Call me crazy, but how crazy is it that I can instruct my kids to do something, but don’t take my own instruction well. Talk about practicing what you preach. I love learning about homeschool instruction and curriculum and am equally thrilled to teach what I’ve learned. For me, teaching is the thrilling part but for new homeschooling families, that’s not the case.
Before diving into successful homeschool instruction, remember children need to learn, how to learn not to be instructed to do so. We as homeschooling homemakers need to build relationships with our children and create a safe environment within our home so our children can transition seemly from learning to leisure. Then true learning can begin.
Learn more about taking the stress out of homeschool planning with the homeschooling success management system–click here for your free download resource. Armed with 6 Tips for Homeschool Success, it’s time to get into all things homeschool instruction.
Understanding facts behind homeschool instructional strategies
What are instructional strategies, you ask? Instructional strategies are strategies or techniques educators use to help students become independent, strategic learners. The goal is, to set up a child to learn, how they like to or are able to learn. In other words, teachers provide instruction in various styles of learning in hopes that a student will independently use the appropriate learning style needed to grasp new concepts, meet goals and accomplish tasks no matter the situation.
Understanding your own learning style as well as your child’s will help you become a successful homeschool teacher. To know more about learning styles click here for more information.
This may or may not be the first time you’ve heard the words instructional strategies, but these words are far from complicated, let me break it down for you by types of instructional strategies so you can incorporate these strategies into lesson plans.
Teach mind-blowing lessons using direct and indirection instruction
As it sounds, direct instruction is as simple as you directly instructing your homeschooler with instruction for example through a lecture or lesson, guided questions, including various examples.
Indirect instruction is also as described and is learner-driven. For example, the teacher facilitates any instruction needed following assigned instructions. This type of instruction encourages students to solve problems their own way using problem-solving skills and encourages them to experiment with learning.
The secret to experiential learning is
Like indirect instruction, experimental learning is all about being hands-on and learner-focused. These strategies focus on the learning process and experimental aspect of learning using concepts known as sharing, analyzing and processing, generalizing, applying, and so on. Teaching is as easy as thinking outside the box
Ever heard of the scientific method? Well, experimental learning is kind of the same thing. Remember way back to elementary school and the science fair. What was your science fair project? Do you recall the steps of the scientific method? Research, observe, experiment, data…I bet you didn’t think you were experimenting with learning, did you? But how do you apply these teaching strategies for homeschooling?
Application made easy through homeschool instruction and curriculum.
To truly understand application made easy, one of the steps in this process or in my Homeschool 101 course is to identify your unique learning style as well as your child’s. Remember first and foremost, you are the teacher and sometimes teachers have to teach themselves or relearn new skills to teach others. Teaching starts with you identifying and understanding how you as the student-teacher learn best.
Click here to take your learning style quiz.
I can’t remember a time when I enjoyed learning until I learned to learn using my own learning style. Over the years my dominant learning style has transformed from visual into auditory, partly because well, who has time to sit and watch how to do something these days, auditory learning is my next best option.
Knowing how I learn a new skill or how to best understand my children’s curriculum, sets me the teacher up to differentiate instruction and or implement homeschool teaching strategies effectively. For example, when it comes to teaching my homeschoolers art after I’ve studied the lesson or taught myself how to…the strategy I choose to teach my children an art lesson is the experiential learning strategy.
This leads me to take my children on a field trip to an art museum. There I can use authentic workplace materials to produce a visual picture of the artist’s work we are discussing in the lesson.
Or during this trip to the art museum, I may choose to sign up my children for a class at the museum to expand on the lesson. Most classrooms typically design instruction to reflect experimental learning. Such as, learning via independent study or interactive instruction.
Examples of independent study would be
Any type of study in which the student is studying on their own or under the guidance of an instructor who encourages students to develop self-reliance, take initiative, and self-improvement skills. It brings me no greater joy to hear my children come home and say “Hey mom! guess what my friend (whom they just met) and I did today we wrote about…., shared with each other in a small group about, etc.”
