Teaching in a home school environment presents its challenges. Without the budget for supplies, textbooks, and materials, it can be difficult to prioritize which materials will provide the biggest value for your children. Homeschool teachers are also responsible for teaching all subject areas, managing their daily schedule, while balancing their own family life.
The curriculum is the number one guiding tool for how to structure a home school program. All lessons should stem from success criteria that are directly linked to curriculum expectations.
This is easier said than done, especially since there are dozens of curriculum expectations for each strand, and multiple strands for each subject. This presents the question of how to begin structuring a home school program.
Starting Out
Home school regulations fall under provincial jurisdiction and each province has its own Education Act and Regulations. It is important to begin exploring the homeschooling expectations and rules in your province or territory. Homeschooling is permitted in every province and territory in Canada. In Ontario, you can inform a local school board that you wish to transition your child to home school learning with a letter of intent. It is not required to inform the government of this decision. However, the requirements in other provinces vary.
Networking
Developing a full homeschool program is difficult, but fortunately, there are many social media platforms that allow you to find others who are in the same situation. These groups can help you share ideas, plans, and resources. There is no need to make extra work for yourself.
Social media platforms can introduce you to homeschooling families in your community. Networking provides opportunities to share resources and ideas. It also creates opportunities for homeschool students to connect and socialize with each other.
Using Teacher Resource Cabin Resources
Teacher Resource Cabin resources are designed as stand-alone resources that are suitable for homeschool settings. No textbooks or external materials are needed. Teacher Resource Cabin workbooks exist for the main subject areas of math, language, science and social studies. The content is introduced and taught using grade-level friendly language with is ideal for self-directed learning.
Assessment is done through a combination of quizzes, experiments, activities, and culminating tasks and tests; these assessments are included in the workbook packages. These educational materials are built with both homeschooling parents and teachers in mind.
Resources for some main subject areas are shown below: