Some thoughts to keep in mind if considering a switch to full time homeschooling - full time homeschooling is a huge commitment on behalf of the parents to educate their children - it’s a commitment - it’s a passion - yes it’s a full time job of sorts of its own - it’s parents knowing they are responsible for the education of their children.

Start out slow - keep in mind, you’re learning how to home school too.

There’s no perfect curriculum and it will take a while to figure out what works - but you’ll figure out real quick what doesn’t work - so be prepared to make changes in curriculum and yes be prepared for stubborn kids.

Remember - they’re used to you as their parent, not as also their teacher.

Take it slow, make it fun ... these are your kids ... enjoy the education as you’d be surprised what you wind up learning too while you’re teaching them ... maybe you’ll learn certain aspects of ancient civilizations that you never even learned about it in your own education from youth ... maybe you’ll surprise yourself in laughing at oh yeah that’s the sound of that vowel ... maybe you’ll discover your kids can learn a lot about the earth just being outside and talking with them about the different types of trees and leaves and soils and rocks etc ... maybe the kids have things they’d like to learn about, so find out their ideas and turn those into fun immersed studies (unit studies) ... take the time to learn about the saints and yeah life wasn’t so easy for them either!

Yes, have fun, keep it simple, start out slow ... homeschooling is a journey for the family, not grueling work making everyone unhappy - it’s life changing, make memories ... these are your kids.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. You may love the notion of homeschooling, but you might have a child that fights it ... they might eventually like it, but they also might wind up hating it more ... then homeschooling becomes a fight and the fight isn’t worth it ... you’ll have to be prepared to make changes and try something else ... these are your kids and you have to remember what’s best for them, not what’s best for you.

Make memories along your homeschooling path, the kids and you will remember the journey a lifetime ... the good, the bad, the ugly, and the fun!

Many Catholic homeschooling resources and topics and curriculums and ideas are actually on our website.

We don't have all the answers - each family is uniquely different from the other - and what works with one family  or even one child, might not work for the other. Homeschooling is trial and error, it's a path the family takes.

Get a cup of coffee or tea or wine, plan to spend some time browsing through our site - there’s a lot on there that you could take time to read more about homeschooling and all that’s available for homeschooling resources - Catholic resources - yes, pretty much mostly Catholic, after all, we are a Catholic homeschool site here in Maryland!

Our name says it all ... Maryland Catholic Homeschoolers. Visit us on FaceBook too!

Faith at (Home) School

Home-Schooling Programs With a Strong Catholic Identity

Considering home schooling your children? Or changing programs? Here’s the rundown on faithful Catholic home-school programs and supplementals.

Though it is not a definitive list, the programs discussed are some of the most popular Catholic programs.

Maryland K-12 location meets in Westminster - contact anytime during school year to make a shadow date.

Applications for academic school year are currently being accepted. Click below to learn more about the admissions process and to access the family application:

https://rcahybrid.org/Centers/Baltimore_Maryland

https://rcahybrid.org/Apply

     
                
   Saint Peter the Rock Catholic Home School Tutorial
                for grades 8th-12th - meets in Bowie Maryland

St. Bede’s is a Catholic homeschool cooperative that utilizes a classical curriculum to educate our children in academics, virtue, and faith. We meet Tuesday mornings in Laurel, Maryland. We offer classes covering grades K-8.  We follow the Catholic Schoolhouse curriculum, featuring science experiments, art projects, music, and memory work in religion, Latin, history, and geography. Our upper grammar students (grades 4-8) also meet in a seminar block for a history-based literature study.
  www.saintbedehomeschool.org

                                  for grades 2nd-8th - meets in Anne Arundel County

         St. John Paul II Academy Co-op (Severna Park)

 
A full-day spiritual, academic cooperative for the entire family (Nursery – 8^th grade). [To participate, families must have a 2nd-grade or older student.] We offer a structured curriculum that fulfills all requirements for History, Literature, Writing, Science, and Art, as well Logic/Grammar. In addition, there is a half-day pre-school program for families with children ages 3-5.

We meet on Thursdays, Sept – May, 8:00am – 3:30pm, beginning with Meditation and Mass at St. John’s and classes held at Our Shepherd Lutheran Church.  For more information, visit our website www.StJPII.org email StJPIIcoop@gmail.com

                                                            St. John Paul II High School Tutorial (Severna Park)

Full-time and part-time classes offered

Meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from Sept-May

St. John Paul II High School Tutorial is the resource you are looking for to provide support in educating your high schoolers in a Catholic community.   Emphasis on Catholic character development is of utmost importance.  Prayer and meditation are incorporated several times throughout the school day.  Encouraging an atmosphere of Catholic morality, our motto is Enlighten the mind, Foster the heart, Train the will and Model the Truth.

