How to Homeschool (Simply and Peacefully)

Sometimes I feel like homeschooling has become too overwhelming.

I mean, it’s great that the homeschooling movement has grown so much over the past 25 years, but now that there are so many homeschoolers out there with all sorts of different theories on how to homeschool (true confessions: I’m one of them), I can’t imagine being a newbie and trying to figure out which way to go.

Back when I was a newbie, there were only a few voices out there telling us how to do this. My favorites were Raymond and Dorothy Moore. They had a calming way about them that left me feeling more confident after reading their books.

Recently I found a post which describes their method of homeschooling very well. If you’re looking for some common-sense homeschooling advice, you’ll find it right here.

Nobody Told Me That I’d Get the Independent Kids I Wanted, and I Wouldn’t Always Like It!

I first learned about homeschooling from reading Home-Grown Kids by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore. That was when I was a new parent, so I had time to do some research before making the decision to homeschool. I did a lot of reading; one of my prime influences was John Holt.

Holt was a teacher whose school experiences taught him that when given freedom to make choices and explore their world, children learn on their own. Reading his books was an eye-opening experience for me. It helped me assess my own childhood school years and why I’d been so dissatisfied with them.

For many years, John Holt published a wonderful newsletter called “Growing Without Schooling” that was a great encouragement to homeschooling parents. I inhaled each issue, and decided that encouraging my children’s desire for independent learning would be part of their home education.

This was fine in theory. Continue reading

Happy 4th Anniversary to the Carnival of Homeschooling

Back in the day, when I was a wannabe homeschooler, there weren’t many places to go to learn about homeschooling. I received a lovely little newsletter from the Moores that I devoured as soon as it arrived in my mailbox. I got the name of a homeschooling parent several towns away, called her, and soaked up her advice with gratitude. But that was about all the encouragement I could find.

Who could have imagined back in 1984, when I first learned about homeschooling, that someday there would be this thing called the Internet, where you could find more homeschool encouragement than you could ever absorb?

Of course, with so much available about homeschooling, it can sometimes be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s why people like the Cates are so cool. The Cates began the official Carnival of Homeschooling, where each week you can read an assortment of posts related to homeschooling. It’s the best place I know to find bloggers you’ll want to visit again and again.

The Carnival takes a lot of work, and none of those involved get paid for it. I think it’s a labor of love. We bloggers love this lifestyle, and what it does for our kids, and we want to share that good news with anyone who’s interested in learning about it. That goes double for those who organize the posts into each week’s carnival.

This week is the carnival’s fourth anniversary. Wow…..210 weeks’ worth of informative blog posts, laid out in clever themes for your enjoyment. And you can still check any of them out, if you wish, right here.

Many thanks to the Cates, and to all the others who have hosted or will host the Carnival of Homeschooling. You do a great service to parents everywhere.