Recent Books on Homeschooling: Update Your Collection!

If ever there's a time to add to and update your books on homeschooling, now is the time. With so many school districts uncertain about in-person school, virtual learning, and more, you'll likely have more families choosing homeschooling than ever before. So, what books do you need to have on your shelf? 

The answer to that is honestly as varied as your homeschooling families themselves. That's the whole point of homeschool: you can do it the way you want to do it, which means there's no STANDARD way to homeschool. You should definitely open lines of communication to your families who already homeschool to see how you can best support them. But what about folks who are new to homeschooling and just looking for resources to get started? Today I've got a list of books on homeschooling published in the last decade. 

Here's where I tell you that I am not and have never been a homeschooling parent, nor was I homeschooled myself. These are some of the new and recent homeschool books that I've purchased for my library and if you're looking for some newer titles to update your shelves,  they may fit the bill! 

First, for the librarians... 

I have to put in a plug for Helping Homeschoolers in the Library by Adrienne Furness. ALA Editions, 2008. Yes, it may be a little older, but it has some great information about different types of homeschooling, how to approach homeschoolers at your library, and how to design programs and services for homeschooling families. (This one I can give a personal recommendation for since I have read it and found it super useful as I was developing homeschool programs at my various libraries.) 

Now, recent books for parents new to homeschooling: 

The Brave Learner: Finding Everyday Magic in Homeschool, Learning, and Life by Julie Bogart. Tarcherperigree, 2019. 

The Call of the Wild and Free: Reclaiming Wonder in Your Child's Education by Ainsley Arment. HarperOne, 2019. 

The Everything Guide to Homeschooling: All You Need to Create the Best Curriculum and Learning Environment for Your Child by Sherri Lisenbach. Everything, 2015. This guide was revised and updated in 2015. 

Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Creative and Comprehensive Homeschool Curriculum by Rebecca Rupp. Broadway Books, 2020. This book was originally published in 2000 and an updated edition just came out this January. 

Homeschool Bravely: How to Squash Doubt, Trust God, and Teach Your Child with Confidence by Jamie Erickson. Moody Publishers, 2019. 

Homeschooling for Dummies by Jennifer Kaufeld. For Dummies, September 2020. You may laugh, but parents who are brand spanking new to homeschooling may be seeking this title out. First published in 2001, wait for the new edition coming in September. 

The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. Norton, 2016. This fourth edition came out in 2016. 

What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know

What Your First Grader Needs to Know 

What Your Second Grader Needs to Know

What Your Third Grader Needs to Know

What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know

by E.D. Hirsch. Bantam, 2013-2015. 

You may have editions of these books from way back when, but K-4th were revised and updated starting in 2014, so make sure you have the newer editions if you think they'll be useful. If you don't want to purchase books from several years ago, a pro tip for figuring out what skills to cover in each grade level is to advise families to purchase a grade level workbook. They don't have to actually do all the worksheets, but it'll help them determine what skills to cover. (Credit to Janssen at Everyday Reading for the pro tip!)

What would you add to this list? Feel free to leave more suggestions in the comments! 

Poetry Egg Hunt

April is National Poetry Month and we celebrated that with our homeschoolers this month at Fantastic Friday! I've been trying to come up with fun activities to add to our program, and - I'm not kidding - I literally dreamed this activity while I was on vacation.

We did a Poetry Egg Hunt!

I printed out the words to two nursery rhymes ("Humpty Dumpty" and "Sing a Song of Sixpence"), each on a different color paper. I cut out all the words and stuffed them into colorful plastic eggs. When the families arrived, I entertained them in our program room for about 10 minutes (announcements about upcoming programs, booktalking and sharing some poetry with them) while my colleagues hid the eggs throughout our department.

Once the eggs were hidden, I released the kids to find all the eggs and put them in a large communal basket. Once we had all the eggs*, we brought them back into our program room, cracked them open, sorted out the blue words and the yellow words, and I challenged the kids to unscramble the words to make up their nursery rhymes. I provided construction paper and glue for them to glue the words down as they unscrambled them.

The kids had a BLAST searching for the eggs and some of them really got into sorting out the rhymes. It was an easy and fun activity to kick off our poetry program.

