Homeschooling Basics
Homeschooling Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started
Homeschooling can feel overwhelming when you first begin exploring it. There are laws to understand, curriculum choices to make, teaching styles to consider, and an almost endless number of books, programs, websites, and opinions about the “right” way to educate a child at home.
The good news is that homeschooling does not have to look the same for every family.
Some families enjoy textbooks, lesson plans, and clearly defined school days. Others build their education around literature, nature, projects, travel, or their children’s interests. Many families combine several approaches and change them as their children grow.
Before choosing curriculum or deciding what your homeschool day will look like, however, there is one important place every family should begin: understanding the law in their state.
First Things First: Understand Your State’s Homeschool Laws
Homeschooling is legal throughout the United States, but there is not one national set of homeschooling requirements.
The U.S. Department of Education does not regulate homeschooling. Homeschool regulation, including many curriculum and instructional requirements, is primarily handled at the state and sometimes local level. This means a homeschooling family in one state may have very different legal responsibilities from a family living just across the state line.
Depending on where you live, your state may have requirements involving:
- notifying a school district or state agency that you intend to homeschool
- compulsory school attendance ages
- minimum instructional days or hours
- subjects that must be taught
- attendance records
- portfolios or samples of student work
- standardized testing or academic evaluations
- parent education or qualification requirements
- immunization or health records
- annual reports or other documentation
Not every state requires all of these things. Some states have relatively few requirements, while others establish much more detailed rules for home education.
For example, the U.S. Department of Education’s state information shows that requirements concerning notification, testing, curriculum, recordkeeping, and even the legal classification of a homeschool can differ significantly from one state to another.
Always Check the Law for Your Own State
Before purchasing curriculum or withdrawing a child from school, find out exactly what your state requires.
A good starting point is your state Department of Education or other state agency responsible for home education. The U.S. Department of Education also maintains state-by-state information about regulations affecting private schools and homeschools.
Laws can change, so avoid relying solely on an old blog post, social media comment, or advice from another homeschooling family.
What is perfectly acceptable in their state may not satisfy the requirements in yours.
This article provides general educational information and should not be considered legal advice. Always verify current requirements with appropriate sources for your state.
What Does “Homeschooling” Actually Mean?
People often use the word homeschooling to describe almost any situation in which a child learns primarily from home.
Legally and educationally, however, several very different arrangements can exist.
A child completing an online public school program from the kitchen table, for example, may physically be learning at home while still legally being enrolled in public school.
A child whose parent selects the curriculum, teaches the lessons, keeps the educational records, and operates under the state’s homeschool law is in a very different educational arrangement.
Understanding that distinction makes the rest of homeschooling much easier to understand.
Independent or Parent-Directed Homeschooling
This is what many people traditionally mean when they talk about homeschooling.
The parent or guardian takes primary responsibility for directing the child’s education according to the homeschooling laws of their state.
Within those legal requirements, parents may often have considerable freedom to decide how their children learn.
A parent might purchase a complete curriculum from one company, combine materials from several publishers, use library books and educational websites, create original lessons, use online classes, hire tutors, participate in a homeschool cooperative, or combine all of these.
This flexibility is one of the major differences between independent homeschooling and enrolling a child in a school-operated program.
The parent is not simply supervising somebody else’s school curriculum. The parent is actively making educational decisions.
That does not mean there are no requirements. A parent’s curriculum and records still need to comply with whatever laws apply in their state.
Public School at Home or Virtual Public School
Public school at home can be an excellent option for some families, but it is important to understand that it is not the same educational arrangement as independently choosing and developing your own homeschool curriculum.
In a public-school-at-home program, a child is generally enrolled in a public school, virtual public school, public charter school, or another publicly operated program.
The child may complete most or all of the work from home, but the school remains responsible for much of the formal educational program.
The school may determine the curriculum, courses, academic standards, assignments, attendance requirements, testing requirements, grading system, and deadlines.
Parents can still play an enormous role. They may organize the child’s day, help with assignments, provide encouragement, create hands-on activities, and spend far more time involved in their child’s education than they might in a traditional classroom.
But they generally do not have the same freedom to simply replace the school’s mathematics program, skip assigned material, develop an entirely different history course, or abandon the school’s academic schedule.
California provides a useful example of this distinction. Its public-school home-based independent study programs require students to remain enrolled in public school and use public-school curriculum, and those students remain subject to public-school policies and state testing requirements.
National education statistics likewise distinguish students enrolled full-time in virtual public or private schools from students who are independently homeschooled, even though both groups may receive most of their instruction at home.
Public School at Home vs. Independent Homeschooling
| Public School at Home | Independent Homeschooling |
|---|---|
| Student is generally enrolled in a public-school program | Student is educated under the homeschool or other applicable nonpublic education law of the state |
| School generally establishes curriculum | Parent generally selects or develops curriculum within state requirements |
| School establishes many deadlines and academic requirements | Parent often has greater control over pacing and scheduling |
| State or school testing may be required | Testing requirements depend on state homeschool law |
| Teachers or school staff may oversee progress | Parent generally directs educational progress |
| Usually publicly funded | Families usually purchase or create their own materials, although state programs and funding options vary |
| Less curriculum freedom | Greater curriculum flexibility within applicable law |
Neither arrangement is automatically better than the other.
