Many parents make the decision to homeschool their children, and in doing so are privy to some clear benefits. Homeschooling allows you to tailor a specific education to your child’s individual needs, something that is often lacking in the public or private school systems. Homeschooling also allows you and your child to learn together, creating not only a valuable learning experience but strengthening family bonds. Add to this the fact that it is often prohibitively expensive to send multiple children to private schools, and we can see why homeschooling has become increasingly popular.

One of the most important aspects of homeschooling your child is coming up with a clear plan and set of goals. One of the greatest aspects of homeschooling - its complete flexibility - can also be one of the most difficult if it is not approached directly. Without a clear plan, you run the risk of creating a scattershot education that puts your child out of place with his or her peers.

So when you begin homeschooling, you should come up with a clear set of general goals. Think about why you want to homeschool your children, and what you want them to get out of the experience. What, generally, do you want your child’s education to encompass? Once you have answered these general questions for yourself, begin to split your child’s education into various subject areas. For each subject area, you want to come up with a timeline and set of goals.

A good place to start in terms of a timeline would be to look at the standard curriculum for your child’s grade in a public or private school. While it is almost certainly true that one of these reasons you’ve selected to homeschool your child is to go beyond and outside this standard curriculum, you also want to make sure that your child does not fall behind his or her peers in a given subject area.

Come up with your plan by looking at the standard expectations for a given subject level and then working backwards: how do you want to achieve that level of knowledge? What are the targets for each week? By setting these targets you can establish a timeline and curriculum that allows for effective homeschooling.

Clearly, one of the points of homeschooling is its relative flexibility, and you by no means need to stick to a plan in a completely rigid manner, but don’t let this tempt you into avoiding one: although it may seem wonderful to have an entirely “organic” education for your children, this can easily go awry. If you constantly let your child’s learning be dictated exclusively by his or her interests, gaps will appear in her knowledge. Instead make a clear educational plan that allows for flexibility. Plan what your child is going to learn, but leave the “how she will learn it” some breathing room: as you begin the process of homeschooling you’ll learn how your child learns best, and can begin to incorporate this into the lessons.

By coming up with a clear educational plan you arm yourself with one of the most essential tools to effective homeschooling.

Planning your homeschooling effectively is the key to success.
To find out how to do this, then please visit Home Schooling Resources

Here’s some of the bad news about sedentary lifestyles:

• Forty percent of children ages 5 to 8 show at least one heart disease risk factor, including hypertension and obesity, which among children has doubled over the past two decades.

• The first signs of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) are appearing at age 5 - something never before seen in anyone under the age of 30.

• Children 6 to 10 are dying of sudden cardiopulmonary arrest.

• According to a recent Centers for Disease Control study, American children born in 2000 face a one-in-three chance of developing Type 2 diabetes - what used to be called adult-onset diabetes!

• This is thought to be the first generation of children that won’t outlive their parents.

The good news is that it doesn’t take much to turn things around. We just have to make sure our kids are physically active! Following are some tips for making that happen:

1. Turn off the TV! Research shows children are being electronically entertained an average of five to six hours a week. Without electronics, they’ll have to find other ways to keep themselves entertained.

2. Encourage your children to engage in active play. Research shows that the children who are most active are those whose parents have encouraged them to be active.

3. Play with your children! Blow bubbles for them to chase, play tag and hide-and-seek, put on an up-tempo song and boogie in the living room, or put on a John Philip Sousa march - or break out the pots and pans - and hold a parade around the house!

4. Serve as a role model, taking part in physical activity - cheerfully - yourself.

5. Take the children to parks, playgrounds, beaches, and on hikes during vacations and weekends - instead of to amusement parks, where they’ll stand in lines and then sit on rides.

6. Don’t send the wrong message about physical activity by endlessly circling the parking lot for the spot closest to the door. Instead, make a game out of parking as far from the door as possible and finding different ways to get to it (walking backward, tiptoeing, jogging, or skipping).

7. When it’s time for gift giving, select items like hula hoops; balls in a variety of shapes, sizes, and textures; roller skates; or a wading pool or swing set. When shopping for games, Twister has more to offer than a board game. And CDs with lively music are a better choice than movie videos.

8. Don’t expect organized sports to take care of your child’s physical activity needs. There’s more waiting than moving in most organized, adult-directed games.

9. Fight to keep physical education and recess in your child’s school - or, if necessary, to get them back! The research shows that, among other things, physical activity contributes to a better attitude toward school and improves academic achievement and test scores!

10. Make sure your child associates physical activity with FUN!

Rae Pica is a children’s physical activity specialist and the author of Your Active Child: How to Boost Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive Development through Age-Appropriate Activity (McGraw-Hill, 2003). Visit her and read more articles at http://www.movingandlearning.com

Immunizations are a necessary evil of childhood. As a mother, it’s heartbreaking to have your one year old begin to cry as soon as you enter the pediatrician’s building out of fear of a shot, but every time you take him to the doctor, but immunizations are the reason the death rate for infectious disease among babies and young children is so low today. Following are the immunizations your child should receive, and the approximate ages at which they will receive them.

DTP - (Diptheria, tetanus and pertussis) - Your child will receive this vaccine at around two months of age, four months, six months, 12-18 months and the final dose between the ages of 4 and 6 years. The pertussis vaccine has a high risk of reaction, those most reactions are mild. However, you should ensure that your child is well at the time of the vaccine, and that you watch them closely for about 72 hours after the vaccine. Your doctor should provide you a complete list of possible reactions, and how to treat them. However, for certain, if your child runs a fever over 104F or becomes limp or difficult to wake up, seek treatment immediately.

MMR - (Measles, mumps, rubella) - Your child will receive this vaccine between twelve and fifteen months of age, and then again sometime between the ages of 4 and 12 years old. Reactions to this vaccine are common, but mild, and don’t usually occur until about two weeks after the shot, so they are often not recognized as being associated with the vaccine. Some children have a mild rash and low grade fever, often accompanied by swelling of the glands in the neck.

VZV - (Varicella) - You probably didn’t receive this vaccine for chickenpox, but your child will receive it between 12 and 18 months of age. Reactions are few, and usually include just a mild fever.

Hib - (Hemophilus b) - This vaccine prevents a range of infections, including meningitis, caused by the hemophilus influenzae b virus. Your child will receive this vaccine at two, four and six months, and then again between 12 and 15 months. Some doctors offer Hib combined with DTP in one vaccine.

Hepatitis B - Your child probably will receive the first dose of this vaccine at birth, and will get doses again between two and four months and six to 18 months. This vaccine typically causes no reactions.

OPV - This is the polio vaccine, which has been successful at all but eradicating this crippling illness. Your child will receive doses at two and four months, at eighteen months and between four and six years. Children rarely suffer any reaction to this oral vaccine, though it is typically postponed if your child is sick.

Your child’s vaccinations are typically administered at well baby care visits. This is one of the reasons it is so important to regularly attend these appointments. Receiving the right vaccines at the right time is critical to your child’s health.

Sarah is a 41 year old wife and mother of two boys and one girl. She spent many years as a manager in the corporate world, and gave it up to be a stay at home mom. www.infantresources.com“> Click here now and get her incredible baby minicourse - absolutely free.