I chose nursery rhymes because I was relatively certain that all or most of the kids would be familiar with them, but this would certainly work with any poems.

Some tips from our experience:

• Create a backup set of words in case some get lost or any eggs remain unfound. That way your kids can still unscramble the entire rhyme (can they tell you which words are missing?).  
• Have a printout of the rhymes you're using just IN CASE your kids don't happen to know the nursery rhymes you picked. I had a couple that didn't know "Sing a Song of Sixpence", but one of the moms helped out. 
• I put the words to "Humpty Dumpty" on yellow paper and hid those words in the warm-color eggs (pinks, reds, oranges, yellows) and the words to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" on blue paper and hid those words in the cool-color eggs (blues, greens, purples). I had a moment where I thought only 3 kids had shown up, so I was prepared to only hide half the eggs.
• Count the eggs so you know when the kids have found them all!
• We didn't, but you may want to create a map of where the eggs are hidden so you can make sure you get them all. Or this might be more work than it's worth. 
• You may want to hide the eggs in advance, but it worked for us to do them after our families had arrived and were in the meeting room. That way we didn't have to worry about other children walking off with them or about keeping the kids from starting early when they arrived to play before the program.

We did this program with our homeschoolers as part of our monthly homeschool program, but I think this activity would work well with a variety of groups. It's conducive to a wide range of ages - we had a span of ages 4-16 at this particular program. To do it like we did it, at least some of the kids need to be reading to unscramble the poems, but if you wanted to try something like this with pre-readers, consider: 

• Unscrambling the rhyme as a group with the librarian reading the words and the kids helping recite the rhyme.
• Having a pre-written poem on large paper or your dry-erase board and the kids searching for rhyming words to fill in the gaps. 
• Hiding rhyming words and asking kids to help you match them up when the group gets back together. 

And this doesn't necessarily have to be a poem activity! For a group tour, you could hide the titles of books or subjects and ask the kids to use your catalog to find the call numbers. You could hide letters and ask the kids to put them in alphabetical order. The possibilities are numerous. 

Are you doing any programs or lessons for National Poetry Month? I'd love to hear about what you're doing! 

* Okay, all but one. There is still one egg floating around somewhere in our department. We'll probably find it in June.

The Alchemy of a Homeschool Program

or, Fantastic Friday Revamp (Again!)

Photo by Horia Vorlan

I've posted before about my monthly homeschool program Fantastic Friday and how we revamped it last year based on feedback from one of my very involved homeschool parents.

The revamp seemed like a dream come true - the program practically ran itself! With the kids presenting projects, all I really had to do was provide a room, make some announcements, and come up with materials (book lists and displays) to help them find resources for the next month's topic. It was so much less work for staff and I felt like the kids were getting much more out of it.

And then they stopped coming.

I mean, not all at once. I had pretty good attendance consistently throughout 2012-2013. We were okay at the first meeting this school year in September - lots of new families trying it out. But then every month, attendance dropped. I tried to rally everyone in December. Our topic was food and I advertised it as a potluck; even if you didn't have a project, please come and enjoy food! I even personally emailed families who had come in the past and invited them to hang out and share our snacks.

Attendance still went down. And in January I only had the same 3 dedicated families who had been coming almost every month. And one of those families informed me they were moving out of town. And with so few kids, the program was getting super short. The kids were nervous. They blitzed through their presentations and my "program" was only lasting 15 minutes.

I needed a change.

But I struggled with this because my loyal families had professed so much love for the program. At the end of last school year, they had specifically approached me and asked me to keep the same format. How could I make the program work for the library and still have a program that would work for these families?

So, in February I revamped a little bit. We were meeting on Valentine's Day, so instead of concentrating so much on the kids' presentations, I decided to start with a craft making Valentine's Day cards. I researched some new listservs to reach out to and I billed it as "Come make Valentine's Day cards!" and if anyone wanted to share a project or booktalk with the group, they were welcome to do it.

Friends, my attendance went from my expected 6 kids to, like 18 that day. And not only was attendance up, but having some icebreaker time doing the craft together at the beginning helped the kids relax and do better in their presentations. Instead of such a formal setting, it was more like sharing with a group of friends.