From here the teacher might choose to bring interactive instruction into the part of the lesson.
Interactive instruction is mainly discussion and sharing. Students interact with each other and use skills such as listening, observation, interpersonal, learning how to organize thoughts, etc. Gaining an understanding of the situation or lesson being presented to them is the goal of interactive instruction.
But wait, how do I as the homeschooling educator use these teaching strategies for homeschoolers?
Success is in the plan, approach, and prioritizing.
The plan! When it comes to curriculum, you got this. As a homeschool teacher, you’ve researched the best curriculum for your family’s unique learning style(s) and followed the 6 Tips for Homeschool Success system, and know the basics of Homeschool 101 making your choice of curriculum easy to implement and life manageable. The only thing left to do is plan and schedule.
Plan out your day, week, month, or homeschool year, using a Simple Daily Planner or any planner template of choice, pull out your curriculum, and get to lesson planning. As a homeschooling homemaker especially if you homeschool multiple children differentiating instruction may be difficult at times.
But it doesn’t have to be. When you plan ahead and know how to break down your subjects.
All that’s left is the approach to the lesson
Approach any lesson by subject and task. I like to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. In other words, I know what subject to teach each child individually, and or in a group setting, and what subjects should be co-oped out. From here I use a lesson plan template to create a lesson based on what I am teaching to whom. Then, I will determine my teaching strategy.
For instance, for our science curriculum, this year I chose a unit study. We study birds in the area. I will approach any lesson in the unit from an independent study strategy by allowing my children to journal first, discuss the lesson, then teach what they do not know. If we are needing to take a nature walk or trip this is why I say you must prioritize each lesson based on subject and time.
As my children grow older, unit studies become short and sweet, because my main priority should be to differentiate my instruction to meet all subjects and skill levels, right? Meaning I am one teacher to several subjects and levels. So I must teach each subject and level of my child.
Prioritizing is brilliant, isn’t it!
Prioritize or predict what in your homeschool schedule might take the longest to teach and when you as the teacher are capable of teaching each subject. Implementing the use of a block schedule planner makes all the difference for me. My plan is written in my block schedule planner, from there I approach each subject based on the use of time. As in how much time will take me to teach each subject. Then I manage homeschooling priorities accordingly.
Simply, according to my daily schedule, Mondays and Fridays are busier but also the days in which a new topic is introduced for math or a quiz. So what do you do when your daily schedule is short on time? Prioritize those teaching strategies! As a classroom teacher, I knew that when my time was cut short due to changes in the schedule I would need to change my teaching strategy to effectively teach a lesson to my student using concepts they could grasp. The same goes for homeschooling.
Shift your priorities and know what is important to teach when to set up effective teaching strategies. Let’s just say, on busy homeschooling days my teaching strategy for history became experimental verse direct, and science lessons are shortened to video learning. Because I don’t know about you, but around here teaching each child their individual math lesson using direct instruction is my main priority.
Next, but certainly not least comes homeschool instruction.
Plan, approach, and prioritize are great concepts to make way for awesome homeschool instruction from an amazing homeschool teacher like yourself. I don’t know about you but homeschool instructional strategies should feel easy peasy right about now.
Real-life application
- Math-Direct instruction
- History-Experimental
- Science-Independent study
Again, based on the day and subject and or allowed time my instructional strategies will change.
Get your free resource management guide and start your journey to homeschool success day with 6 Tips for Homeschool Succes.
More resources for teaching homeschool instructional strategies
I hope I’ve answered any and all questions and presented ideas to make it easier to homeschool your children. It’s been a blast sharing my instructional strategy tips with you. It’s my goal to help and serve you in all ways homemaking and homeschooling. Don’t forget to check out this block schedule template to get you started on your household planning journey today. If you need more support planning your ultimate CEO household management system join me here or sign up here for your free 30-minute Ask Me Anything Homeschool consultation & I’ll let you know how I can best support you.
Until next time,
Jaclyn