Homeschool Planning: 6 Keys to a Year That Actually Works

Homeschool Planning That Actually Works with Felice Gerwitz & Meredith Curtis

Show notes

Felice has been homeschooling since 1986. Meredith has written close to a hundred books, most of them because her own kids needed something that didn’t exist yet. In this episode they each bring three things — six in all — that separate a homeschool year that works from one you survive.

1. Attitude — and it starts with yours.

(Felice) Before the books, before the schedule: the attitude check. Felice tells her kids the difference between an adult and a child is that an adult does what needs doing whether or not they feel like it. But she’s honest that her own house got to the point where everyone dreaded the start of the school day — and what turned it was daily prayer together, on their knees in the schoolroom, naming the specific thing somebody didn’t want to face that morning. Meredith adds the anchor underneath it: whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord. We’re not homeschooling because our children are so precious — some mornings they don’t feel precious — we’re homeschooling for the glory of God.

2. Prepare.

(Meredith) Lay out the year’s lesson plans in general terms, not in detail: enough to know in November whether you’re behind, so you’re not still doing school at the end of May. Clear last year’s books onto the high shelf. Get the room in order. Get your heart in order — what does the Lord want for each child this year, what should keep going, what should change. Then do the same thing daily: know your agenda and your priority before the day starts, so when something comes up you know what can be dropped and what can’t. Preparation is what keeps you proactive instead of in survival mode, and survival mode is where discouragement lives.

3. Map out the year.

(Felice) Her method, and it’s the most practical thing in the episode: a two-year calendar with the whole year on a page. Print the holiday list. Grid out the weeks you already know you won’t be schooling. Then circle school days until you hit your state’s required number — Florida’s is 180 — and fill in the subjects afterward. Meredith’s addition is worth stealing: build a catch-up week into the fall and a catch-up week into the spring. If you don’t need them, you have a week for field trips and educational movies you never otherwise get to. And the counterweight to all of it — don’t be a slave to the schedule. When Felice’s daughter’s all-star team made the softball World Series, the SAT prep they’d planned all summer moved into the school year, and the trip was the right call.

4. Promote.

(Meredith) Television teases the nine o’clock show at eight. Do that with your school year. We’re reading this book in March. Later in the year we’re writing and filming a commercial. Give the kids the coming attractions — the fun parts and the hard parts — instead of just announcing the plan. There will be drudgery and there will be discipline, and there will also be delight and memories. Meredith’s discovery: when she promoted school as something positive in her children’s hearts and minds, she promoted it as positive in her own.

5. Set your kids up for success.

(Felice) She had children who struggled to read, and reading trouble bleeds into spelling and writing and everything else. What she did: kept reading aloud to them, chose easier books so reading stayed a pleasure, worked remediation from the side, and leaned hard into science because it pushed deeper thinking without requiring fluent reading. And she gave them language for the struggle — if it’s easy, that means you already know it; if it’s difficult, that means you’re learning it — repeated until they could say it back. Once the reading clicked, those same kids were in trouble for reading the wrong book during school.

6. Provide.

(Meredith) Three layers. Provide a Christian worldview — she has watched too many families bring the public school’s assumptions home with the curriculum. Provide what this child needs: every one of her children did fine on Saxon, until Shine, who couldn’t learn higher math that way and needed something else entirely. And most of all, provide yourself. Too many parents hand a child a book and expect the book to do the teaching. You are your child’s teacher; curriculum is one of your tools. Be willing to learn alongside them, trade subjects with another mom, or write the thing yourself — which is how most of Meredith’s books exist. And don’t let “I’m not enough” stop you: God is the provider; you only have to have the heart to provide.

Felice and Meredith close where the whole conversation was headed. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. The years go fast. Do what you need to do, enjoy what you can, and keep the relationships in view.

Scriptures mentioned: Colossians 3:23 · Psalm 90:12 · Psalm 127:3-5

Also mentioned: Meredith’s Joyful and Successful Homeschooling and Quick and Easy Unit Study Fun · Felice’s Truth Seekers Mystery series and science curriculum from Media Angels · The Brain Trainers (brain-training remediation) · College Prep Genius (SAT prep) · Meredith’s show on the network, Finish Well, for teens and their families

Vintage Homeschool Moms is hosted by Felice Gerwitz and is part of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network. This episode is brought to you by CTC Math — ctcmath.com. Find more from Meredith Curtis at meredithcurtis.com.