I did something similar in March: our theme was science and we started the day by making play-doh volcanoes and exploding them. (Side note: this is a simple, cheap project [get play-doh at the Dollar Store!], and the kids LOVE IT, even if they have done it before!) Again, attendance was good. The new format had attracted some new families.

I've dreamed up a poetry scavenger hunt for April and then in May we'll do our End-of-the-Homeschool-Year party.

Having an activity at the beginning of the program gives me something I can really advertise. It lifts the pressure on families to have a project every month. It attracts kids who might never want to present (and that is fine). It fleshes out our program and helps the kids get to know each other. It allows me to tell a new family who just stopped in the day before our program "hey, come do a craft with us and get to know some other homeschooling families" instead of "you need to have a project completed to share with the group, so... maybe next time". (Not that we were ever telling families that last thing. But I'm sure they felt like it sometimes! And then we've lost them!)

As I start planning for the fall months, I'm going to:

• keep topics basic so that they're very open as far as the projects we're doing. I'm going to concentrate on subjects that homeschooling families are probably already going to cover - art, history, science - with a few more specific months thrown in - Black History Month, my favorite book.
• look for simple activities or crafts that will work for ages 3-15 (older siblings are great with helping younger siblings) and allow for creativity. Creative activities/crafts let me stand back and see what the kids will come up with instead of giving explicit instructions = much easier for me.
• continue to seek new outlets to advertise the program and encourage new families to come. I think with an activity to advertise, this will be easier than the previous iteration of our program.
• probably forget about the book and project list that I had been doing. While book lists are certainly a good resource, our families don't seem to be using them. With much broader topics, book lists are probably only marginally helpful, anyway. Instead, I'll make sure to let everyone know that our ever-helpful librarians are happy to suggest books and help find resources (at any time, not just for this program). 

Will this format work for us forever? I don't know. We'll use it as long as it's working and then reevaluate again! Change is a good thing, and we need to be constantly evaluating our programs and tweaking them to make them better for families, better for the children, and better for staff. And when you hit on something that works better, it's such a great feeling!

Fantastic Friday: How's It Going?

CC: Tobyotter 

I posted earlier this year about our revamped homeschooler program, Fantastic Friday, and I thought it was high time that I checked in to let you know how the rest of our school year went.

As I compared the attendance number to the previous year's I noticed that we did have a drop in overall attendance. However, I had several families who attended every month (or close to every month) and at the end of the school year, I had several families who told me how much they loved the structure of the program and asked me to keep it the same way for this year.

One thing that went over so, so well was our End-of-the-Year Party. I held it on the second Friday in May, in lieu of presentations. One item my homeschooling consultant had brought up with me is that homeschoolers need recognition outside their homes and that homeschooling teachers need recognition, too! This is something that school children and school teachers get, so I wanted to create that experience for my homeschoolers, too.

I looked back over my attendance records and created a spreadsheet to show everyone's attendance over the year. I ordered participation ribbons for every child who had come at least once. I also had one child who had come every single month and three children who had only missed one month, so I ordered special perfect attendance awards for them. I also ordered little apple pins to give out to each homeschooling parent. The parents weren't expecting that and they were so thrilled. One mom told me it would probably be the only award she ever got for teaching (and to that I say: just wait 'til next year!).

There are many companies that sell these award products for schools and I ended up going with Jones School Supply and I was happy with their prices and the promptness of their shipping.

Towards the end of the spring, I started asking the families for suggestions for next year's topics and they had great ideas! I did insert a couple of my own ideas, but almost every theme we're doing is a suggestion from one of our families. I am always, always open to their feedback because I want these programs to fit as seamlessly as possible with what they're already planning for their homeschool.

Here's the brochure for our fall meetings that I put out last month. I wanted to get it out as soon as possible because I know people are planning their lessons for the fall. The sooner I get it out, the more likely homeschoolers will be to plan what they're doing around what I'm doing. We're doing the following topics this fall:

• September: Biographies (patron suggestion)
• October: Space (patron suggestion)
• November: Native American Heritage (my suggestion!)
• December: Cooking/Food (patron suggestion)
• January: Music (patron suggestion)
• February: Whatever You LOVE (patron suggestion was "Collections" but I tweaked it)
• March: Science (patron suggestion)
• April: Poetry (patron suggestion)
• May: End of the Year Party!

