How Can PEC Help?

Parents Educating Children is a volunteer run organization, where member parents serve in various positions. All members should take the opportunity to prayerfully consider how they can serve in PEC. New and veteran homeschoolers alike can find a place to serve.

PEC Parent Meetings are held throughout the year. They provide fellowship, encouragement and education for parents. At the meetings there are opportunities to hear a variety of speakers, receive important PEC, state and national homeschool updates, as well as check out and return PEC Library books and tapes.

The PEC Newsletter is published to inform members of homeschooling opportunities, issues, and events, and to offer encouraging and informative articles relating to homeschooling and the homeschooling lifestyle. It is published monthly except for December and July. Submissions to the newsletter are welcome and encouraged. Announcements of opportunities, classes and events of interest to homeschooling families are welcome as well.

PEC Regional Support Groups provide members an opportunity to meet monthly with other homeschoolers. You may attend any group(s) of your choice. We encourage you to find a group with whom you and your children are comfortable, and can best interact.

Some Facts About Homeschooling

• Nationally, home schoolers are noted for spelling bees, geography bees, math contest winners, and scholarships.
• 40,000 home schoolers are registered in Florida, with over 3,400 in Palm Beach County.
• Graduates of home schooling are accepted and recruited to numerous colleges.

Reasons for Homeschooling

There are many reasons why families make the decision to home educate their children. They range from social, emotional, academic, and religious or a combination of the above. Following are some of the advantages of homeschooling:

Social:

• Gives child an opportunity to relate to a variety of age groups, not age-specific.
• Helps child develop a stronger sense of self-identity and independence as opposed to peer dependence.
• Encourages independent thinking.
• Allows for longer retention of parental influence.
• Promotes family unity through togetherness; this provides a base of security for the child.

Emotional:

• Enables families to focus on individual character development, attentiveness, responsibility, creativity, etc.
• Promotes quality and quantity time essential to child development.
• Promotes healthy view of self through mastery and success-oriented experiences.

Academic:

• Provides for flexible and fun learning environment; gives the opportunity to take advantage of special interests, vacation schedules, teachable moments, etc.
• Gives opportunity to meet special needs and address learning differences; the child is not rushed into academic learning before developmentally ready.
• Bridges "book-learning" with real-life experiences and hands-on learning for more interest and better retention of information.
• Allows for greater flexibility in learning time-frame; can accelerate or slow down learning pace as needed.

Religious:

• Provides opportunity to instruct in family's particular religious values.
• Provides freedom in religious expression.

Choosing Curriculum

One of the more challenging aspects of homeschooling is that of choosing curriculum. There are more products and options available today than ever before, and this can easily lead to confusion as you go through the decision-making process.

Here are a few basic approaches from which to choose; each has its advantages and disadvantages:

• Use one publisher's curriculum—complete with textbooks, workbooks, teacher guides and possibly even videos.
• Use a unit study curriculum—designed to integrate all subjects around topical studies.
• Correspondence school—these often supply administrative help, testing and accountability.
• Create individual, personalized unit studies—designed with "real" books from library, bookstore, etc.
• "Unschooling"—Child-led learning using real activities, work, apprenticeships, mentoring, volunteering and play.
• Mix and match—also known as "eclectic"—choose different materials from different publishers—may use unit studies for some subjects and traditional texts for others.

The first step in making a wise choice is taking the time to formulate why you are home schooling and what you wish to accomplish. In other words, what are your overall goals? Additionally, it is a good idea to set specific yearly goals for each child. Writing this down can be very helpful in choosing what you will use to accomplish these goals and evaluating whether or not you met them.

Consider your particular strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles, as well as those of your children. Take into account the number and ages of the child(ren) you are teaching, and realize that this is something that changes every year. Each year is unique in terms of family structure, dynamics and specific events (i.e. new baby, a move, preparation for college, etc.) For this reason, do not consider the decision of curriculum to be one carved in stone; it is more of an ongoing process that will probably be modified from year to year.

The Elijah Company’s catalog has one of the best explanations of teaching approaches in print. It has wonderful teaching tips and hints, as well as a thorough curriculum guide by grade level. Homeschoolers should consider obtaining this catalog. For a catalog: (888) 2-ELIJAH or www.elijahco.com. Another resource for catalog information is The Guide to Homeschooling in Florida, which is available by calling (877) ASK-FPEA.

We encourage you to attend support group meetings and get to know other homeschooling parents. Talk to several parents about what they use and why they use those materials. As you prayerfully consider the choices available, you will be able to choose the best choice for you and your family.

Additional Resources

Understand the state and county requirements for homeschooling.

Florida Department of Education has some helpful information.

The Guide to Homeschooling in Florida is a great resource.

There are many more great resources.