home schooling suppliesThe internet has a huge amount of information available that homeschool students can tap into. As a parent you may be worried about how they interact with websites and who they get their information from. You can set up a simple framework for your child to access safe and trustworthy sites in three simple steps.

Step One : Bookmarks

The best way to monitor the sites children are using is to provide them with a list of sites for each subject. They can be bookmarked by the homeschool teacher in the web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, etc) that they use. The homeschool student only needs to click on the bookmarks folder to access each subject related website. This offers a very restricted access of online reference sites to the students and is ideal for young children in elementary school.

Step Two :Safe Search

As the children grow older the homeschooling parent should use the internet browser’s settings to allow the children to access reference websites safely. Add settings for parental control with a program such as Web Nanny, so that the children do not inadvertently end up on a website that is inappropriate for their age group. You could also give them a written list of sites such as National Geographic, Maths Forum, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Fact Monster, and Scholastic.

Step Three : Check the Web History

It is natural for children to want to check out sites that may not always have parental approval. Gaming sites, music downloads, ebooks and a whole lot more can entice them away from their lessons. They need to know what is happening in the popular world as well. Try and give them some freedom, but keep a check on the internet browser’s web history to make sure that they are not accessing any site that could have a potentially damaging effect. If you find something amiss in a specific website, you can block it in the browser settings to prevent your homeschool students from accessing them. A little prevention is worth a pound of cure!