I do have a couple of changes that I'm going to make this year, but really only to my own contributions to the program. Several of the moms asked me to incorporate some more public-speaking instruction throughout the months. I don't know exactly how I'm going to do this, but I agree that it's necessary. Although I have seen some of the kids really coming out of their shells, some of them still talk really softly and it's hard for everyone to hear them. Suggestions for coaching young children (early elementary) on presentation skills are appreciated!!

And I am going to incorporate booktalks into every session this year. Having something to present myself helps fill some of the time if everyone gets through quickly or if we have a small crowd. I'm wondering if it also might help retain some folks whose children are too shy to participate much. And I love booktalking and highlighting some of the awesome books we have in our collection. It'll be helpful to homeschoolers, too, who might find some resources they didn't know about. (And it will be helpful to me to develop booktalks every month, which I can then reuse if we're able to set up some booktalking programs at the schools this year.)

I'm looking forward to another great year having fun with our homeschoolers!

Fantastic Friday Revamp

CC: pinksherbet

I've posted before about our homeschooling program, Fantastic Friday, but guess what? We've totally revamped it! Last spring, one of our very active homeschooling parents asked to meet with me to share some information she'd gotten at a homeschooling conference and talk about how we might be able to tweak our program to make it better.

I'm going to quote from the notes she typed up for me here:

Homeschoolers need...

... the opportunity to be part of a group.
... the opportunity to perform, demonstrate, or present what they have learned.
... the opportunity to discuss and learn from their peers. 
... the opportunity to receive awards or other academic commendations. 
... the opportunity to expand their horizons past their teachers. 
... the know-how to become a self-learner.

Previously, we had offered a very top-down program, if you will. Librarians decided on a topic, planned stories and activities, and presented the program to the group. It was fine, but the biggest problem is that it was hard to engage kids across the age ranges. We'd most often have early elementary age children showing up, but it was inevitable that when we started to gear the program towards that age I would get questions from parents of older children asking what their homeschooling children could participate in.

We also were not incredibly organized about it and we'd announce the topics and activities on our program calendar, just weeks or maybe a month before the program was to happen. Our homeschooling mom reminded us that if we gave homeschoolers more notice about what our topics would be, homeschoolers would be more likely to incorporate our programs into their lesson plans.

With these suggestions in mind, we redesigned the program. Instead of having a librarian present a traditional library program, we decided that we would ask the homeschoolers to present to each other!

Each month, librarians select a topic (we've gotten input from our homeschooling parents about this, too!) and we ask the children to read a book and do a project on that theme. We provide a list of recommended books and a list of project ideas, but we stress that kids are NOT limited to something from the list. We also encourage them to take the project ideas and change them to fit their needs.

When the group gathers each month, I ask for volunteers to present. Kids come up and talk about the book they read and show or present about the project they did. I don't require anyone to present (although sometimes their parents insist that they at least try it!). If they'd rather come and listen to the other presentations, that's fine with me.

I was a little afraid of how things would go if we changed it up, but it's actually been going really well. The program is much, MUCH less work for us to do and the families have been very into it. Kids have done presentations about Mexican immigration to the U.S., survival on different planets from the Star Wars universe, and Christian symbols in Harry Potter. I've had kids dress up as characters from books and tell us about the story. I've had kids draw comic books or make posters about a special book party they had at home. I notice some of the shy children starting to come out of their shell a little bit. And since families can customize the projects any way they want, it allows for children of many ages to participate and creates a space for children who are reading above or below grade level.

I try to have a little something each month to share with the kids or talk about with them. For example, when we did "Survival" as our theme in November, I put together a short Prezi about Hurricane Sandy, showing some photos of the damage, telling them some facts about hurricanes, and giving them some tips about how to stay safe in a hurricane (didn't want to scare anyone, though we very rarely have hurricanes in Southern Indiana). When we did "Mystery" in October, I read one of my favorite mysteries, Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard.

