Once your home school has been registered and you have enrolled your child or children to sit specific examinations, you will obviously receive course content, book lists, the curriculum and so on. Having established the core content and skills to be covered, you can begin identifying and obtaining your teaching resources.
It would be advisable to spend a few hours browsing the Internet to ascertain the best support sites for homeschooling resources. Parents who are operating on a limited budget will be relieved to discover that there are many free resources available for home school teachers. It would be advisable to join a community chat site or home school group where you will be able to communicate with many parents who share your passion for homeschooling.
It would be a good idea too to spend time reviewing the resources and handouts which are in use for your child's grade in a local mainstream school. Teachers the world over are always willing to share their most successful lesson ideas and resources with their colleagues.
Your most valuable teaching resource will be an Internet- enabled desktop or laptop computer. You can download lesson content, worksheets, assessment tasks, and marking rubrics from one of the many Internet resource sites for teachers and schools. You can encourage your child to play online mathematics games, take part in language quizzes and tests and do online research for assignments and projects, using the home classroom computer.
Browse the local libraries and booksellers and look at age-specific resources on display and sale. It is not always advisable to rush out and spend a fortune at a book shop, when there are so many free resources available. If one is starting teaching from Grade 1, simple e-books and stories can be downloaded for story time and mat work. Cardboard covers will ensure the downloaded books have a longer lifespan. Your child could decorate the covers using original artworks or drawings. Older children may require a few classic novels as part of their course content and money should be kept in reserve for these.
In many instances the home school teacher can make use of household items for teaching resource purposes. Younger children will require a play area containing a sand pit or sand table and a water play area. Measuring jugs, plastic cups, utensils and ice cream containers can be used in the sandpit or water area. If space is limited a small sand pit can be created using four treated planks of wood of sufficient width to enclose the sand. Any low plastic kiddies table with a large water basin on top will suffice for a homemade water play table.
Home school teachers should not overlook the many natural resources available. A nature walk collecting leaves, sticks, stones, feathers and so on could yield enough free resources to make a beautiful artwork. A big pot of glue, a large piece of paper or cardboard and items to paste will keep your child busy and learning essential skills at the same time.
There are many learning aids used in the mainstream classroom such as wooden shoes with lace holes to improve fine motor co-ordination skills. In the home school classroom, a large boot with laces will serve the same purpose. Bead threading kits can also be home-made. All you need is string and old cotton reels to thread, with a large bead tied at the bottom end of the string to prevent the cotton reels from slipping off the string while your child is busy. A large blunt darning needle and a bowl of popcorn also provides an ideal threading opportunity.
Specific skills such as classifying and sorting could be covered during the course of, for example, supper time preparations. Place the vegetables in a plastic dish on the floor and ask your child to sort them into types for cooking. Tidying a grocery cupboard and placing similar items on the shelves in groups, would serve the same purpose. A color classification task could be undertaken when one is separating the laundry on wash day.
Measurements and quantities are easily covered during the course of a cooking activity. Allow your child to measure out the ingredients, even if this takes longer and creates more mess than you would like. Use household groceries to make play dough (basic dough recipe with a lot more salt) and glue (simply mix flour and water). In this way you will be saving the expense of purchasing these items and creating non-toxic alternatives which are safer for your child. Cookie cutters and the like can be used to create an awareness of shapes when one is working with a biscuit dough, and these can be baked and eaten after the lesson is over.
One can use household items as counters too. Macaroni pieces work well. These can also be painted and threaded onto a string to make necklaces for a granny, a big sister or mom. Your house is full of resources for your home school, you just need to look around with a teacher's eye to spot the opportunities for learning which abound in your home and garden.
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