Let’s begin with this, that I never thought I would be homeschooling my own kids, nor did I ever want to.
I went through the public school system, and though it wasn’t the best in terms of education up until middle school (partly due to the fact that as immigrants we grew up in tough neighborhoods where funding was lacking), it did make the ambitious and competitive woman I became.
Now with my own kids, I had a lot more choices and initially my husband and I felt that we would just put them through a Christian private school was the best option!
Don’t get me wrong, they loved it and we loved it, and if it wasn’t for an unexpected summer, then we probably would have stuck with it and never tried homeschooling.
However, now that we have gotten into homeschooling, and are loving it, it’s hard to go back!
Now when I first started, I was still very nervous about the entire idea of homeschooling, mainly because I dreaded the idea of being responsible for my children’s education.
I mean what if I messed up and they would get behind.
I would need to become really invested so that they don’t fall behind.
However, I was already enjoying my independence and free time (finally) and I started a couple of small businesses so I was getting back into the working force, so there wasn’t any time to invest into their education if I was being honest with myself.
Why am I starting here?
Because I understand many moms have these decisions running through their minds, though we are all have different life circumstances.
Why would I do it if someone could do it better than me?
I am not even qualified to teach them, right?
Why would I sacrifice all that I’m doing or want to do just to be at home schooling my kids?
And then add all the other standard reasons why everyone thinks homeschooling is not a great option (how will they socialize, they’ll become loners, and so on).
All this to say that I came in kicking a screaming, and now I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This was the best choice for our family, and if you are able to, I’d recommend the jump into it!
If it’s something you’re considering and nervous about starting, or you have just started as well, then this list is for you!
These are the things which I learned after that first year of homeschooling and things that could set you up for success!
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1. Schedule is Essential for Productivity
The greatest advice given to me before I embarked on my homeschooling journey was from my son’s Pre-K teacher.
“Have a schedule,” she said,
“if they know what to expect, they are more willing to go with your flow and are more engaged!”
She was absolutely right!
When school has a structure both you and your kids take it seriously.
Progress throughout the day is easier to measure, and freedom is a tangible the finish line.
Now figuring out a schedule that works is a whole different story, and what may work for you or one family won’t necessarily work for another family.
Figuring Out A Schedule That Works!
First, when trying to create a schedule for your family it is essential to look at the curriculum you are working with.
What Schedule Does Your Curriculum Recommend?
Are you following one program, a mixture of programs or are you freestyle teaching?
Most programs have a recommended weekly and daily schedules.
This takes care of half of your work!
If you are following a program or a variety of programs, then you can structure your schedule based on their specific recommendations.
What Season of Life Are You In?
Are you working?
You now have to consider work-school balance.
Are you pregnant or nursing?
Expect the unexpected when growing a baby.
Are your kids all walking?
How independent or independent on you are each of them?
All of these will greatly impact your flexibility or lack there of so rigid hourly schedules may not work very well, especially if you teaching is an essential part of your curriculum.
Instead, focus on a progressive order of subjects and a target time when certain subject need to be done by each day.
Give yourself some wiggle room for the unexpected.
How Many Children Are You Homeschooling and Taking Care of?
Homeschooling more than one kid can start to complicate a homeschooling schedule, but don’t freak out!
It is totally doable!
Look for ways you can bundle teaching.
This is especially great for elective subjects and younger grades!
In our homeschool, because my children are one school year apart, we bundle science, social studies and history studies.
We also do biblical studies together and most activities.
Strategize independent work and breaks.
When individual-focused teaching is needed, give the other child work that they could do on their own or use this time for their breaks and alternate.
In our home we primarily use Abeka which is pretty heavy on the seat work, so my children will alternate working on seatwork while I teach each their Phonics, Reading, and Arithmetic.
2. Tackle the Least Favorite Fundamental Subjects First Each Day
This piece of advice piggy backs on the importance of having a schedule by emphasizing on the importance of being careful to schedule subjects appropriately.
I need to emphasize that they should be fundamental and not just any subject your child dislikes doing.
These include Language Arts/Phonics, Math, Reading, and Writing.
Why Mornings Are Important?
Children have their best focus early in the day so it is best to get their least favorite(s) of these done before noon!
This is also the best time to work on any subject in the list that they struggle with and give it extra attention.
This was something I realized very early on in our homeschooling journey.
For my kids specifically, writing was what they dreaded the most.
If they didn’t get writing done before noon we almost always ended up with a dragged out day and tears.
They just didn’t have the patience for it by the end of the school day.