Deciding on themes and getting book and project lists done way ahead of time makes the program super easy for us to run. Here are the themes we've done or are planning to do:

• September: Latino History Month
• October: Mystery
• November: Survival
• December: Fantasy
• January: Award Winners
• February: Black History Month
• March: Sports & Games
• April: Around the World
• May: End of the Year Party!

I'm planning on throwing a reception in May and recognizing the children and parents who have been coming throughout the year. I'm planning to make participation certificates and we'll probably have some tables set up with crafts, games, and snacks so that the kids can spend some time socializing. I might do some booktalks, too, since Summer Reading Club will be right around the corner. 

I printed up brochures that explain about our program and list the themes for the semester and we have those out at the desk along with the upcoming month's book and project lists. At each program, I put out a book display for the next month's theme so that families can get a start on it if they want to. I also have the sign-up sheet for the next month ready to go and I take the opportunity to promote any of our other upcoming programs that fit the age range. 

One thing I haven't done yet that I would like to do is to grab the library's display cases and invite homeschoolers to display their projects there. I would also like to get all our book and project lists on our website (waiting for a website redesign for that one). 

So far, it's been less work for us and I think our patrons are getting more out of it (at least attendance continues to be good... knock on wood!). 

A Year (Almost) of Programming for Homeschoolers

I have posted before about our homeschool program, Fantastic Friday. We've just finished up our second year of offering this program, so I wanted to share a little bit about what we've been doing all year. This continues to be a great program for us. We've had great attendance from the start and we're seeing a lot of the same people coming every month.

Here's what we did in 2011:

• January - Let It Snow! A storytime about snow and a snowman craft. 
• February - Chinese New Year. We did a stir-fry cooking demonstration and let them all taste. A local Chinese restaurant donated chopsticks!
• March - Seeds & Growing Things. We shared some books about seeds and growing things and then each child got to plant their own seed.
• April - Poetry. For the younger kids, we did a poetry storytime. For the older kids, we made book spine poems.
• May - We did a storytime and craft for the younger kids. For the older kids, we did a book chat and I booktalked a bunch of awesome books that they might like for Summer Reading.
• June, July, and August - We took a break from Fantastic Friday because we were offering so many awesome programs at all times of the day. 
• September - Back to Homeschool Party! This was a great way to kick off our homeschool year and bring our audience back in. 
• October - Costume party and Trick-or-Treat around the library. 
• November - Pretzel-making. (I am lucky to have an excellent and willing chef amongst my staff!)
• December - Holidays Around the World. Three different craft stations with information about holidays from three different countries. 

Due to an incredibly overwhelming fall and the large number of programs we planned for winter break, we're taking a break from in-house programming in January. The weather is very iffy and people in our area get very skittish about driving conditions. We'll start back up in February with a Black History Month program at the Carnegie Center for Art and History. I know I want to do a database workshop for the older kids at some point. And I'd like to continue my tradition of doing booktalks for the older kids in May to get them excited about Summer Reading. I think we'll probably again take a summer break and then repeat our Back to Homeschool Party in September. Other than that, we'll see where the year takes us!

Holidays Around the World

This month for our Fantastic Friday homeschooler program, we took a trip around the world and learned about three different world holidays. I loved this program because not only did I learn a lot about these holidays and countries, but once I had everything prepped, it pretty much ran itself! Here's what I did.

I featured three different holidays from three different countries: Diwali from India, Children's Day from Japan, and Losar (Tibetan New Year) from Tibet. I prepped a craft for each of the holidays and put together a take-home packet with information about each holiday/country.I set up the room so that we had three craft tables with chairs all around. On each table, I had the supplies for the craft, a sign sharing information about the holiday, and a sign with craft instructions.

I contacted some of our teen homeschoolers and asked them if they would volunteer to help out. I ended up with four volunteers and I set three of them up at the craft tables and had one taking photos for me. I was lucky to have volunteers, but even if I hadn't, I think families would have been able to figure out what to do. My volunteers were fabulous. I asked them to greet families that came over to the table and tell them some information about the holiday (I printed off an additional information sheet for each of them to have). And then help them with the crafts however they needed. 

