Homeschooling can be a great choice, and forming a group home school gives you more options for subjects, as well as giving both teachers and parents new perspectives, teaching styles and shared responsibilities. Here's start your own group home school.
Instructions
1. Find similar homeschooling parents in your area. No, you don't need people just like you; you need people who 1) also home school, 2) are interested in trying a group home school, 3) have kids in the age range of your kids, and 4) are in your area. Find your local home school group and start asking around. Post on area bulletin boards. Put an ad on online home school resource sites. Start talking about your idea and people will start hearing about it.
2. Once you've found the people, you need to plan the structure. How will your group home school operate? Will you meet in one family's home or rotate through different homes? Will you group school on all subjects or just one or two? How will you share the teaching responsibilities? Who will grade the work? What curriculum will you use?
3. Determine your age range for the group. Homeschooling allows you to blur the lines between grades, but you'll still need the material to be both understandable and challenging for everyone involved. You might split into two or three groups within the larger group and have simultaneous classes at the different levels. Or you can limit yourself to a subject that you can teach on many different levels at once, like art.
4. Use the talents within the group. Perhaps one of the parents in the group is an expert on math, so she would be a great teacher for a math class. Another parent might be an amazing artist. Bingo, you have an art class. Every parent needs to volunteer equal time in one way or another, or provide equal compensation.
5. Get "outside the group" talent if you need it. Some group home schools consist of homeschooling families who get together to hire a tutor or teacher. They share the costs and the tutor only has to dedicate time to a single class of several homeschooled students.
6. Set up regular meetings and assign responsibilities, so everyone knows who is supposed to do what and when it's supposed to happen. Be clear and fair. A group home school can be as casual as you want it to be, but you still have to get things done and the best way is to set up your structures first.
7. If you're not sure a whole semester is what you want, try out a group workshop first. A workshop could be for a single afternoon or could be a month-long series of lectures and activities and follow-up homework.
8. Spread the word if you want more members in your group home school. Look for others who have children of appropriate ages and let them know about the opportunity.
Tags: home school, group home, group home school, your group, your group home, different levels, group home