This was also the case with any subjects heavy on critical thinking and comprehension.
Save the memory and repetition work for the afternoon!
My Experience
In our homeschool we make sure to finish Language Arts/Phonics work along with Writing FIRST.
Ideally by 10 AM, but lately, because I have a 7 month old, at least by noon.
Then we take a short break.
When we return, we tackle Math and Reading, and then we take another short break before moving onto Science, History and Social Studies (depending on the day).
3. Start Each Day Right!
The way you start each homeschooling day has a great effect on how the rest of that day will go!
More so, the foundation laid by attention to this simple detail is truly life-changing for your children.
I probably would not have understood this had I not gone with a Christian curriculum program, in its entirety.
Now if you’re not religious, please don’t click out, hear me out.
Like most of us homeschooling moms, when I thought about homeschooling, it was the academics and figuring out how to teach them that were the main focus for me.
However, homeschooling is more than academic knowledge.
We are also teaching our children life skills, and the way to start one’s day is one of the greatest life skills we can demonstrate (since they see us daily) and teach our kids!
We need to be intentional about it.
A Holistic Approach
Religious or not, most people accept the fact that we are spiritual beings.
Taking care of our spiritual person is essential to one thriving mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Neglecting spiritual care has drastic consequences, and secularization, one can argue, has had drastic consequences as evidentially seen by the uptick of mental health diseases
We are a whole body made of difference parts, and just like we are to teach our children to take care of their body with physical exercise and their mind with mental exercise, we should teach them to take care of their spirit with spiritual exercise
4. Dress for Success
This was a recommendation from a popular decades-seasoned homeschooling mom-blogger on how she ensures success in her own homeschool.
In her home, every child is required to be presentable and in a school uniform, similar to private schools.
I didn’t understand it at first, but the more we worked through our year, I realized just how important presentation was to not only my kids but to me!
It’s really easy to get in the habit of low-maintenance school days.
Everyone goes right out of bed and almost straight to the kitchen table to start school.
They’re still in pajamas and hair oftentimes not done.
Sure they’re comfortable, and why shouldn’t they have that perk since they’re schooling from home.
Well, the problem I have seen come up is that they get too comfortable and start to forget that they are at school despite still being home.
When we would have these days, motivation to stay focused and complete school work would wane quickly.
They would not want to do anything, and getting them to do their work would wipe me out by the end of the day.
On the other hand, when I would take the time to dress up and likewise encouraged them to do so, now all of a sudden the attitude was different.
We were presentable for learning.
It’s really not rocket science.
How you look directly correlates with your attitude and readiness for the day.
Add to the fact that you also feel a lot better about yourself when you are put together.
Our kids see it and they recipricate it.
Another bonus of dressing for success every homeschooling morning is that you and your kids are ready to go if you have any activities scheduled that day.
I just recall all of the times we didn’t dress up ready to go for the day in the morning and the chaos that would create in the afternoon when we had to go somewhere.
So unnecessary and stressful.
5. Lesson Prep is Vital
I will be honest, I feel like I still don’t have a well-established schedule for our lessons just yet.
That said, I am already going into my third year of homeschooling.
So, it’s ok if you don’t either.
But some sort of lesson prep or plan will make a WORLD of a difference to your sanity and the flow of your homeschooling day.
Most curricula have some sort of sample schedule you could follow, whether they be for every day, three days, or 2 days per week, which is super helpful.
However, these are not usually enough.
Before you get into a routine with any curriculum, oftentimes the legwork of lesson planning to the T is essential for success.
What Does Lesson Prep Look Like?
It depends on the curriculum, but usually lesson prep involves you getting familiar with the teaching material, you preparing the student material, and you preparing any supplemental materials that will be needed for lesson reinforcement.
This part can become time-consuming, and it is best done the night before if possible.
Lesson prep also means you break up each day’s classes and activities into a set schedule that you and your kids follow.
This will also take a lot of trial and error, depending on your home’s dynamics and expectations for each day.
It took me a number of schedules, from when we first began homeschool until today, before I got into a rhythm I liked.
Still, I’m sure that our current schedule will change when new
6. If It’s Not Broken, Don’t Fix It
Homeschooling can be intimidating.
You don’t want to be the reason your children get behind in school, so you crack down on all the curriculums
Or, at least you try to.
I struggled with this fear and so I overcompensated by purchasing everything recommended.
I went so far as to supplement every subject with a couple of curriculums because I didn’t want my kids to miss anything.
The more information the better, right?
