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Kick Off Your Homeschool Year

20 First Day of Homeschool Celebrations

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

20 First Day of Homeschool Celebrations @Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When the boys were real young, our first day of homeschool celebrations were simple.

Banana pancakes and french toast were some of their favorite breakfasts, so we celebrated with a special breakfast.

Homeschool Celebrations

As they got older, first day of homeschool celebrations became more involved.

Look at some of these ways to kick off your first day of homeschool and add some fun too:

1. Cook a special breakfast.
2. Go to the museum.
3. Spend the day at the beach.
4. Spend the day creating crafts.
5. Spend the day reading aloud.

6. Play board games all day.
7. Go to story time.
8. Go to the movies with other teens.
9. Spend the day at the pool.
10. Lounge at the library all day.

11. Go out for pizza.
12. Go out for ice cream.
13. Plan a field trip with your group (one of my very favorite because we all felt like we were playing hooky and we involved others).
14. Go ice skating (perfect because it’s indoors and you can stay cool. We loved this).
15. Bake cookies.

16. Camp out for a night.
17. Start a nature journal.
18. Start off with art lessons outside (we did this and so much fun).
19. Start off with archery lessons (we did this one year also and the boys still remember).
20. Start off with a meal you would eat during a history period (we did this too and loved it).

Remember, there is plenty of time to hit the books.

Make the first day of school memorable each year by celebrating it.

Do you have any special traditions for homeschool that you celebrate?

Hugs and love ya,

Also, check out:
Patience, Confidence, Knowing ALL the Right Answers NOT Required to Homeschool
Homeschool Organization – Free Morning Routine Flip Cards for the Littles
6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled Teen

3 Sanity Saving Tips for Your First Week of Homeschooling

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Sanity Saving Tips for Your First Week of Homeschooling @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusIf this is your first year of homeschooling, you are in for a wild adventure.

Homeschooling is the only call to duty where you can feel utterly triumphant and drastically defeated in the same day.

Homeschooling can have just as many downs as ups and in the same moment.  So, it is important to arm yourself with three sanity-saving tips in your first week of homeschooling.

Participation over Progress.

Minimizing lesson planning and maximing interaction with your children by discussing with them what they want to learn for the new homeschool year sets your homeschool up for success.

When children have control of their education, they become owners of it.

Conversations about what your children’s goals are, even if your children are young, sets the pace for independent learning from the very beginning.

Avoiding a spoon-fed mentality, which can be the norm in public school will minimize your workload over the long haul.

From the beginning, meaningful conversations become a way to tap into what interests your children and more importantly it gives them ownership of their education.

I am the Boss of You.

One year I remember helping a new bee who was having trouble with her first grader.

Getting my mind prepared for some kind of academic problem she was having, I was surprised when the new bee mentioned that her first grader was telling her constantly, “You’re-not-the-boss-of-me.”

Just one year in public school in Kindergarten and the first grader did not view his mom as the authority when teaching him.

When authority is not respected, homeschooling gets tough to say the least because kids grow up quickly.

Character building is inextricably linked with academics.

Building respect for your authority as the parent helps your child to see that though you allow as much free choice as possible, you ultimately are the one in charge.

Progress can’t made when a child is constantly whining, complaining or questioning every decision you make.

List Your Non-negotiables

In your first or second year it is normal to have a mile long list of homeschooling goals.

Write them all out, but also have a separate list of one to three goals, which are achievable and reachable.

Reaching one to three goals becomes your foundation of your homeschool, but it also becomes your list of non-negotiables for the year.

Progress year to year is not made with mile high goals, but with tiny measured steps that turn into huge leaps each year.

Gear up for the new homeschool year by slowing down to engage your child in meaningful conversation about his choices for the day, balance your child’s growing need for independence while maintaining the authority in your day and building your homeschool foundation with a few well-chosen non-negotiables.

Have you implemented a plan for the new homeschool year?

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Also check out:
Beginning Homeschool in Middle School – 3 Questions Worth Asking
Top 10 Tips to Get a New Homeschool Year Rolling

3 Traps to Avoid When Home and School Come Together Mid-Year

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

At the end of the year is not when most people probably want to talk about homeschooling mid-year.  But when January rolls around, home and school can collide.

Whether you have the itch to try a different approach or you are brand spanking new to homeschooling, there are 3 traps to avoid when home and school come together mid-year.

Avoid I’m-behind-already anxiety.

Without giving you a legal synopsis on who invented standards based learning, you have to adopt what standard you choose to live and educate by.  The mentality that you are already behind from your beginning is self-defeating.

Opportunities for enrichment and learning do not only happen between August and May.  Avoid the tug and trend of the public educational world that tells you when you are starting mid-year, you have to catch up.

Instead of focusing on what you are not doing right now, remember that this is a big change for your family and everybody will need time to adjust to a new schedule.

Focus on what you have done which is to take control of how you will measure the progress of your children and to not measure them by some perfect child that does not even exist.

The rigors of withdrawing from public school after possible drama can make it physically and mentally exhausting for the whole family.

The beginning is a point to learn about how to homeschool and that is enough for the first year of change.

Look at 8 Components of a Boxed Curriculum and How to Use a Boxed Curriculum without Giving Up Your Homeschool Approach because you can glean some tips by easing the stress of lesson planning in the beginning.

Start taking control back of your family’s education by allowing them time to recuperate and rest before your embark on your new journey. This process is called deschooling.

Deschooling can mean several things depending on your family’s circumstances.

The common factor among most families is that it is a time to step back and assess what you want for your family.

It can mean taking time to physically rest. For some families it is a time to rethink their educational goals and for other families it can be at time to rekindle their relationship with one another.

However you choose to use this time depends on the needs of your family. Avoid setting up dogmatic rules about how long your family needs to recover.
Some families need a few weeks to recover and others need a few months.  It does not mean you don’t do any learning.

It does mean you decide during this recovery period what your family will learn.  Take time to explore your possibilities and options.

Avoid cracking open your curriculum immediately.

This can be especially hard if you feel that your child has been getting further and further behind.

What I want you to know is that when a parent spends one-to-one time training their children, they will excel at academics.  And normally, this can be done in half the time the public school takes for the day to do academics.

What I am saying is that you have time. Take time to nurture the strained relationship with your child first. This is especially important if your child is older.

FIRST WARNING SIGNS OF HOMESCHOOL BURNOUT

Up to this time, your child’s experience with public school may be negative or maybe this year you have had a negative experience with your homeschool approach or curriculum.

This negative experiences can affect how a child thinks learning is suppose to happen. Digging deeper into something that is not working only sets you back instead of thrusting you forward.  Don’t do it.

Start out your year by studying something that captures your child’s love of learning.  Take a look at 50 Free History Unit Studies and grab you one or two.

For some kids this is a craft, for older children it can be a unit study on a topic they find fascinating and for others it can be creating a hands-on model of something they want to learn about.

Reading aloud together also engenders a love of learning and it is not just for preschool age children.

I have read to my two older sons until high school.  Besides equating reading with sheer pleasure, it evokes the feeling of a warm atmosphere in my home.

Our reading together many times has turned into precious and personal time where my sons pour our their hearts to me about what is on their mind.

Creating opportunities to repair the relationship or even to nurture it takes leisurely moments of time.  That can’t be done when your only focus is cracking open the math workbook.

Avoid over committing.

Committing to your child means not over committing to other activities outside the house.

Trying to right all the perceived wrongs to our child, we may feel that joining every field trip group, local co-op and outside classes will be just the thing that our child needs.

Don’t flee one stressful schedule to run into another one even if the activities seem helpful.

Limiting outside activities in the beginning will allow your family time to adjust to a new lifestyle without the stress of too many outside activities.

As your family adjusts to a new routine and new curriculum, gradually fold in other activities.

This allows time for you to focus on what is important, which is getting to know how your child learns best, taking time to adjust to new curriculum and reading all you can about homeschooling.

