by Elizabeth Gilbert

Created on: January 23, 2009

Homeschooling is an enormous challenge if you do it correctly. There are many reasons to choose home schooling over public or private school. There are also a lot of regulations and guidelines that must be followed. The average parent can easily be overwhelmed by the requirements of every subject and for every grade level. Even if you only have one child to teach you must be sure you are teaching the correct subject matter and meeting your state's standards. Your children must be able to pass the standardized tests just as public school students take.

One of the first sites I would search through is the state's department of education. Each state lists all their standards by grade level. For California it is www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss this takes you right to the standards and frameworks list. It is a great resource to verify that you are in fact following the correct curriculum.

Okay, so you sit down map out your strategy. You have a daily schedule to be sure you've put in the correct number of hours and are teaching age appropriate curriculum.

Next it's time to choose the textbooks you will need (which must be texts approved by your state's department of education). Of course you will need a teacher's edition and one for the child or children and one set for every subject and every level.

Now that you have the books and a plan you have to actually come up with the lessons and projects to do with your child. There are complete programs out there for you to purchase but often they are very expensive and still are not exactly what you want. After all if you wanted education in a box you might as well send your child to the public school. So you need to find ideas that can be adjusted to include the family values and lessons you want to bestow upon your child.

The following sites are all easy to access with clear instructions on their use. As a teacher I have accessed all of these sites. Sometimes it's just to see what others are doing, sometimes it's to grab a lesson to fill in or reteach a lesson, and sometimes it's to submit a lesson for others to use.

Once you have devoured the standards you know what types of lessons you need to develop. The best way to do this is develop a lesson plan which covers some of the standards. Listed below are some sites that offer lesson plans, projects, worksheets, and activities. Most of the sites listed are free or have free trial materials.

www.lessonplans.com This site has lesson plans from teachers for teachers. It is easy to use and is free to join.

www.lessonplanspage.com Join and get free lesson plans for a variety of subjects. They have a newsletter and send you updates when new lessons are added.

www.worksheets4teachers.com Free online worksheets for K-12 . You have the choice of premade worksheets or a template that lets you decide what's included on the worksheets.

www.edhelper.com Math, reading conprehension, theme lessons, and educational news are all available at this site.

www.aplusmath.com is a wonderful math site that has on-line interactive math practice. You may also print worksheets from this site.

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