Your Homeschool Questions....Answered

Jumping into homeschool is, for most of us, a huge leap into the unknown. I know how it is....the uncertainty, the doubt, the wanting to know what you're meant to do now you're not using school.

We want to be confident this is the right decision for our family.
We want to be confident we will give our children everything they need.
We want to be confident we know what we should be doing.
We want to be confident we won't mess up our children's education.
We want to be confident that We. Are. Enough.

I look back to the time my family made the decision to home educate when my eldest was 4. I was DESPERATE for someone to answer all my questions and point me in the right direction!

The internet wasn't what it is today when I was a new homeschooling mum. I remember trying to flag down local home educators with older children and more experience to pick their brains and seek advice....but often they were too busy to give me the time I craved. Of course they were - they were with their children.

Alhamdulillah today we can often find answers to many of our uncertainties with a click of a button, and I have been passionate in helping families find their homeschool answers for a decade so you don't have to struggle the same way I and many others like me did.

Last week I hosted an all-day Q&A over on Facebook so you could ask your homeschool questions. I have to confess that by the end of it I was exhausted! There were some interesting qurries posted and I thought it would be beneficial to share some of those here to make them easy to find and reference for anyone seeking the same advice.
What I'm going to do is repost some of them in a series of posts, with an edited response to provide a little more detail than the rapid-fire answers originally given.

If you have a homeschool question, I'm pleased to announce I'm launching a monthly Q&A series here on the blog insha'Allah, so please send yours if you have one (no matter the stage of your homeschool adventure) to info@amuslimhomeschool.com.

Let's kick start this new series with our first question, asking something I think many of us wonder...

Homeschooling With Confidence

EDIT: Before you continue reading, the Homeschool With Confidence course has been relaunched. You can check out the brief overview here on the blog and find the detailed description and enrollment on the course page.

Are you looking for a beginners guide to help you start home educating or are you already in the homeschool trenches and in need of a reboot to help you fall back in love with it?

How would it feel to start building the homeschool of your dreams insha'Allah? One inspired by your own unique family; not mine or anyone else's; but yours (is this sounding too cheesy?).

Alhamdulillah following the success of the beta group who just recently completed this course, I've decided to rerun it after Ramadan and it is going to be BIGGER, better and more supportive than before insha'Allah. 

We have jumped from the original 4 week workshop and grown into a 16 week course that is designed to provide you with detailed information, support and guidance all in the same place so that you can focus on building a happy thriving homeschool you are confident, excited and passionate about bi'ithnillah. 

It is perfect for mums in the early stages of homeschool and mums preparing to start in the future as well as current home educating mums in need of a boot camp reboot and inspiration boost. I have to tell you I went through a massive homeschool reboot myself when putting this course together which makes me even more excited to share with you again second time round.

Temporary School-At-Home During The Coronavirus Outbreak

All the parents who are finding themselves thrust into a sudden school-at-homer position, my heart goes out to you. You are in a difficult position caught somewhere between school and home education.
What you are doing isn’t home educating or homeschooling. Rather what you are doing is school-at-home which is something entirely different…and something most home educators run away from and advise against because we know it brings tears, stress and overwhelm.

I’m not here to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing. I know many of your schools are providing you with homework assignments for your children that you’ll be expected to carry out.
But what I do want to say, is if you want to find success during this turbulent period and keep all your hair in tact, you have to let go of school expectations for your family. You have to start rethinking how you see education through the lens of your home, rather than through the lens of school.
This is a period that if you are to embrace could provide your family with no end of benefits; far beyond just the academic expectations.

Surviving School-At-Home

With many mums across the UK and around the world finding themselves suddenly thrown into a schooler-at-home position, I want to offer a little guidance to help you settle and adapt to this new role you have been thrust into insha’Allah.

Whilst many of you have been provided with work to carry out at home, it is not an easy task implementing what is meant for school within the home as a parent; because your home simply is not a school and nor is it meant to be.

I want to offer some gentle guidance to show you how you can help unite the demands of school within your home without tearing your hair out insha’Allah!

This time we are facing is one of unease and I want to help lessen the burden and anxiety many mums are feeling during this time.