When home and school meet up mid-year, it should be a time of exploring, experimenting, and evaluating.

It is a time to focus on what is important to you and to not follow what somebody else says to do.

Avoid the 3 common traps when beginning mid-year, which are I’m-already-behind mentality, cracking open the curriculum instead of focusing on what your family wants to learn and don’t over commit to outside activities thinking that your child needs his schedule filled up at every waking moment with socialization.  He does not.

You only have one new beginning, keep it memorable.  How do you plan to kick off your new year?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature Treasure the Moments of Homeschooling Testosterone Armed Teen Boys

Grab some more posts on how to kick off your new year!

Should A Child Have a Choice to Return To Public School?

“But the little dear doesn’t want to homeschool”

Eliminating 3 Non-Essentials in Homeschooling

When Homeschooling is a Mistake

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I thought homeschooling was a mistake when I put Mr. Senior 2013 in public school Kindergarten.

Teaching him his colors and numbers at 3 years old seemed easier at the time than homeschooling him at the beginning of Kindergarten. I chuckle now many years later, but it was not laughable then.

I learned that no matter what grade I was homeschooling, my homeschool conviction can only burn bright if I fueled it.

Running on empty is a common homeschool mistake. I made that mistake too. 

When Homeschooling is a Mistake

I didn’t take time to cement my foundational goals and to ask myself burning questions like: what is it about homeschooling that lights me up or, why is homeschooling the best choice for my family.

You can’t skip ahead and choose curriculum, begin your homeschool journey, continue your journey year after year, or call yourself a homeschooler if you don’t take time to polish up your vision.

It really matters because otherwise, like me, you may react to your feelings of being inadequate and return your children to public school without good reason.

I want to make something clear too because the last thing any of us needs is another homeschool post that rants about homeschooling at all costs.

It’s one thing to not have the circumstances presently to live on one income, have health problems or other significant things that prevent you from homeschooling and quite another to completely abandon the homeschool lifestyle because we didn’t take time to get a dose of reality in the beginning.

New Homeschooler

There really is no magical formula to keep going in homeschooling, it’s just plain hard work.

I learned it just didn’t come together without some effort on my part.

Each year, these 3 points are essential to me embracing another year of homeschooling.

  • Recommit.  What works for me is both a combination of personal prayer and writing down my feelings in plain view for me to reflect on later.

Personal feelings are just that which means a time to reflect on progress.  Part of this time for you could be goal setting for things that you want to see fulfilled for the next year.

For me, I tend to keep goal setting separate.  When I recommit, it means taking time to pour out my feelings and thought on paper until they overflow. They don’t have to make sense, they just need to be on paper instead of all floating around in my mind.

Sure, it sounds emotional and it is.  Homeschooling is a personal attachment to a life-long lifestyle and part of that is reflecting on the positive and awesome part of homeschooling.

The flip side is reflecting on what you are finding hard to cope with and deciding on what you will compromise on.

  • Compromise. Through that writing and sharing in my personal journal, I basically commit again.  But, it does not come without compromising and letting go of how I thought my year would turn out.

For example, this year, I am using an online school for Mr. Awesome for part of his high school courses.  This was something that I never even considered with Mr. Senior 2013 in high school.

Wrapping up my personal reflection this year, I have had to compromise to keep homeschooling because my circumstances for homeschooling have changed.  The Mr.’s health suffered and so more of my time was required in our business.

New to Homeschool

On the positive side, we wanted to homeschool overseas as a family and experience that adventure.  I have come to grips with the fact that each of my son’s homeschooling journey can be different.

A different path for Mr. Awesome is just as enriching because of his unique experiences for learning here in South America unlike Mr. Senior’s journey in the states.

Compromising is an art, but better yet it is a must for staying the homeschooling course.

  • Recharge & Refuel.  After you sort out what you will compromise on to keep homeschooling, then you need to recharge your energy for homeschooling.  Simple things motivate me and one of them is reading.

