Homeschooling is a home-based schooling trend. Parents have different reasons to educate students at home. For moms who fear the safety of their children, this is the best way to educate and train their kids under their surveillance. On the other hand, there are also mothers who pursue this education method for religious or ethnic reasons. Whatever the reason is, homeschooling a teen can be a real challenge for a mom if she lacks the skills to manage her resources.
Oftentimes, mothers find it difficult to manage their life between their routine tasks and homeschooling, especially if they don’t have a spouse. They have to cope up with day-to-day issues of their life and kids. This in turn makes it difficult for them to succeed in both domains. They have to develop a plan that can help them give their best both as a mother and teacher. With the following effective organizational and management skills, homeschooling moms can tackle the high school years in a time-efficient manner:
1. Find Your Idea Behind Homeschooling
Determine the idea of your homeschooling. What is the one single purpose that you want to achieve by teaching your teen at home? By answering the question, you will be in a better position to ascertain your objectives and plan your course of action accordingly.
2. Establish a Working Relationship
Share your idea of homeschooling with your teen. Inform him about your targets and what you expect from him. This will build a good understanding between both of you and help you work as a team. Make sure that your teen is in the loop for all your short-term and long-term plans.
3. Organize Your Life
While it is difficult to manage life as a mother and teacher, a workable strategy can help you excel in both of these areas. Schedule your daily tasks in a way that can give you time and space for your domestic and personal life. Assign late morning hours for teaching when your teen will be active and energetic. Dedicate the latter half of the day for domestic chores while keep the evening hours for fun and recreation. Nights are always meant for rest.
You can also develop a different organizational plan that goes with your life agendas. Make a to-do list of domestic chores a night before so that you have a clear picture of all your tasks for the coming day.
4. Set Up a Functional Workplace agenda
Allocate a room or space for teaching. Provide the area with all the necessary stuff that will assist in the teaching process. Create an activity area where your teen can perform an experiment or practice any drill. Equip the area with all the accessories that your teen will need in an activity.
Arrange a file system to keep all academic and work-related documents. Label all the files for ease of access. Keep the important documents in a safe place or convert them into digitized form so that you can use them later.
5. Develop An Assessment Method
Check the growth and improvement of your teen with a proper assessment method. Make a strategy to analyze the progress of your teen on periodical basis. You can divide the assessment plan in weekly tests, monthly preliminary exams and quarterly examinations or whatever suits you the best.
6. Capitalize the Advents of Modern Technology
Benefit from the technological facilities of new era. Use cloud computing to remain connected while you are away. With the blessings of technology, you can access your resources through virtual space. Now you can check home works, assign tasks, and share knowledge with your kids even when you are busy with other tasks.
Additionally, you can utilize the new media sources to interact with other homeschoolers. Find online communities where you can connect with many homeschool parents and tutors. Use these platforms to share information, exchange knowledge and engage in a two-way communication. This will enable you to acquire the latest news as well as seek advice from other homeschoolers.
About the Writer:
Martin Berk is an educational specialist at http://www.courseworkspot.co.uk, a leading educational consultancy service in UK, where his goal is to help students with their educational problems. Along with it, he is also a major contributor to more similar academic consulting services.