They simply offer families different levels of responsibility, structure, funding, oversight, and freedom.
For a parent who wants a ready-made program with outside teachers and clear accountability, public school at home may be appealing.
For a parent who wants to choose books, change programs when something is not working, spend six weeks studying ancient Egypt, move quickly through mathematics, build science around experiments, or design learning around a child’s interests, independent homeschooling generally offers considerably more flexibility.
Again, the exact legal distinction depends upon the state in which you live.
Choosing Your Own Homeschool Curriculum
One misconception about homeschooling is that parents must find one enormous curriculum package and follow it from beginning to end.
You certainly can.
But you do not have to.
Independent homeschooling can allow families to build an education using resources from many different places.
You might love one publisher’s mathematics curriculum but dislike its language arts program. You might use a structured phonics curriculum for reading, children’s literature for history, documentaries for science, nature walks for biology, and a local tutor for Spanish.
That is still a curriculum.
A curriculum is simply the organized collection of subjects, resources, lessons, experiences, and educational goals you use to educate your child.
Some parents prefer everything planned for them.
Others want to build almost everything themselves.
Most homeschoolers eventually fall somewhere in between.
Homeschooling Styles, Philosophies, and Approaches
Once you understand the legal framework under which you will homeschool, you can begin deciding how you want learning to happen in your home.
There is no requirement that your family fit neatly into one homeschooling philosophy. These approaches are tools, not boxes. Many experienced homeschooling families borrow ideas from several of them.
Traditional Homeschooling
Traditional homeschooling is probably the closest to what most people picture when they think of school.
Children may use textbooks or workbooks for mathematics, science, language arts, history, and other subjects. Parents may prepare weekly lesson plans, assign work, administer tests, and maintain fairly predictable school hours.
Families who enjoy organization, measurable progress, and a clear sequence of lessons often appreciate this approach.
Traditional homeschooling does not necessarily mean recreating a classroom at home. A traditional homeschool can still include field trips, experiments, projects, nature study, cooking, educational games, and plenty of flexibility.
Classical Education
Classical education draws heavily from the literature, history, philosophy, languages, and ideas of Western civilization and often places significant emphasis on logic, rhetoric, great books, memorization, and the development of reasoning.
Many classical homeschool programs organize learning around stages commonly described as grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Younger students establish foundational knowledge. Older students increasingly examine relationships between ideas, construct arguments, discuss difficult questions, and learn to communicate their own reasoning clearly.
Classical homeschooling tends to appeal to families who value history, literature, discussion, critical thinking, and academically rigorous study.
Charlotte Mason
Charlotte Mason was a British educator whose philosophy has become especially influential among homeschool families.
A Charlotte Mason-inspired education typically emphasizes rich literature rather than dry textbooks, short focused lessons, nature study, art and music appreciation, narration, habit formation, and exposure to beautiful and meaningful ideas.
You may hear Charlotte Mason homeschoolers refer to “living books.”
A living book is generally a well-written, engaging book written by an author who cares deeply about the subject rather than a textbook designed primarily to summarize information.
This approach can create a gentle educational atmosphere without sacrificing intellectual depth.
Montessori-Inspired Homeschooling
Montessori education emphasizes independence, carefully prepared learning environments, hands-on materials, practical life skills, concentration, and allowing children to work developmentally at an appropriate pace.
A Montessori-inspired homeschool might organize learning materials where children can reach them independently, provide real tools rather than toy versions whenever appropriate, and encourage children to complete meaningful activities with increasing independence.
Families do not necessarily have to recreate a certified Montessori classroom to incorporate Montessori principles into home education.
Unit Studies
Unit studies organize multiple subjects around a common topic.
Imagine that your child becomes fascinated by oceans.
Instead of treating each subject as completely separate, you could read literature about ocean voyages, study marine biology for science, map the world’s oceans for geography, calculate distances or water volume for mathematics, research famous explorers for history, and complete an ocean-themed writing project.
One subject becomes the thread connecting many areas of learning.
Unit studies can be especially useful for families teaching several children at different grade levels because everyone can explore the same broad subject at an appropriate level.
Project-Based Learning
Project-based homeschooling organizes learning around meaningful projects, questions, problems, or creations.
A child interested in gardening might design a garden, calculate its dimensions, develop a budget, research soil chemistry, study plant biology, keep a growing journal, examine local ecosystems, and eventually prepare a presentation about the project.
Academic skills are learned while completing something with a practical purpose.
This can be particularly effective for children who understand information best when they can see why they are learning it.
Eclectic Homeschooling
Eclectic homeschooling simply means taking useful elements from several different methods.
