Streamline Your Homeschool

Streamline Your Homeschool ~ Episode 503

How do you streamline your homeschool when you have so much to accomplish each year? With these three tips Felice Gerwitz will share with you in this episode of Vintage Homeschool Moms, it’s relatively easy!

I so appreciate this week’s sponsor! Thank you to our sponsor, Route 60 – The Biblical Highway. In theaters September 18th & 19th only. Please check the website to learn more about this wonderful movie.

Today, we will discuss streamlining your homeschool, and I have to tell you that homeschooling for many years has allowed me to try different things. Some years I decided to be super organized. In other years, I decided to do more of a go-with-the-flow. Unfortunately, that never really worked for me, it would have been simpler if it worked. In other years, I decided on outcome-based goals. I would have goals that I wanted to achieve. I would work toward achieving those goals with my children.

Check out the Streamline Your Homeschool Self-Paced Class here.

Homeschooling Journey

Well, in the last few years of my homeschooling journey, I feel I finally got it somewhat right after the last child graduated! I ended my homeschool journey, clocking in at about thirty-two years of homeschooling, and I believe all my children are successful as young adults. As an aside, I think parents sometimes want to use their child’s success as part of their own success. I’ve seen this happen too many times. Once I started speaking at homeschool conferences, I tended to be recognized, even locally. I remember one mom asking me which Ivy League college my child would attend and what my goals were. I’m not sure if my notoriety, big fish in a small pond, so to speak, encouraged her to think that was my goal.

In her defense, at that time, a homeschooling family put homeschooling on the map because three of their four sons had reached this distinction. Still, that was not my goal for my children or theirs. Even though three of my children graduated from college with honors, that is all on them. My husband and I were their cheerleaders, encouraging and advising, but that was not our end goal. I think we must look at our motivations as homeschool parents and try as much as we can to streamline our homeschooling rather than putting undue pressure on ourselves or our children, especially to achieve goals that are for vanity and pride rather than necessity and need.

Homeschool Takes Planning

Within our home, I did get the credit if things worked out, but I also received the blame when it didn’t. Truthfully, some years were not great, and our household did not run as I hoped. My children had different personalities and ways they learned, as I suspect yours also do. It would’ve been easy to compartmentalize and put them in little boxes, but that also didn’t work for us, so I had to take a look at how I wanted to homeschool and also take into consideration my children’s personalities, as well as the way that they learn best.

Having said this, I also had to look at what were some of the things that the children needed to learn each year, and I found that no matter what we used as far as curriculum went or how I planned my days or my year, there were some considerations I must make. One was a look at my year, midyear. And looked at our progress. This came on after talking to my husband, and I was complaining about how I felt like our kids were not learning a lot that year, so he recommended that I look at our current progress mid-year.

Mid-Year Evaluation

At the time, we were still on Christmas break, and I took his suggestion to heart. There is a link for the Mid-Year Evaluation in podcast form on my website you can listen to for free. This was the best advice I can give you, and it worked so well for me. Each year, I evaluated our progress and made changes as needed. I didn’t go through an entire school year and then feel horrible. Best of all, you will find you are doing well, for the most part, which is an ego boost!

Taking this idea one step further. I did the same thing at the end of the year and the following year at the beginning of the year. I made some firm plans, and it worked. It worked so well that I created a self-paced set of three audios and a set of handouts for the beginning, middle, and end-of-year evaluations. The audios are available on my website MediaAngels.com/store if you want this help.

Three Tips To Help Streamline Your Homeschool:

Looking over my homeschool years, I found I did three things well. What are they? Well, this helps streamline your homeschool!

Routine
Consistency
To expect the unexpected

Streamlining my home school was easier if I had a routine in place.

This consisted of:

Routine:

Things that we did each day. This allowed not only some free time for me in the morning
Allowing my children to become self-sufficient.
Getting up, dressed, eating breakfast, doing simple chores.
School day routine:

Consistency

Homeschool
Household
Discipline and following through

Expect the Unexpected

Have a plan, a person to call to watch the children
Fun activities for times you need to keep little ones quiet or engaged
Quite activities: puzzle books, games, or other entertaining items

Streamlining your homeschool takes planning. Sometimes, we get these grandiose plans and want to do these elaborate activities. What has worked for me with the theme of streamlining is that I will do some of these activities during the holidays. For example, I always wanted to do lessons on composers, so I use that as a Christmas activity. It’s still a learning assignment, but one the kids will enjoy. Try to complete school a few before Christmas. Use fun activities for times when other more pressing situations are happening. Things happen! We remodeled our home twice while homeschooling and planning for a wedding. We had many birthday parties and family gatherings at our home. No matter the month, I am sure you will have disruptions in your home; therefore, school tends to go by the wayside.

Plan ahead.

1. Yearly Planning Calendar – one month at a time here.

2. Homeschool Goal Setting Bundle – here.

3. Character Planner for the entire family here

Whatever it is, remember routine, consistency, and expecting the unexpected, and you will be well on your way to streamlining your home school this year. I pray these ideas are helpful for you, and I am blessed you took the time to spend it with me! In the next few weeks, we discuss fall and how to fit learning in during a busy season.