Homeschooling advantages and disadvantages

Benefits of homeschooling

Time with your lovely family – A closer relationship with your children
To be able to help them with things they have difficulty with.
To see your children develop and inspire them.
To focus on things they are fascinated by or passionate about.
Less time wasted in institutions, more time together.
Go on trips when you want and not just during holiday seasons.
Experience and learn things together, at home and away.
They are not under any pressure to be an adult too soon, or other bad influences
Protect them from peer presure and bullying.
You can go on trips when it suits, Flexibility.
You can homeschool wherever you want, take it with you.
No homework after school.
You can choose, the school books you like! which is so important, since that is what creates identity and later choices in life!
The curriculum / subjects are up to you.

Disadvantages of homeschooling

Homeschooling is not easy, it requires self-discipline.
Being organized and create good routines. You have to remember that even though you are their mother, you have to work as a teacher and teach and be committed.
Be passionate about homeschooling, so they don’t lose interest. Even in things you don’t have much interest in yourself, but maybe your child has.
Its like going to work in your own home! Your job is homeschooling! You have become a teacher 🙂

Much of it is maybe not a disadvantage as such, but it requires work, time and effort.

Our Homeschool Routines

Routines and good habits are super important here, so everyone knows what’s going to happen. That way you avoid a lot of awkward situations and unprepared children. (read more about routines)

It’s funny, but I’ve actually made fun of the fact, that we have to homeschool on the weekends, because the children have somehow been more creative and prepared when there was a program. But we all enjoy our weekends, so it probably won’t work 🙂

Elias and Daniel are in the same grade, there’s only 1 year and about 3 months difference, we think it works great, we emphasize that we are each good at different things and that it’s not a competition about who’s the best. For some that can work, but not all.

Our 2 oldest’s school day looked like this when we started out, but now it’s completely different!

7:00 Wake up for the children, everyone has to make their bed, put their clothes in place and brush their teeth after breakfast.
8:00 The first lesson starts, where I have prepared a snack for them, which they eat during Bible story.
9:30 They are finished with the first 3 lessons: BIBLE -ARITHMATIC and SEATWORK
Reces
10:30-11:45 3 more lessons: PHONICS – READING and WRITING
Recess/ meal
The last 3 lessons at 1:15 pm: HISTORY – SCIENCE and SPELLING AND POETRY
On Friday we have a different school day: DANISH – MUSIC and HEBREW
Link to our materials.

Now that I have 5 kids: we dont have as many subjects, and try to finish with all subjects around 12:00

I think it is important to think about what kind of homeschool fits with your kids and size of family, I made an example, but this example has been changed a number of times, due to age changes and new borns. So I defintely want to encourage you, to sit down and think about, what homeschool subjects you think is important for you, and how it fits with your day.

The picture below is from the beginning of our homeschooling, currently the 2 older ones are in their room and the 3 younger ones are in a their room together.

New Routines

It's okay to change them :)

Love your Homeschool job

Good leadership training

Being a stay-at-home mom and homeschooling should be because you love being with your children.

Some call it a “work-at-home” mom. There are good challenges, here I am trained to be a leader, to be able to organize, my character is put to the test, oh dear patience, love and self-discipline! it is homeschool for Mommy also!

You also go on a bit of a self-denial trip, where you have to be careful not to hurt yourself, what helps me, are the moments I spend time with God, he gives me perspective or a good sermon and my gratitude becomes great for the gift it is to be allowed to be a “work-at-home” mom.

I can so recommend to get up earlier then the kids, 5:30 to have time with God, pray for the kids. That is a total game changer for me, and I wish I had done it sooner.

A good encouragement and hug from your husband also goes a long way.

The impact we have on our kids, which then also is the world they live in, is greater then you think, you have a gift and opportunity to give them the best you can think off, while creating mini images of what they learn.

I use to think that I had to check out and follow everything the danish schools were teaching, but I was so disagreeing with the curriculum! So I decided to ask God, my greatest teacher; Daddy what do you think we as a family should homeschool?

I was surprised at the answer, cause it soundet so different then what I had imagined a school day would look like.

Teach them my word, that is wisdom! not the visdom of this world, but godly wisdom.

Yes we also have math and other subjects, but our main focus is biblebased reading and writing.

We espeicially love bibleproject for the older kids, we use it everyday. their bible classrooms and videos are a huge blessing!

bibleproject.com