How to Start Homeschooling: A Second-Gen Mom's Guide

Here’s how to start homeschooling, in order: first, find out how your state regulates homeschooling and follow its withdrawal or notice process. Second, take a few unhurried weeks to deschool — let everyone breathe. Third, pick one simple curriculum for reading and math only, nothing else. Fourth, build a daily rhythm around anchors instead of a bell schedule. That’s genuinely the whole runway. Everything else — co-ops, science kits, the perfect planner — can wait until the plane is in the air.

I know the feeling behind the search, because “I’m so overwhelmed — where do I start?” is the oldest question on this domain, and it’s the question my own mother answered at a Wisconsin kitchen table in the ’90s with me as the test case. I was homeschooled K–12; now I’m homeschooling my own three. Having seen this from both chairs, I can tell you the overwhelm is real and also mostly optional. Let’s take it one step at a time.

Step one: learn your state’s rules (don’t skip, don’t panic)

Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, but how you notify, what you keep records of, and what assessments look like vary a lot — and the rules change. I’m deliberately not going to summarize any state’s requirements here, because a blog post is the wrong place to get law. Instead, do what I did: look up your state on HSLDA’s legal pages, then find your state homeschool organization and read its current getting-started guide. I’ve written a longer walkthrough of exactly how to find your state’s rules — bookmark it, verify everything against current sources, and then stop worrying about this part. Compliance is usually an afternoon of paperwork, not a lifestyle.

Step two: deschool before you homeschool

If your kids are coming out of a classroom, resist the urge to rebuild the classroom in your dining room by Monday. Deschooling — a stretch of low-pressure weeks with library trips, read-alouds, baking, and boredom — lets everyone shed the school-shaped expectations before you start fresh. A common rule of thumb is roughly a month of decompression for each year a child spent in school; treat that as a vibe, not a prescription.

Here’s my second-generation confession: I never deschooled, because I never went to school. But I watched friends’ families join our co-op mid-year, and the ones who white-knuckled straight into six subjects at a rented desk usually crashed by November. The ones who spent six weeks reading on the couch built something that lasted. The couch is load-bearing.

Step three: pick a method loosely, a curriculum minimally

You’ll meet the method buffet quickly: Charlotte Mason’s living books, classical education’s stages, unit studies, unschooling, and Montessori — which has a whole world of materials and philosophy best explored at a dedicated site like Montessori Bloggers Network if it calls to you. Read enough to know your instincts, then hold it all lightly. Methods are tools, not tribes; most veteran families end up cheerfully eclectic.

For actual purchases, start embarrassingly small: a phonics program and a math program. That’s it. For a five-or-six-year-old you may not even need that much — my walkthrough on building your own kindergarten curriculum shows how far a library card and a $30 workbook stack will carry you. Curriculum anxiety is the single biggest money-waster in year one, and every used-curriculum sale in America is stocked with its consequences.

Step four: build a rhythm, not a bell schedule

School needs bells because it moves hundreds of kids through hallways. You’re moving three kids through a kitchen. What works at home is a rhythm anchored to fixed points — breakfast, a morning lesson block, lunch, quiet hour — with the academics flowing between them. When people ask what time our school starts, the honest answer is “after the toddler’s breakfast, give or take.” Once you’re ready to sketch the whole year, plan your homeschool year in one afternoon — truly one afternoon; the elaborate planner systems are a hobby, not a requirement.

The worry under all the other worries

Nobody searches “how to start homeschooling” for fun. Under the logistics question is usually a quieter one: will I ruin my kids? I can only offer myself as evidence: homeschooled kid, state university, career, mortgage, normal amount of social awkwardness (locates the bathroom at parties, makes small talk at the DMV). The socialization question deserves its own honest answer — but the short version is that the outcome data point sitting closest to me typed this sentence, and she turned out fine.

FAQ: starting to homeschool

Is homeschooling legal everywhere in the US?

Yes — homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, with requirements that differ by state (notification, records, assessments). Always verify your own state’s current rules through HSLDA and your state homeschool organization rather than a blog post, including this one.

How much does it cost to start homeschooling?

Less than the catalogs suggest. A focused first year can run on a library card plus a phonics and a math program — very roughly a few hundred dollars, hedged generously depending on what you buy new versus used. The expensive first year is usually the panicked one.

Do I need a teaching degree to homeschool?

No state requires a teaching degree of every homeschool parent, though a few have parent-qualification rules — one more thing to verify in your state’s current requirements. Practically: my mother taught five kids through high school with a high-school diploma and a library habit.

What if I try homeschooling and it doesn’t work?

Then you re-enroll your kids, and school is still there. Homeschooling is a year-by-year decision, not a blood oath — we re-decide every spring, one kid at a time. Knowing the exit exists is half of what makes the entrance walkable.