The crafts I picked were very easy, but still allowed for creativity (perfect for my group... the kids registered ranged in age from 3 to 14, although it was mostly younger kids that showed up).

• For Diwali, we made Lakshmi's footprints, an idea I totally stole from Susan Baier at the ALSC Blog (definitely check out her post for some more great Diwali ideas!).
• For Children's Day, we made these carp kites from Activity Village.
• And for Losar, we made Tibetan prayer flags (you can see mine in the topmost photo). I cut 11" x 17" construction paper into quarters and had volunteers punch two holes in the top. We asked the kids to think about their wishes and hopes for the people around them and write them down or draw a picture. Buddhists believe that when the wind blows the flags, it carries the prayers all over the land. I had ribbon so that they could string their prayer flags and we used a little bit of tape to hold the string in place. 

Of course, for each table I had a book display featuring books about that country (I only had three books about Tibet, so I supplemented with books about Buddhism).

I did quite a bit of prep work for this program, but it was quite cheap (I didn't have to purchase anything - we had construction paper, crayons, etc.) and it was so easy to run that I didn't mind the prep work. Any one of these activities would be great for a more focused program on any of these countries. And the program format of having craft stations worked so well that I will definitely use it again for my homeschooler program.

Even though I didn't interact with the kids too much at this program, I could tell they were all having fun making their crafts. My hope is that they went home and talked about what they learned and what they did. And that this program might inspire them to learn a little bit more about different cultures and countries!

Back to Homeschool Party at the ALSC Blog

Today I'm posting over at the ALSC Blog about the Back to Homeschool Party we threw in September and some changes we've made to our Fantastic Friday program for homeschoolers! Please head over there and check it out.

Fridays are Fantastic for Homeschoolers

A commenter on this blog wanted to know a little more about our programming for homeschoolers, so I'm here today to tell you about Fantastic Fridays, our monthly program for homeschoolers.

Fantastic Friday is held the second Friday of every month at 10:00am and we do something different each month.  We talked with some of the homeschooling families that frequent the library to figure out what would be a good date/time to try some programming for homeschoolers and found out that Friday mornings are usually pretty open (no religious meetings, etc.).  In addition to our normal program publicity (press releases to newspapers, library program calendar, library website), we send information to local homeschooling groups.

We started Fantastic Fridays in January 2010 and it's been quite a success.  We usually have between 10-30 kids each month, which is a great turnout at our library.  We advertise it for ages 5 and up, but the whole family is welcome and we really try to be flexible about allowing younger kids to participate if they come.  Sometimes we split the kids up into two groups and do a program for the younger kids and a different program for the older kids, but lately we've been leaning towards keeping everyone together.  For the times we split them up, we had a storytime and craft for the younger kids (approximately ages 5-8) and another activity for the older kids (book discussion, database workshop, tour of the teen area, etc.).  If we split them up, we let parents and kids decide which group they'd like to be in.

For the past few months, we've been keeping everyone together in one group and our attendance has been skewing younger.  We typically have kids ages 5-8 and maybe a few older kids (usually older siblings attending with younger ones).

The programs we've done include:

• Bug stories and coffee filter butterflies (for younger, while the older kids had a tutorial on how to use the library's databases)
• A "trip to Ireland" where we shared information, food, and music from Ireland
• Superhero stories and making a superhero flip book (for younger, while the older kids had a book discussion) 
• A family piñata workshop
• Native American stories and making "totem poles" out of paper towel tubes 

In December, two of my staff members are doing "A Pioneer Christmas" and making corn husk dolls and cinnamon bread.  For next year, I'm planning a storytime and craft on snow in January and a Black History Month program where we'll share the work of black illustrators and do art in the same style.  The Indiana State Library has a collection of Big Idea Kits with materials for sharing math and science concepts with young children, so we may use one or more of those in the spring.  I'm also thinking about science projects or a poetry program...

Here's the secret: programming for homeschoolers doesn't have to be any different from your typical programming for the public.  We hold it on a weekday morning and we advertise it in specialized avenues, but otherwise it's exactly what we'd plan for the general public.  Sometimes (like the piñata program), we'll offer a program for our homeschoolers and then repeat it on an evening or afternoon for the general public. 