Something about curling up with a book, homeschool magazine or even curriculum catalog that I have not had time to pore over rejuvenates my personal homeschooling spirit.

Other homeschoolers need to do more physical activity and still others may need to step back completely from homeschooling.  I find too that a combination of physical activity and a mental break renews my empty spirit.

I have made many mistakes in my homeschooling journey.  But, I have also done some things right since pulling Mr. Senior 2013 back out of Kindergarten many years ago.

I returned to homeschooling and I’ll never give up homeschooling so easily again, no matter how painful.  It has been worth every tear shed and sleepless night.

When Homeschooling is a Mistake

By turning inward and recommitting on a personal and emotional level of attachment, learning the art of compromise by giving a little to get a lot, and nurturing or refueling your homeschooling spirit, which may be dwindling, you can keep the forward momentum in homeschooling.

Besides a new year always means do-overs and second chances.  What do you do when you feel homeschooling is a mistake?

Other New Homeschooler Tips and Helps:

Top 10 Tips To Getting a New Homeschool Year Rolling

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

In sharing my top 10 tips to getting a new homeschool year rolling today, I hope that you will remember that nobody can replace you as the teacher. 

And that while some of my tips apply to our kids, a lot of it is shared to encourage you to keep on plugging along because I am here to tell you that in the end it’s WORTH every bit of effort each year!

1. Make time for the teacher, not just mom. 

We get a lot of encouragement to make time for ourselves as mom though we don’t always follow the advice.

I am guilty too, but I have always taken time each year to polish up my teacher skills. 

It is easier, we think at the time, to turn the teaching reins over to somebody else either through a co-op or on-line class.  When in fact if we do that, we may be bringing more stress to our year.  Taking time to hone your skills as the teacher will help you to choose more carefully any extra “help” you think you may need.  Look at the bottom of this post for books I read that set me on fire when I teach.

2. Make time to be with other homeschoolers.

No, you don’t have to get fuzzy wuzzy with other homeschoolers if you’re not the joinder type.  But your kids may need to be around more people than you may need in your inner circle. 

How to Begin Your New Homeschool Year

Too, I have learned more about myself and the fact that though, like you, I can be pretty independent, that has nothing to do with needing encouragement. 

ALL of us, independent or not, eventually need to know that we are not alone and that others are in our unique circumstances. 

There is just something about being around other homeschoolers that brings my blood back to a boiling point for homeschooling. 

Being around other homeschoolers is contagious and keeps you plugging along.  Even on days when you don’t feel like leaving the house, try to maintain your park dates, field trips or co-op classes that you have carefully chosen.

3. Dad is not just a figure head.

Unless you are a single mom (hopefully she has a support system too), you are not raising or educating your children alone. 

Your husband should play a large role in your homeschooling. 

You may wonder how that is possible if you are doing a majority of the teaching.  As you know there is more than the academic growth of a child. 

Your husband provides not only a safe environment in which your children can learn, but his love for your children stimulates intellectual growth. 

Too, discipline is very important in homeschooling. 

And some days after teaching, I was just too pooped to think about discipline. 

Discipline is more about instruction and my husband had the mental reserve when he got home to keep the instructing going when it was needed.  Don’t leave him out and let him know how you feel daily. 

In all my years of helping homeschoolers, I have never met a dad supportive of homeschooling that did not want to be plugged in to the every day goings on.  You are not doing this alone, so don’t go it alone.

4. Adopt a routine. 

A routine has been one of the mainstays or anchors of my homeschooling year after year.  Not assuming you should follow the same homeschool schedule you followed last year will help you to see clearly if you need a different routine this year. 

Check out the tips I share in A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler Part 1 Early Years , The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule and How To Create a Homeschool Schedule That You Can Stick To .

5. Show Up Earlier & Stay Later. 

There are just some tips that work equally across the board for all teachers and showing up earlier and staying a bit later than the kids is one of them. 

There are a variety of things that your kids can start working on that don’t require you (I will share some of them in an upcoming post) but taking a few minutes to look over your lesson planner for each child will help your day to go smoother. 

