Homeschooling is hard. Yep I said it. You’ve thrust yourself into this new world, and now what? There are so many options of curriculum. So many philosophies of homeschooling. All the shiny projects and books and you want to do them all! Somewhere along the way it all has become a muddled stressy mess of chaos. Is this really what homeschooling is supposed to be like?
Maybe you’re new or maybe you’ve been doing this a while. But one question we all say in one way or another is: How do I wrap my head around our school days so I can wrap my arms around my kids more? If you’re asking this, then I’m glad you found me. Here are 5 things I hope to help you accomplish.
1. Help you understand how planning can be helpful for your school day
Chaos is distracting. If you haven’t figured out how to even approach a school day, you may get to the end of the week with a pile of books and papers and sticky notes and no energy to even enjoy your weekend, let alone think about another week of school. Maybe you just might quit, cause this homeschool thing is harder than you thought.
Yep homeschooling isn’t easy. A lot of the work of making it happen falls on you, mom. And if you don’t have a plan in place, you may always feel behind. Or lacking. Or incompetent. But it’s just not true. God has put homeschooling on your heart for a reason and one way to combat all these fears you have of following through on that is to develop a plan of attack. Organize those books and papers and put all those notes into a plan. Take the energy out of figuring out what to do and spend that energy on actually doing it.
2. Help you find the best planning tools that work for your family
Maybe you’re not a planner, or maybe you’re a list girl like me. Either way, there are so many tools and ideas out there that can help organize your brain and everything school for your family. Organization doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to work for you. Not everyone plans down to the minute and I will never suggest that you do – I definitely don’t!
You can jump into the year with a couple basic spiral notebooks and a simple calendar. Or you can dive in and use a full blown planner system with binders and folders and spreadsheets or even make it all artsy with your own DIY bujo planner. The key is you pick what helps you get organized and stay on top of all the things and maybe you’ll even enjoy it! (too soon?)
3. Help you develop a plan that streamlines your school days and year
Just like the tools you use, the way you plan needs to be tailored to you. Maybe you like to take a few days in the summer and plan plan plan. Maybe you take five minutes each night to prep for the next day. Or maybe you fall somewhere in between and have a “parent-teacher conference” every quarter. Finding the right planning strategy for your family is key. And it might even change as your family changes!
Let’s get all the thinking and planning done now so we can take care of our future selves. Make the looping lists and buckets, organize the morning time, pre-buy the science tools, prep your library lists. You won’t ever have everything done perfectly so you don’t have to think about anything, but you can definitely take off so much of the pressure.
4. Help you work through your plan despite the struggles of life with kids
I get it. Life happens. Someone wakes up sick, there’s a family emergency and a quick trip out of town. Or even planned events like vacations, holidays, or a new baby can throw off anything and everything you were planning on doing that week, month, year…. things that are amazing and wonderful and exciting can also be very complicated and difficult when so many other balls are still up in the air.
There are approaches you can take in these situations to build in grace for yourself and your family. Perhaps have a built in back up plan with easy activities or start a new novel together! Or even take some time off and get those school days in later. Ultimately, the goal is to not be a slave to the plan, but allow the plan to work for you to build in some structure and thinking space. Sometimes this takes a little extra forethought but it always takes some grace for yourself.
5. Have more time in your school day to focus on your family
When you don’t have to focus as much on what you will be doing each day to get it all in, you can focus more on enjoying all the things you have planned. You can stop thinking about whether or not you will finish the math book and just work through the struggles of math on the daily.
You will have more brain power to think about having fun and enjoying the field trips and the art projects and the new baby. Cause that’s what this crazy life is about, isn’t it? They’re only with us a short while. Take care of yourself with a plan so you can take care of those littles God has entrusted to your care.
Wrap it up
My big goal here at Homeschool-Planning is to help you set up a system for your homeschool days that helps you be able to focus on your family. There’s sadly no magic wand to make everything run smoothly all the time, but hopefully this site will get you going in the right direction. I’m glad your here!
