There are many options for education today including charter schools, online schools, private and public as well as homeschooling. There are also many methods or ways one can homeschool.

Homeschooling can look like a school in that the parent purchases curriculum for each subject and follows a specific plan for each subject. Another option is outside classes. Some classes involve paying a fee and dropping your child and family for the time period and then there are also co-op style classes where all the parents agree to “teach” a topic or subject and you can often choose as many or few classes for your child. Some places have a combination of parent-led as well as classes by outside instructors where there is often a larger fee. At the other end of the homeschooling spectrum is unschooling. Unschooling looks pretty much like how the average adult might learn something they choose to learn. You might search for resources online like videos, blogs and websites or find an online or local mentor. You might go out and sign up for a class for example if you want to learn to knit. Or maybe you choose to find books on the topic of interest. You might also go visit a location to learn more like a field trip to an art museum or a rock quarry or maybe a historic site.

The best thing about homeschool is that you can use any combination of methods to best fit the needs of you and your child and you can choose to change your plan at any time in the process. In NC, there is no requirement to report or declare what methods you are using and therefore there is a lot of freedom and opportunity to figure out how your child best learns. After all, is not that the goal, for your child to learn.