I am a little bit more behind where I would like to be in my summer planning – BUT we are getting there! Everything is planned out and all I need to do is PREP! The next several weeks, I will be be posting all about how I prep my different subjects for the year.
There are loads of things I have learned as I go into our fourth year of homeschooling {how has it been that long?!}. But one of them is this – taking the time to plan and prep really helps makes us successful. AND saves my mommy mind.
The first two years we were really just figuring things out. The first year was a lot of trial and error and the second year I was going through a rough pregnancy and moving our family to another state – we were surviving.
But this last year, was amazing. Last summer, I decided I really wanted to take the time to plan and prep and our year was so much smoother. About midyear I tweaked things a little more and I am feeling GREAT about where we are at.
Step 1: Homeschooling Style
I remember when we first decided to homeschool – everything I read said that the first step was to pick your “homeschooling style”. This made no sense to me! I knew nothing about it. But it’s a thing.
This is my opinion on homeschooling style. There are loads of different ones you can read about on the internet or in books. There is Charlotte Mason, unschooling, Thomas Jefferson, Classical, Eclectic, Traditional, etc. I am definitely not saying there isn’t merit to looking into these styles but for me it was just overwhelming.
I think it all boils down to this question – what do you want your homeschool to look like? We all go into homeschooling for different reasons and oftentimes those reasons will get added to or shuffled around in order of importance as times passes. And with those changes, might come a change in your style. THAT IS OKAY. Don’t feel tied down to one particular “style”.
Find what works for you and your family and be confident in THAT.
Step 2: Curriculum
What “homeschooling style” you have will effect what kind of curriculum you want to get. Or maybe you will opt for no curriculum at all {that would STRESS me out, but many do that successfully}.
We found The Good and the Beautiful about a month after we started homeschooling. We quickly switched everything over and I have never looked back. It works wonderful for our family and I don’t feel any need to change what is working and enjoyable to us!
This is our homeschooling choices for this upcoming year:
I have made two changes with our plans since writing these posts – we are not going to do a separate nature and music program. These weren’t taking a lot of our time but I felt like it was a little repetitive with some of the other things we are doing. Plus – simplify.
Step 3: Planning
Traditional School Year vs. Year Round School
This is something that has taken some trial and error over the years. Our first two years – and the beginning of this year – I would write up a schedule for each day and what lessons we would be doing. I knew it wasn’t going to match up and I told myself it didn’t bother me if we got off, but it did bother me.
We have taken a year-round schooling approach and I love it. It works well with Jacob to have consistency but I also feel like it really validates my end goal for my children: to become life-long learners. If I tell them that learning should be apart of our daily life, why do we stop for several months?
I completely understand the need for a mental break and we definitely do school light during the summer. But doing “school” year round also gives us the opportunity to take breaks when we want or need to and feel no pressure about maintaining a schedule.
Schedule
Even though I have accepted that having a daily Monday – Friday checklist stresses me out – I do really thrive on a plan.
Now I realize that sounds a little contradictory but stick with me here. We switched to this method about midyear this last year and it has been FABULOUS.
I am going into this year knowing that tweaking is definitely going to happen. This is Benjamin’s first year doing school. Sarah is starting kindergarten which adds a lot more. We are still working on therapies for Jacob which involves a lot of appointments. And Lydia is also getting various types of therapy. All of that means that flexibility is definitely going to be apart of things.
I went through all of our subjects, decided about how much time each would take and came up with a rough draft of our day. The “times” really don’t matter too much to me – it is more a “flow“. Moving from one subject to the next and knowing what to expect.
We may find that this schedule doesn’t work at all, but you really don’t know until you get into it. And I like to have a starting point. This is also a longer school day then I would like, BUT all of the kids are very dependent on me still and so this is what it is. Next year, I am hoping to get Jacob a little more independent. But for right now, this is what we’ve got.
Next, I take out all of our books and materials for next year and hop on the computer. This is pretty tedious, but it has been very helpful.
I write down the table of contents for each subject, for each child, and print it out. Under each lesson, I also include any additional supplies {that aren’t in our basics} that we need. There is a place for us to mark the date which helps us see how long things are taking and gives us an idea of where we are in each subject. You could just do this right in your book, but where we are juggling lots of books, I like to have it all in one place. I bind it all together and it just makes it easy peasy.
At the end of the week, I just flip through our schedule and see what lessons we will be doing for the next week, any additional supplies we may need, and it gives me a really quick way of knowing what’s ahead. And, my favorite part, there is no timetable attached to it. We get things done when they are done, and it takes off a lot of pressure.
Step 4: Prep
This step has become critical for me over the years. The first two years I felt like I was constantly prepping throughout the year or skipping things because I just wasn’t prepared.
I have learned that if I take the time to prep things during the summer things go so much smoother. Everything is done and it just helps me mentally. I can enjoy my evenings with my husband without being distracted by “school”. AND it’s really nice after spending the greater portion of my day learning with my children, to just take a mental break from it all in the evenings.
As I said in the beginning, I will be posting how I prep all our different subjects in the upcoming weeks – so be on the look out for those!
Step 5: Doing it
Last step, is bringing it all together and just DOING it! You put all of that planning and prepping together and learn with your children. It’s amazing and incredibly rewarding. I will forever be grateful for this time with my children.
Every day, I write up our “schedule” for the day. As I said above, it’s more about the “flow” of the day then a “time”. Doing this is very beneficial for Jacob especially. He thrives on knowing what to expect and it is a quick way for all of us to see what we have going on.
Again, flexibility is KEY in all of this. Somedays, not everything happens. And I am VERY okay with that. {Obviously, we aren’t too loosey goosey – we do need to get stuff done – but I am not a slave to it either!} We just pick up with where we left off in our subjects the next day.
I wrote up a sample of what our first day of school is going to look like this next year. It kind of stresses me to see ALL of that on there. But then I remind myself that a lot of those things are quick and/or independent.
As a complete side note, if you have the space and ability to get a large whiteboard – it is amazing. This is such a wonderful tool for us and we use it all day, every day. Also, every month I change the color for each of the kids and, for some reason, that is just the BEST for them. It’s the little things, folks.
Final Thoughts
I sincerely hope this post is helpful. A lot, unfortunately, is just trial and error. I wish it could be simpler and there was one way that was just amazing for ALL of us – but then we would also be missing out one of the wonderful blessings of homeschooling – that it can be personalized and molded to fit your children and family.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me in the comments. I would love to help in any way I can.
Happy planning!
Amazing…. absolutely amazing!