I do think it's a good idea to talk to some of your homeschooling families and get an idea of what dates and times might be best.  There may be special events at local museums, zoos, parks, churches, or other religious facilities that you don't know about that would affect your attendance.  

For our community, it's worked to have the program on the same day each month (second Friday).  We also have a signup sheet for the next month at each Fantastic Friday program.  That way if people have had a good time and want to go ahead and reserve their spot for the next month, they can!  We encourage registration because we leave it open for all ages and that way we can get an idea about how old the kids coming will be.

Who else does programming for homeschoolers?  What do you do?  How has it turned out? 

Serving Homeschoolers: Join the Listservs!

Want a free and easy way to connect with homeschoolers in your area, promote your programs, and get ideas for collection development? Join your local homeschooler listservs.

There is a large population of homeschooling families in my community and we've started to build up our services for them. We've started offering programming for them and I'm adding more homeschooling materials to our Parent/Teacher Shelves.One thing that has been extremely valuable to me in terms of helping me serve this population: homeschooler listservs.

I subscribed to the Indiana Homeschoolers Yahoo! Group and the more localized Hoosier Homeschool Network originally so I could promote our programs on their listservs. But I've found many unexpected benefits to keeping up with these listservs as well...

First of all, it makes me a part of their community. They're hearing from me at least once or twice a month when I post about our monthly homeschooler program. In my emails to the listserv, I always include my contact information and try to encourage parents to contact me with any questions they have. And it allows me to be part of their conversation. If I see a question about resources on a certain topic, I can chime in and let them know what the library has to offer.

What I'm hoping is that this makes me a "real person" to them, as opposed to THE LIBRARY, this faceless (possibly intimidating) building. You might feel uncomfortable going to THE LIBRARY to ask a question when you've never been there and don't quite know what you're doing. But hey, I'm not THE LIBRARY. I'm your friend Abby and I'm happy to help you.

Keeping an eye on the listservs also helps me stay on top of what programs other libraries and organizations are offering for homeschoolers. I might get some ideas for programs I want to offer at my library! Or if I want to connect with other librarians offering services for homeschoolers (to ask questions, to collaborate on something, etc.), I now have some contacts.

And these emails help me with collection development, as well. Often, parents who have newly decided to homeschool will ask for help and other families chime in with their favorite guides, books, and more. If I see a book recommendation come across on the listservs, I'll check it out and see if I want to add it to our collection.

Now, I don't always have time to pore over every single email from the listservs, but I at least skim the message topics (I get the listservs in a digest format, so just one email a day). And I try to read the full messages as often as I can.

Why not? It's a free and easy way to connect with homeschoolers (who are, in many cases, heavy library users!). You can find many local homeschool groups on Local Homeschool.com and About.com: Homeschooling. Go sign up today!

PS: It is a really good idea to at least be aware of the homeschooling support groups in your area so you have information to give parents who may be considering homeschooling and might need some information.

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Networking with Homeschoolers

Last week I got a great opportunity to network with one of my local homeschooling groups. I wish I could take credit for being proactive, but to be completely honest the organizer of the group called me up and asked if I would like to attend their August meeting. They had asked a dozen or so different community organizations to set up tables at their meeting and provide information to the families attending. Organizations included the library, the Louisville Science Center, 4H, local museums, Kindermusik, and others.

Of course, I jumped at the chance. At our August staff meeting, we were just talking about how to network with our large population of homeschooling families. I was thrilled to be invited.

But what to bring?? We would have half of an eight-foot table and our teen librarian was attending with me. I brought way too much stuff. Here's what I brought:

Program schedules - these were invaluable because many families lived outside our library district. At the current time they are not allowed to check out materials from our library unless they purchase a PLAC card, which is good at any library in Indiana. However, many of our programs this fall are drop-in and anyone is welcome to come to these.

Registration forms for the Imagination Library program - we just brought this program to my county, so I was excited to hand these out.

Volunteer applications

TSI applications - this is our teen group for grades 6-12. Our teen librarian advertised this program to many families and handed out a lot of applications.

Some new books from our collection - we didn't really have the space to display them properly and, though we got a few comments on the books I'd selected, no one really perused them. I'd leave them home next time.

