Some of My Favorite How to Homeschool and Homeschool Encouragement Articles

New Note: I am added this post to the Homeschool Carnival for this week. The Carnival is up... check it out by clicking on the button below:

My daughters have a young lady who is a follower on their blog that was not homeschooled but is considering it for her future children. Her name is Paulina. She wants some resources on where to start.

Well... I have been called the Queen of Resources by some ladies in my homeschool support group...

not that I would call myself that..


Oh no... I am too humble for that!

I hope you know I am just kidding. Also, I have been watching to many Jane Austin movies... especially Emma... If you know that movie you will know what I mean...

This will be the first in a series of posts on homeschooling. This first post includes some of my favorite free online articles. There are many articles and posts on the internet these days. If you do a Google search you will come up with a googol of articles (a googol is 10 to the 100th power or one with a hundred 0's) and that is a lot. There are many homeschool blogs also. But who has time to look at all of that. Here I will give you some of my favorites... if you need more after this please feel free to use Google.

Free Online Articles 

Homeschool Marketplace
One of my favorite places to find beginning information used to be the Elijah Catalog. We called it a Magalog - Catalog + Magazine = Magalog. Their catalog was so filled with great articles on homeschooling. When the company went out of the book selling business I kept one of their catalogs. Some of their articles are now online at their new website, but not all of them. If you want all the great articles you will have to buy one of their old catalogs. They are worth the price, let me tell you. I still use the articles in this catalog; not only for me but it is part of the requirements for my children. In High School I require my kids to do a study of homeschooling so they will hopefully be more prepared to homeschool their own kids or support their future wives when they homeschool. Reading the articles in the Elijah Company Catalog is one of the first things I require them to do. Here is a link to the catalog at Homeschool Marketplace - Old Elijah Company Catalog

Here are links to the Article Sections of Homeschool Marketplace. In each section you can click on the links in the left hand column to find more articles. Each of them leads to a new page with a new article. There is a lot here... take some time and enjoy them. 

• Home School Teaching Approaches
• The Importance of Reading Great Books
• Choosing Teaching Materials
• Newsletter Archives 

Diana Waring Articles I love Diana Waring and have since I first met her soo, sooooo many years ago, when my girls were very young. I recommend all her stuff but I will get to book recommendations in another post. Also Diana's back issues of newsletters can be found here... these are really good too. Also, Diana has a blog.. though she hasn't written on there for almost a year.

Eclectic Homeschool Online has lots of wonderful articles:

• Priorities
• Homeschool Methods
  

CHF Web Article Index (below are listed some of my favorite articles from this site ... the following is not a complete list) These articles are a little "old" but the message is the same... they are some of my favorite homeschool encouragement articles. All of these are by Tamara Eaton. I have many of these printed out and in a file on homeschool encouragement and read them over and over.

• Homeschool Library (the list of articles)
  
• Anti-Homeschooling? Ten Common excuses which are actually valid reasons to homeschool!
  
• Getting off to a GOOD start! (And "Staying on Task")

• Article of the Week (you can get the whole list here or see note below)
  
• Back to School List: Essentials for This School Year!
• Overcoming Condemnation
• Managing Our Time!
• Curriculum Wars!
• Formula For Failure
• Growing as Parents: Our Influence and Attitude 
  

        Note: You can find 57 articles by Tamara Eaton, like the ones above, by using the following web address and changing the number after the word week to any number between 1 and 57. I could not find a list of these so this is the best I can tell you. Examples (first and last): http://chfweb.net/articles/week1.htm to http://chfweb.net/articles/week57.htm

For any Mom's reading this post there are also articles in these sections
Titus Two Library  These are about being a Godly Wife and Mother
Bible Issues Library  These are about .... ummm... the Bible (lol)

The Old Schoolhouse- The Magazine for Homeschool Families
    Article Categories
          Getting the Homeschool Journey Started

Other Places to find great articles:  

Practical Homeschooling Articles / Columnists

Homeschool Oasis Main Page There is a lot of information at Barb's site... have a look around. I highly recommend her stuff. Grab a cup of tea (I prefer sweet tea at this time of year) or another favorite beverage and spend some time looking around. Here is one of the best articles on her site to get you started: HELP! I Need to Start (or REstart) Homeschooling But I Have NO Idea Where to (Re)Start!

Teaching Home Magazine Article Archive

Articles by Debra Bell

Ten Good Reasons to Homeschool  

Top 10 Reasons To Homeschool — Move Over, David Letterman! this is an interesting list with a number of links to other reasons to homeschool articles including a reasons not to homeschool article.  

Just Enough and Nothing More - many articles including:
   a Newbies section one article I found very interesting:  10 Reasons NOT to Homeschool
 
A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling Current Featured Articles 
    the sidebar has links to many other articles on many subjects
        Here is one I found interesting...  and cute... it is actually a cartoon
           20 Great Reasons You Homeschool
        I am sure you will find many others here

Homeschool-Articles.com  Articles by Homeschoolers for Homeschoolers!
The topic links make it easy to find articles on things you are interested in. Here is a good one for those just thinking about homeschooling -                      Choosing to Home School Your Child 

I hope this gets you started Paulina, and my other readers, and I hope you enjoy some of the articles I have linked to. They will get you started on your homeschool journey if you are just starting... or just in the beginning planning stages... or like Paulina, hoping to someday homeschool your own kids. If you are already homeschooling these should get you fired up for your school year and maybe one, or more, of them will help you have your best homeschool year yet.

If one of them especially touches your heart come back and leave me a comment... I love comments.

The next post I plan to do in this series will be My Favorite How to Homeschool Books.

Debbie