Questions For Those Considering Homeschooling - Step 3

Before you pick a route for a trip, you first need to choose your destination. And there are so many great places to go! And then there are different types of trips. There are trips where you a going from place to place from the time you wake up till your head hits the pillow, and others where you sit around your campsite soaking in the sunshine and fresh air.

My husband and I plan trips very differently. He is all about the plans and logistics, I am happy just to figure out things as we go. Our best trips have been when we have elements of both. It has become much more difficult to find a campground with a reservation, especially for those highly desirable national parks, and without doing some research ahead of time we would have missed out on some really amazing side stops along the way. While planning a trip to the Rocky Mountains we did research and found an opportunity to stay at the homestead from the Little House on the Prairie books, which we had been reading. It helped bring those books to life and was one of the highlights of the trip for our girls. Not filling in every moment left us time for those spur of the moment discoveries like a really incredible museum with mammoth fossils in the middle of Nebraska we stumbled upon. One of our favorite family hikes was the time I convinced my family to follow what turned out to be a deer trail (literally).

These next questions are meant to help you think about what you are wanting from this journey. To think about your hopes and goals, those major places you want to be sure not to miss. They are meant to help you look at the big picture.

Your Vision

1. Why did you first consider homeschooling?

2. Why do you want to homeschool?

3. What do you want your kids to remember from their childhood?

4. What do you want them to have learned before leaving home?

5. What experiences do you want your child to have before leaving home?

6. What do you hope for your child to gain by being at home?

7. What do you hope a day homeschooling would look like?

8. What struggles do you anticipate having with homeschooling? What can you do to head-off these struggles?

The expression 'Don't miss the forest through the trees' can truly come into play while homeschooling and parenting. Having set goals for your homeschool before you start planning details will help foster the homeschool life you want. Once you've answered these questions, move onto the next step to start planning out the smaller details of your journey.