Business cards - I don't think any homeschooling families took any, but it was nice to have them in order to network with the other organizations that were there (4H, Louisville Science Center, etc.)

Book lists - I brought a selection of book lists to hand out, but we didn't really have room at the table and with so many people from outside the library district, I didn't end up putting them out.

A survey - I put together a survey for homeschooling families that just asked what kinds of programming they might be interested in. If I did this event over, I'd ditch the survey. With all the paper on our table, the survey kind of got lost. I did mention it to most everyone who stopped by, but a bunch of them took it with them and I'm sure I'll never see them again. With an email signup list, it's quick and easy and everyone can immediately identify it. People might be more willing to scribble down their email address than to stand there and answer several questions thoughtfully. I could email information about upcoming programs, direct them to new features on our website, and send out online surveys if I wanted.

The day after the event, I emailed the organizer of the event thanking her for inviting us and letting her know what kind of programming we could provide if she ever wanted the library to come to another meeting of the group. We could do an early literacy workshop for parents of young ones, family storytime, booktalks, or a demonstration of our databases.

It was a great night overall and I'm so happy that we got the chance to meet some of our homeschooling families. (Of course, many of the faces were familiar because they visit the library often.) If you get the chance to attend a meeting of local homeschoolers, take it! If they don't call you, find out who your local groups are and contact them. Check out Local HS or about.com's Homeschool Support Groups by State for listings of some homeschooling support groups.

Homeschoolers Program

Last week we did a program for some of our local homeschoolers. We have an active homeschooling community in our district and we're moving towards offering more programs for them. (Instrumental in my understanding of homeschooling is Adrienne's book Helping Homeschoolers in the Library. If you can get your hands on it, do so! Also check out her blog Homeschooling and Libraries for valuable links.)

We had a fairly large group of kids ranging from kindergarten through 8th grade. We started by giving them a tour of the library. We tried to point out areas that would be helpful to them and since our circulation area recently underwent major construction, we demonstrated the new holds process and self-check machines. The tour lasted just about 30 minutes and then we split into two groups.

The younger group (approximately K-3rd) went with J and had a storytime and a craft project. The older group (approximately 4th-8th grade) went with me and had a demonstration of library databases and booktalks. We were very flexible about which kids went in which group. The only small issue we ran into was having the groups on two different floors. Some parents had kids in each group and were trying to go back and forth to get some of each program. It would have been easier if the rooms were side by side.

For our database program, I had set up a projector with a laptop. I demonstrated searching with the library's catalog (which most, if not all, of them were familiar with). I also demonstrated how to limit a search to the kids' area or to fiction or nonfiction and I demonstrated how to request books through Interlibrary Loan.

I showed them our booklists, including readalike lists, genre lists, and topical lists. Then I demonstrated several of the databases to which we subscribe. In each database, I showed them how to find the link from our website, how to access it from home, and how to search. I showed them World Book Online, Biography Resource Center, CultureGrams, and Student Resource Center. My presentation was about 25 minutes long and by the end we were all getting a little squirrelly. If I did it again, I'd try to make it a little more interactive.

When I had gone through all the databases, I handed out a "scavenger hunt" worksheet. Each question had a note about which database to use to find the answer. I gave them about 20 minutes to go through 8 questions and if they didn't finish I told them they could take it home and finish it.

To end the program, I brought them back into our story room and did about 15 minutes of booktalks. I booktalked the following:

Down Cut Shin Creek by Kathi Appelt
Love That Dog and Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech
Savvy by Ingrid Law
Seaborn by Craig Moodie
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine by Sally Walker
What the World Eats by Peter Menzel

Secrets of a Civil War Submarine was a big hit and that's one of my favorite books to booktalk. Savvy was also snatched up right away, as were the Sharon Creech books.

I was nervous about this program before we did it because I had never worked with this group before and because we were doing a lot. It went absolutely fine. Everyone was super nice and had a good time and I think we were able to give them a lot of valuable information. Homeschoolers are generally huge library users and it was so nice to get to know some of them a little bit more and to provide a program that was useful. I'm certainly looking forward to planning more programs for homeschoolers!