This is especially important if all of your children are very young. 

Young children have shorter learning spurts and your being well prepared will help to engage them quicker. 

Choosing to stay a bit later after the kids are playing or having computer time will also help you to think of what needs to be prepared for the next day while the children’s needs are fresh in your mind.

Top 10 Tips to Getting a New Homeschool Year Rolling

6. Don’t Shove Your Toddlers & Preschoolers Aside. 

I know you would never do that intentionally, but when it comes to school time, include them.  It’s hard I know because they seem to be pint size destroyers of your just so schedule. 

But hear my heart on this and that is if you don’t include them now and make school part of everyday, they may not want to be part of it when it is time to formally learn. 

Don’t make the mistake I have seen by veteran and new homeschoolers alike and that is to shove them aside only to want them to be ready to homeschool later. 

Taking time to set up your house and school area to suit them, whether it’s by activities you have created ahead of time or an area, then they will naturally want to be included in the formal part of your day as they are older.

7. Make Time For Middle School  Merriment. 

Though I hear many homeschoolers who believe that their 6 or 7 year old needs “friends” what they really want are playmates. 

Unlike your middle school kids who actually need friends, it is important that your middle school kids have time to explore friendships and pursue goals. 

At a time when puberty hits, our middle school kids can go through a whole host of emotions. 

From feeling useless to insecure because of possible hormones highs and lows, it is important that they not become self-absorbed. 

More New Homeschool Year Tips

Healthy friendships are a way to help push our kids through difficult times and especially friends who are homeschoolers.

This will take work on your part because as I always say at this age, our middle school kids are independent dependents.  It is easy to overlook this age with all the tug and pull of the little ones.  Add in the mix a high school student who demands our time and it becomes almost impossible. 

My best tip on how I survived the middle school years was to make a date and stick with it.  Something that I could plan for each week or so was much better than spur of the moment planning when my plate was full.

8. Is Curriculum Worth the Cost? 

You paid for new curriculum and want it to work out for the year.  You know the one that you told the Mr. you just had to have this year. 

Knowing when a curriculum has ran its course (no pun intended) whether it’s in the middle of a year or just a few months into the year, is not an easy thing to try to figure out.  Counting the costs sometimes just does not always come at the beginning of the school year no matter how careful we are.

Our children’s needs can change just a few short months into the school year.  One year, Mr. Awesome jumped two grade levels in spelling. 

No matter how hard I worked with him the previous year, he just did not make improvement.  It was a developmental thing and keeping him in a lower grade, even just the few short months into the school year, would have held him back.  I had to buy upper grade curriculum after only completing a few short lessons. 

Curriculum is a constant process to check throughout the year.

9. Our Home Reflects We Care. 

Just a few short weeks into homeschooling when I was a new homeschooler, I was embarrassed by my home.  The truth of it was I had underestimated my energy level and time. 

Instead of having my kids’ nose buried in worksheets I had assigned, I should have had them buried in folding a load or two of laundry. 

I had to end up taking off a whole week to get caught up on cleaning my house. 

Because the care in our home reflects the way we care for each other in our family, it is an important part of homeschooling. 

Successful New Homeschool Year

While it’s important to have a comfortable home that we can study at, it is also important that it is a place where we can find peace and rest at the end of the day.  Remember that when your children do chores at home it teaches them about responsibility, caring for others and gives them a sense of pride.

10. Just Push it Aside and Stop. 

I wished I could say that each day will be full of fun and exciting things to do, but we both know that is not true.  What is not easy to figure out is to know when to just take a break for the day and when to push school aside for a longer bit of time.

It is a lethal combination when everybody in the house is tired and overworked.  I have made the mistake of pushing through a day when we were in a slump and needed a break.  When you take a break, it actually shows a bit of homeschooling maturity because it means that you now know that homeschooling is a journey and not a one year fix.

Celebrate each year because if you are like me, you are grateful each year that you have been given precious time with your children that will pass by quickly.

What do you do to keep your new homeschool year rolling?