And in reality, this is where many homeschooling families eventually end up.
You might use a traditional mathematics curriculum, Charlotte Mason-style literature, unit studies for science, a classical history program, Montessori-inspired activities for a younger child, and an interest-led approach on Fridays.
You are not required to pledge allegiance to a particular homeschooling philosophy.
The goal is to build an education that works for the children actually sitting at your kitchen table.
Unschooling
Unschooling is one of the most misunderstood forms of home education.
At its core, unschooling emphasizes child-led, interest-driven learning rather than following a predetermined school curriculum or recreating classroom instruction at home.
An unschooling family may allow a child’s interests and natural curiosity to guide much of what is studied.
A fascination with dinosaurs might lead to biology, geology, evolution, museum visits, drawing, reading, measurements, timelines, and eventually entirely different subjects.
A child who loves cooking may encounter fractions, chemistry, nutrition, geography, economics, reading, measurement, and cultural history through that interest.
Unschooling does not necessarily mean doing nothing.
Parents may spend considerable time providing books, experiences, conversations, travel, tools, classes, museum visits, documentaries, experiments, community opportunities, and other resources that allow interests to grow into deeper learning.
However, there is an important legal distinction to remember.
Calling your approach “unschooling” does not exempt your family from your state’s homeschool law.
If your state requires particular subjects, records, instructional days, assessments, portfolios, or other evidence of education, an unschooling family still needs to comply with those requirements.
This is another reason understanding your state’s law must come before selecting a homeschool philosophy.
Online Homeschool Curriculum
Online learning can also be part of independent homeschooling.
A family may purchase an online mathematics course, use a complete online curriculum, enroll a teenager in an online foreign-language class, or combine digital classes with traditional books and hands-on learning.
Using an online program does not automatically make a student a public-school student.
The important question is who operates the program and under what legal arrangement the child is enrolled.
A privately purchased online curriculum used by an independently homeschooling family is very different from enrolling a child in a state-operated virtual public school.
The computer may look the same.
The legal and educational arrangement may be completely different.
Homeschool Co-Ops and Community Learning
Homeschooling also does not mean children must learn exclusively at home or exclusively from their parents.
Homeschool cooperatives, commonly called co-ops, allow homeschooling families to gather for classes, activities, clubs, field trips, science labs, art, music, foreign languages, sports, and social opportunities.
Some are informal groups run entirely by parents. Others operate organized classes with paid instructors.
Homeschool students may also learn through libraries, museums, community organizations, tutors, music teachers, sports programs, online courses, dual-enrollment college classes, volunteer work, apprenticeships, and countless other opportunities.
A parent’s role as the director of a homeschool education does not mean the parent personally has to teach every subject.
You Do Not Have to Choose One Perfect Method
One of the greatest advantages of homeschooling is that an educational approach can change.
The curriculum that works wonderfully for a six-year-old may not work for that same child at twelve.
One sibling may thrive with workbooks and clearly defined assignments while another learns best by building, discussing, experimenting, and reading.
A family may begin with a highly structured curriculum because structure feels reassuring. Two years later, they may feel comfortable designing unit studies and selecting individual resources.
Another family may discover that having everything professionally planned reduces stress and allows them to enjoy homeschooling more.
Both approaches can work.
Successful homeschooling is not about recreating someone else’s homeschool.
It is about developing an education that meets your child’s needs while remaining consistent with the laws of your state.
Where Should a New Homeschooling Parent Begin?
Start with law before curriculum.
Determine the homeschooling requirements in your state and understand the legal educational option you are choosing.
Then think about your child.
How does your child learn? What captures their attention? Where do they need more support? Do they enjoy structure or need more freedom? Do they learn through reading, conversation, movement, projects, repetition, visuals, hands-on work, or some combination of these?
Next, consider your own family.
A curriculum that looks beautiful online will not help very much if it requires four hours of preparation every evening and you realistically have twenty minutes.
Your homeschool should fit your family rather than forcing your family to fit someone else’s idea of homeschooling.
Once those pieces are clear, curriculum shopping becomes much easier.
Homeschooling Is an Education, Not a Location
Perhaps the most helpful thing to understand about homeschooling is that home is the base of the education, not the boundary of it.
Learning can happen at the kitchen table, in the backyard, at a museum, beside a creek, in the library, while traveling, inside a science laboratory, during music lessons, in a community garden, through a conversation with a grandparent, or while trying to understand why a homemade bread recipe did not rise.
There are families who homeschool with carefully organized schedules and families whose days look almost nothing like conventional school.
There are classical homeschoolers, unschoolers, Charlotte Mason families, traditional homeschoolers, Montessori-inspired families, eclectic homeschoolers, and families who cannot think of a label that describes what they do.
The important first steps are much simpler:
Know your state’s law. Understand the educational arrangement you are choosing. Learn how your child learns. Then build from there.
You do not have to create the perfect homeschool before you begin.
You simply need to begin thoughtfully—and give yourself permission to adjust as your family learns together.
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