There are a lot of bloggers out there in that vast expanse of cyber space, but blogging can be all about your own personal benefit. You see, some people blog for the benefit of others, some blog for money, and others blog for themselves. As a homeschool mother of six, I blog for several reasons… but one of those is definitely for the benefit of myself and my family.
I can record via a blog post how we went about learning a particular concept, or what really cool field trip that we went on. I am recording these events and methods for use again later as my little ones grow. Yet, I am also enabling other homeschoolers to have the benefit of different ideas.
The world’s a big place, and we as homeschoolers can share with one another to make homeschooling a whole lot easier.
To be honest, in the first few years I homeschooled I didn’t have much of a connection to the world outside of my home. I labored endlessly, as most mothers do, relying on my own ideas, inspiration, and ingenuity. Let’s just say… that ran out pretty quick. Once I discovered the wealth of information that homeschooling parents share on the internet… I was hooked. I was able to get fresh ideas all of the time… thanks to other like minded homeschooling parents who shared their great ideas on their blogs.
As a friend of mine always says, “We’re better together!” …more ideas, more knowledge,and more encouragement! Homeschool parents are so beneficial to one another. I know I have saved countless hours and money on purchasing curriculum that I knew wouldn’t work for our family simply because of another homeschool parent’s review. I have also found wonderful resources because another homeschooler shared them with me on her blog.
Not only that, but as a homeschool blogger, I am constantly having homeschool brands and publishers contact me to review their products. My children and I have obtained so many awesome homeschooling resources as the result of having a successful blog. I’ve had years where I’ve literally had to purchase NO new curriculum because I had enough review products to cover our school year. Along the same idea, my family and I have been on many free field trips because I agreed to write a blog post about our experiences. Some of the best field trips that we’ve been afforded thanks to my blog include:
- Colonial Williamsburg
- Walt Disney World
- Epcot Studios
- Animal Kingdom
- Universal Studios
- LegoLand
- SeaWorld
- Atlantis Aquariam {Bahamas}
- Fathom Travel 7-day cruise to the Dominican Republic
- WonderWorks
- Ripley’s Aquarium
- Pirate’s Voyage
- GoApe Treetop Adventure
- ZipQuest- zipline and waterfalls
- The Creation Museum
- Great Wolf Lodge
- Carowinds Amusement Park
If you are interested in starting your own homeschooling blog… don’t put it off. It’s really easy and it’s a lot of fun. My kids love to see their pictures on my homeschooling blog, and as time goes on it will actually be rather like a family album! My Blogging Basics Bootcamp course will help you to get your blog idea off the ground!
This post was originally written by Jamie Gaddy in 2012 for HomeschoolBlogging.com. It was significantly updated, edited and re-published in 2018 by Heather Bowen, HomeschoolBlogging.com owner.
This Post Has 3 Comments
Jamie, I agree that it’s great to share ideas with others, and I’ve learned about some great resources through homeschool bloggers.
My problem at the moment with homeschool blogging is that it’s so time-intensive to visit blogs. Part of this is my bumbling ineptness in doing computer-related things– I’ll make a blog comment and then find that for one reason or another it’s not going through — so that is a puzzle and I feel like I have to stick around and try to solve it.
Hopefully those technical things will get resolved with trouble-shooting and experience. But then there is the other question of how much time am I able and willing to put into looking at others’ blogs? I don’t think I should just be making my own posts, oblivious to the community of homeschool bloggers that are out there.
I guess that would be a topic for someone else to write about– I’d be interested to know how other people manage their blog-reading time, and how many other blogs they spend time with. For me, what seems to work for now is to be subscribed to three, and make regular comments on them, and then to just randomly look at others as time and serendipity permits.
Thanks!
Check out this amazing resource that my wife and I have used for our middle grades kiddos. We have two boys and they excel with this science course.
James and Kells