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The McGraw-Hill Homeschooling Companion
 Get it at amazon.com! |
The
McGraw-Hill Homeschooling Companion |
If you have just begun researching homeschooling, you have probably noticed that as soon as one question is answered, you have thought of another. Unfortunately, there is often no shortage of answers, with each of your homeschooling acquaintances advocating a different method of homeschooling with a passion that can be frightening even to veteran homeschoolers. For someone just beginning the homeschool journey, what is needed is an unbiased source from which to learn the basics. Fortunately, there are several excellent books on the market that offer an explanation of the basics.
The McGraw-Hill Homeschooling Companion is just such a resource. From the basics such as why people homeschool through a chapter devoted to determining whether homeschooling is right for your family, the Homeschooling Companion will introduce you to the basics of homeschooling and help you to work through that decision. Once you've decided to homeschool, you're likely to at some point experience cold feet. The authors, Laura Saba and Julie Gattis, have anticipated such feelings and are ready to guide you through the murky waters of those first few weeks with a perspective that will reinforce your decision. "Clarifying Your Vision" discusses the various styles of homeschooling, while Taking the Plunge covers defining attendance, creating lesson plans, and transition and deschooling. The Homeschooling Companion even includes a chapter with some resourceful ideas about how to homeschool as a single parent or when both parents work full-time. This chapter is not hypothetical for these authors; Laura Saba is a single parent and Julie Gattis and her husband both work full-time.
A resourceful chapter entitled "Tools of the Trade" details what is essential, useful, or simply a nice addition to the schoolroom. An entire chapter devoted to computers for the homeschool is a useful guide for new homeschoolers who wish to take advantage of the free resources available through the Internet, as well as the low cost resources to be found on educational CD-ROMs. Chapters on each of the core subjects (language arts, math, science, social studies, foreign language, art, music, and PE) are filled with ideas of stress-free ways to incorporate these areas into your school day.
Field trips, burnout, working students, and college are well covered in separate chapters. Of course, no how-to-homeschool book would be complete without the requisite information on state laws and state homeschool organizations. The Homeschooling Companion is no exception, and their format is easy to scan and quickly grasp. A third appendix is a useful list of companies who supply homeschool products. A brief scope and sequence and glossary complete the book.
While there are several basic homeschool manuals on the market, Saba
and Gattis have written a book that covers the basics from the perspective
of two veteran homeschoolers, one a former school teacher. Both of them
have homeschooled under unconventional conditions that vary from the
more common single income, two parent family. Based on their own homeschooling
experiences, they have included ideas and recommendations that will enrich
your own homeschool. The McGraw-Hill Homeschooling Companion is
definitely a manual to which you will refer throughout your homeschool
years.
Get The
McGraw-Hill Homeschooling Companion at amazon.com.