Homeschooling 101: A Guide to Getting Started. Paperback – April 21, 2013

I follow the authors blog on homeschooling, and saw this book on her website.This book is a great resource for anyone considering homeschooling. She gives you the tools and advice you need to feel confident in your homeschooling adventure. She offers great tips, and gives you insight on how she successfully runs her home school. She also provides links to free useful printable forms, and to some free and fee based curriculum resources. She covers it all, from maintaining the home while trying to homeschool, maintaining yourself, and sometimes just realizing you need not stress if your not quite on schedule.Once again, if you are just starting out homeschooling, or been at it for some time, this is a good read for all. Newbies will gain confidence and faith in themselves, and for those who have given it a go, you will relate to her struggles and how she handles them.Don't hesitate, this is money well spent.

Compared to other HS books, this book presented the homeschooling experience in an easy-to-read page turner with very useful information in each chapter! From how to prepare to how to conduct testing requirements by state, this book is a must-read. It answered all my questions (and then some) that caused me to have some apprehension about HS and now my toddlers are enjoying their HS environment because mommy has the tool to kick start their successful learning experience!!! Thanks Ms E. for your commitment to sharing your knowledge with us first-timers.

This book is a good book to read if you have no clue where to start or what to do. It doesn't go into extreme depth on any subject, but does cover many topics and practical problems that homeschooling will involve. This is the first book I've seen that explains what you do to take a curriculum and turn it into an actual plan. It gets my love just for that simple act.Pros:* Gives real examples from her own home school of day-to-day details such as schedule, chore chart, and how to deal when things go wrong.* Spans the entirety of homeschooling at a very high level, from pre-K to high school, so there is something for everyone* Free accompanying planner, but be aware there are religious aspects to various of the planner pages* Aside from her religious motivations for homeschooling, I found I really liked everything Erica had to say. Chapters such as "Time Management & Keeping Your Sanity" are full of common sense, good advice, and simple principles that can help.Cons / Room for improvement:* Some or all of the content is straight from her free blog (although, pro, it's easier and more cohesive to read it all in book form, and more portable too!)* There are some typos, mostly forgivable small grammar or spelling errors* It's a fairly large font, so those 249 pages go by quickly.As for the religious aspect, whether that is a pro or con depends on your personal perspective. If you're not home schooling for religious reasons, as I am not, you may need to take a mental (or physical!) pen and black out the occasional phrase, sentence, Bible quotation, or entire paragraph. I found that I could either ignore the religious text or replace it with something of similar but secular reasoning and the rest of the text continued to be entirely valid.Overall it was a helpful read.

This really is a Homeschooling 101 guide. Absolutely adore the simplicity. It helped me set up my entire year and really get into a 'I can do it!' attitude. I highly recommend this book if you are thinking about homeschooling or if you just need some help getting more organized. All the extras that can be printed out with the purchase of the book are great as well. I would buy this book again in a heartbeat.

I have followed the author's blog for a couple of years now. Soon after my son started kindergarten, I knew I would eventually homeschool him. Somehow I came across this author's blog and realized she was a wealth of information, derived from her experience as a homeschooler. So, after finally deciding this would be my son's last year in public school, I knew it was time to do my homework on homeschooling and this was where I needed to start. I am soooo thankful I made this purchase. From the very first chapter, I knew this book would answer the numerous questions I had swirling through my head, and as expected, it delivered. It is obvious the author wrote from experience because it's as if she knew the exact questions I had...........like, now that I've decided to start homeschooling, now what? Where do I begin? How do I know which program/curriculum to use? Where do I buy it from? How do I find out what the regulations are in my state regarding homeschooling my child? How do I know if I'm teaching my child enough? If you've got the questions, this book likely has the answers because it's the same questions she asked herself or others have asked her. I'm just glad this was the first purchase I made after deciding homeschooling would be in the near future. Now, it doesn't seem so scary and overwhelming.

As an atheist, I didn't realize this book would have so many references to religious teaching, god, and bible study in it. I read the entire book with my trusty Pilot G2 in hand so I could scribble through all mentions and bible verses, which was incredibly cathartic. What is left is an alright starting point for a new homeschooler, but I would never recommend this book for anyone interested in homeschooling secularly.

Loved this book, bought it for my toddler but used the methods immediately with my 5 year old! Very practical and not pushy. Gives you many different methods for homeschooling. This books just makes you feel comfortable with the idea of homeschooling. Exactly what I needed.