (and maybe offer a coupon or freebie)! Ask them to please use the hashtag #HelpAmericaHomeschool so potential customers can find their offers.
  • We’ll be watching for these posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, MeWe, and Pinterest.

Here are some resources that I’ve already found on social media by searching the hashtag #HelpAmericaHomeschool:

I’ll make another post on Thursday, April 30, compiling all these answers and offers into one post. I can’t wait to see what your thoughts are!

Anne Elliott

P.S. To help out, Foundations Press has reduced all our books by 15%. Use coupon code HELPAMERICA. Coupon expires Sunday night, April 26 May 3, 2020. (We decided to extend the sale to get more time to share the word about it.)

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