Our Little Red Schoolhouse

As the regular school year draws to an end, I’m getting more impatient and more excited to start our homeschooling journey.  Over the past few months, we’ve been reviewing / selecting curriculums, assessing and selecting an oversight agency to use and getting ourselves plugged into local homeschooler networks in our area.  We have also gotten Emily involved in Girl Scouts, so when she is no longer at her local school, it’ll be another way to stay connected with school friends.  We plan to do the same with Michael and decided he would really enjoy YMCA’s Adventure Guides club, but we (meaning Jeff) would need to stand one up first in this area.

I’m not concerned about the “S word” (socialization as it is known in homeschool circles); it’s one that often crops up.  There are so many daily homeschool events and activities in our local area, the kids will meet plenty of other kids…..and non peers too.  Virtually all the Sportcenters around us (e.g. ice skating, gymnastics, climbing, trampoline etc.) have special homeschool hours during the week.  Michael’s Crafts offers art classes for homeschoolers, local nature centers such as the Howard County Conservancy and many museums such as Smithsonian, and the Maryland Science Center offer homeschool programs.  The Smithsonian and our local Community College also offer semester long homeschool courses.  So, Maryland certainly has a wealth of resources for us to tap into.  We have many field trips on the horizon!

Maryland is very homeschool friendly.  Every state has different guidelines, some more onerous or bureaucratic than others.  Maryland homeschoolers are governed by Code of Maryland Regulations 13A.10.01 .  In a nutshell, it requires that we provide “regular, thorough instruction during the school year in English, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, health, and physical education at the appropriate grade level and include relevant materials and examples of the child’s work.”  That’s it.  We can choose specifically what and how we want to teach within each of those subject areas and add anything else we want – bliss. We don’t even have to keep attendance.

The County Board of Education will conduct one portfolio review during this time. We can choose to work directly with the Board of Education or through a 3^rd Party Agency that coordinates with them on our behalf.  As this is our first time, we have elected to use an Agency for the first year so we have a good idea of what is required for the review.  From speaking with veteran homeschoolers, it’s pretty straight forward to work directly with the County. 

The curriculums we selected will more than cover any review requirements with the documentation to boot.  We selected Moving Beyond the Page for Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies and Singapore Math (Goodbye Core Curriculum!). We will also develop our own “Unit Studies” around areas we are traveling to this year and other topics we want to dive into.

So, our books are in, the basement is set up as ‘homebase’ for our schooling, our trips are ‘planned’ (as much as we ever plan them) and we are ready to go.  The kids are as excited as we are, even once they found out not all the schooling will be in the RV!  Yesterday, school was closed, and they asked me in the morning to do homeschooling in the basement – so we read a book called “One Day in March” which talks about the different weather around the world, dovetailed that with astronomy and a geography lesson as they had to find all the countries from the book on our world map on the wall, did some relevant reading (for each age) and writing then went to the park for a long bike ride.  I know all days won’t be like that but to have them at all is a wonderful opportunity!