Our tutorial provides the opportunity for tutors to guide and support your homeschooling endeavors using a hybrid of classical and traditional curriculum.  We accomplish this by having tutors available twice each week on Mondays and Wednesdays from September through May.  Parents remain the primary educators of their children and ensure work assigned by the tutor is completed.  Through our tutors we offer a variety of core classes for *grades 9-12: English, Science, Math, History and Religion as well as enrichment classes:  Latin, Logic and Speech/Debate. * 8^th grade students may enroll in a Math class and enrichment classes.

                                                                                Website: www.StJPII.org    Contact StJPIItutorial@gmail.com for more information 

Homeschooling Experts Affirm Parents’ Primary Educator Role despite Government Oversight

from the Cardinal Newman Society, by Kimberly Scharfenberger, 20 January 2015

The government should support, not usurp, the role of parents as primary educators of their children, agreed two Catholic homeschooling experts in an interview with The Cardinal Newman Society about the current state of regulations imposed on families that elect to homeschool.

“The educational benefits [of homeschooling] are many,” said Dr. Mary Kay Clark, director of Seton Home Study School. This includes the student’s ability to “proceed at the pace that is best for him in each subject” without being hurried along or held back by classmates. Additionally, Dr. Clark noted that nationally-standardized tests “have proved over the years that homeschooled students consistently outperform in-school students” with average homeschooled students scoring in the 85th percentile.

Laura Berquist, founder and director of Mother of Divine Grace School, said that homeschooling is a natural way “to provide a thorough and consistent intellectual, spiritual, and moral formation for our children.” Catholic parents are able to “tailor educational instruction to the individual child” and ensure that children are raised “within the shelter of a living Catholic culture.”

Yet for many homeschooling families across the country, government oversight has presented considerable difficulties, both experts argued.

In the school district of Goochland, Va., Christian homeschooling families, as well as children ages 14 and up, have been subject to interrogations by the school board in order to evaluate whether the families had sufficient grounds for a religious exemption, according to Todd Starnes in a recent Townhall.com article. 

The intrusive policy was recently repealed following opposition from homeschooling families, including the Pruiett’s, who fought against the policy’s violation of the family’s “right to an exemption from school attendance based on the religious training the parents are providing to the child - regardless of what the child believes.”

“We are Christians and we homeschool our children so that we can instill in them Christian values - from an educational standpoint so that they will acknowledge God in every discipline of life,” Douglas Pruiett told Starnes. “You’re not going to find that in public schools.”

“We know from various Church documents, especially Rerum Novarum by Leo XIII, that the role of government with respect to the family is to foster parental authority, not to usurp it,” Berquist explained to the Society.

“Parents are clearly in a better position to know their children’s needs than the state is, so parents who want more oversight should be free to seek it, but to enforce more rules and regulations from the top down is contrary to the right role of government,” Berquist contended.

“We all recognize that there are times when children need the protection of the state due to parents who are not properly caring for their children, but that is not the norm and should not be standard on the basis of which laws are made,” Berquist continued. “Such ‘oversight’ weakens the whole fabric of society, which is only strong when families are strong.”

Dr. Clark told the Society that state regulations often do little more than inconvenience homeschooling families. “Oversight can mean many things, but with bureaucrats, it usually means time away from what is important and it also means plenty of paperwork,” said Dr. Clark. “Homeschooling students outperform in-schooling students on standardized tests in states that have minimal oversight as well as in states that have more oversight.”

According to a recent Houston Chronicle piece, the number of homeschooled children in the country is currently at an estimated 2.2 million, and states are beginning to relax certain restrictions. Pennsylvania, which required homeschooling families to register with their local school district and submit lesson plans, has reportedly “eased its regulations” as a result of homeschooling support.

Throughout Berquist’s experience in homeschooling, she has “never seen that more government regulation produced better schooling.” Instead, “good schooling in any venue comes from a desire on the part of those in charge to give the great good of truth to their students.”

Dr. Clark explained to the Society that Seton Home Study has students in all 50 states and noted that families in states with demanding regulations - like New York - “put up with the situation but work with groups who are trying to make the regulations less burdensome.” Sometimes, Dr. Clark said, the burden “is not so much due to the law as it is due to local officials who try to make families go even beyond what is required by law.”

“Society and government ought to respect the family community and do its best to help parents to educate their children, rather than merely increasing oversight through paper work and other forms of control,” Dr. Clark stated.