Next Sunday 29th March at 7:30pm UK time (BST) I invite you to join me for a FREE online workshop designed to help you navigate this unexpected situation insha’Allah.
The replay will be available for 24 hours only.

Advice for the Muslim Homeschooler eBook gift

After first publishing Advice for the Muslim Homeschooler in 2017, I've updated it for 2020 making it bigger and better - and yes it is still free to download! It has truly been a labor of love putting this together.

If you're not a home educating mumma, I think there is still lots in here that you too will find benefit in and resonate with insha'Allah, so don't be deterred by the title. Whilst I passionately offer this to help home educating sisters build their confidence and find support, much of what I share is from the perspective of being a mother that anyone will relate to.

Create your Ramadan Action Plan with this fun family activity guide!

Following the pre-Ramadan prep planner, designed to help mums get organised; this week I'm sharing a set of guided activities for the whole family to come together on. 

This short activity guide has been designed to help you figure out along with your family what is important to you all around Ramadan; giving you time to put things in place so that you can focus on what really matters bi'ithnillah.

Ramadan is the time of year where routines change and focus shifts. We look forward it, and many of us move things around so that our families can take as much benefit as we can from this time bi'ithnillah. 

Yet despite our best intentions, it can be easy to get swept along and find ourselves lost in and amongst all our many responsibilities; struggling to find a balance between what we want to achieve over Ramadan and our everyday ordinary life.

How can we teach our children Islamic Studies at home?

Something I see mummas everywhere always wanting help on, is how to teach Islam at home with family.
This topic was raised by an attendee in my Homeschooling With Confidence course, and I thought it would be beneficial to share my (edited and updated) response here with you too, since it is such a common quest so many of us have.

Certainly it has always been something that I’ve been conscious of. Islam is the central part of our lives and we want to raise our children to love our religion and more than that, act upon it; knowing it is Allah Alone who guides.

My advice here is that of a fellow mum just like you. I am not a student of knowledge rather I have to be clear that I’m a layman, so I will always refer you to the people of knowledge because it is beyond my expertise to instruct you in Islamic matters. So please know that what I am offering here is merely general advice from one mother to another in dealing with children and teaching them Islam at home.

Help entrepreneurial kids start a business

We all know the famous adage that goes "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

Most of us don't think about entrepreneurship. Schools certainly don't. We think about getting good grades and preparing for universities. We think about how we can help our children mold themselves into a person that universities will want and employers seek out. I'm not saying that is a bad thing to do, not at all. But what I am saying, is alongside this academic learning, wouldn't it be beneficial to develop business related skills so that they know how to become employers not only employees? Sure, owning and running a business isn't for everyone, but neither is being a doctor, teacher or manager.

Torn between school and homeschool?

I receive questions from mothers unsure whether they should choose school or home education for their growing family.

 I totally get this dilemma; it's something my husband and I faced years ago when trying to figure out what route we should take for ours.
So what is the right thing to do and how do you discover the answer right for you?

A beginners guide to starting homeschool - a 4 week online workshop

Ever since I began home educating a decade ago, I've always believed that our community could benefit from training days just as teachers receive training days in school. To continue our own "professional development" in the educating of our own children at home and all that entails. It is certainly something I have always craved for myself and absolutely see the value in.
The role of the home educator is probably one of the biggest learn on the job responsibilities that any of us will ever face - and if there is something out there that can help us get started and find our feet, then brilliant!

I am thrilled to announce the launch of our four part online workshop: Homeschooling with confidence - a beginners guide to starting homeschool. 

Registration is open I am genuinely so excited for this; I really can not wait to work with a whole bunch of you on a much deeper level that the general support and information I love offering through the Muslim Homeschoolers Facebook group and Instagram as well as here. There is so much information out there, this workshop aims to give you everything in one place - but more than that, I really want you to walk away completely confident in your ability to start building the homeschool of your dreams that meets the needs of your own family inshaAllah - not mine or anyone else's.

To find out everything you need to know about this online workshop, you can download the Homeschooling with confidence information brochure, or continue reading below (if you download the brochure and want to enrol, make sure you come back to this post and scroll down to the end to join).