All that did was confuse my children, since every curriculum had its own pace, focus, and approach to the same information, and exhaust all of us, since we would end up having 12 hour school days.
I know.. what was I thinking.
When things got out of hand I quickly doubled down and focused on the daily completion of just our base curriculum, the Abeka program.
That alone takes a good amount of time if you stick by it thoroughly.
I set everything else aside and only chose to introduce a supplement of I saw that the Abeka was not enough or if my kids struggled in a specific area.
What I saw was that it was working.
They were grasping mathematical concepts well and excelling in reading.
They were performing way above benchmark in their state tests and even testing out of certain topics.
The program was working for them and helping them excel, isn’t that what we want?
So, just because something else if working great for another family, doesn’t mean we too must give it a try and hop on the bandwagon.
After we completed the school year, I decided to go through the other curriculum I had purchased and look at it from the perspective of a completed school year.
The information was pretty much the same across the board, so my kids didn’t miss anything.
Actually, the Abeka program was a little more rigorous and so they were ahead in some areas, but that isn’t the point.
The point is that I found a math and reading program that worked.
If it works, don’t try to fix it!
7. You Are the Determining Factor of Your Child’s Academic Success
I’ve heard many moms talk about how their ideal form of homeschooling is to spend as little time actually teaching their kids.
There are many programs where this can actually be possible.
There are video lessons, self-read lessons, anything but actually sitting down and getting into the nitty gritty of a subject.
And before you come at me, I want to say that that’s an ideal day for me as well!
I love it when I don’t have to teach and I could just focus on my own work while they watch a video lesson and complete their seat work on their own.
Unfortunately, I learned pretty quickly that if I didn’t take their school days seriously, they didn’t either.
When I was focused on another task, they’d slip out and start doing something, anything, other than their schooling.
If I wasn’t checking their work, they’d stop trying.
If I wasn’t assigning it directly, they’d start skipping assignments.
As much as I wanted to be hands-off as much as possible, I realized that it was an impossible task.
Adults have a difficult time staying focused, let alone children.
Homeschooling is not a task, it’s a lifestyle, as cliche as that sounds.
If I want my kids to thrive and succeed, it is me who will have to make sure they do.
No one else will do it for me.
No curriculum.
No perfect program.
No technology.
I will have to sow time and energy.
I will have to sacrifice housework and work during that time.
But I know the return will be greater.
8. Consistency Is Key
Whenever I start a new curriculum, the information overload is rather overwhelming.
That is why I could not try another curriculum other than Abeka, for some time.
Abeka itself is intense.
There are a lot of daily supplemental teaching materials that can make lesson prep sometimes longer than the lesson itself.
You feel the pressure of doing everything to the T, because what if you miss something important and mess up your kids’ educational future!
The pressure!
What I realized not long after starting any program, was that consistency was key to optimizing functionality.
I always started by doing everything to a T.
It would be a lot of my own daily dedication and persistence, but eventually, that consistency paid off and made our school days run smoothly.
That is the case with any new curriculum.
Over time you start to understand it better and run it optimally, in the best way for each child, without wasting time.
You start to understand the strategy of the teaching and focus on the points that matter and best resonate with your child.
With your school days, your consistency builds your confidence and allows you to track your progress.
You are able to make educated decisions when necessary.
Ultimately the daily consistency in schedule allows your children you know what to expect each day so that they can understand what they need to do before they can have their free time.
Consistency is the key to an optimally functioning homeschool.
Final Thoughts
Undertaking the endeavor that is homeschooling can be challenging, in the beginning.
There is a lot to grasp with all of the curriculum options, teaching styles, and state requirements.
Not to mention all of the advice that you are given, whether it is asked and not asked for.
It’s a lot of information and a lot of unknowns, and you feel the weight of needing to always make the right decisions.
The important thing to remember is that you don’t need to know everything.
There is no bad curriculum, generally speaking on reputable options on the market, even if it’s the wrong one for you.
You can always change that, and if necessary you will.
You won’t mess up your kids’ future because you are choosing to do your best for them (clearly since you’re reading this) and paying attention to their progress.
If you’re intentional, then you won’t mess up.
Of course, you need to be realistic with it, and if it is too much and you feel like you need it, then it will help to have some accountability and help.
If possible, and it depends on the state you live in, signing up through charter chapters or reputable co-ops is a great way to keep your progress in check.
Here in California we regularly meet with a teacher who ensures that the programs we are following are helping our children thrive.
That takes a load of weight off of my shoulders and lets me know that I’m not alone in this.
