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Homeschool Co-ops, Support Groups and Regional Groups. How Does It All Fit?

August 12, 2015 | 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

There is nothing more confusing when you are new to the homeschooling world than to hear veteran homeschoolers use strange and never before heard terms like homeschool co-ops, support groups and regional groups.

The focus can be so much on curriculum gathering that help for you can get lost.

Knowing which groups are which will help you to decide if one is right for you.

A Look Inside

If a focus of a support group could be narrowed down to a few words it would be socialization (yes we do believe in it as homeschoolers) for the kids and support for mom.

Groups serve a very defined purpose even if they don’t intentionally advertise their purpose.

If homeschool co-ops are more academic than fun, the emphasis is still on camaraderie.

That too is a concern for a lot of new and experienced homeschoolers alike. Will my child know how to socialize in a group? Will he receive cultural experiences that I believe will enhance his love of learning?

These are valid concerns and can be successfully met if you are actively involved in support groups.

Take a look at these definitions so you can understand how each one is used in the homeschooling world.

Regional Group – This is perhaps the biggest and largest of support groups. Just like it says, it is regional.

It could be county wide, most of the state or just a portion of the state or even country.

In some larger states, regional groups may host annual homeschool conventions. In some states where local groups are limited, a regional group may host Bible Bees, Spelling Bees as well as Graduation Ceremonies. There is normally a fee to be a member.

The emphasis for most regional groups is to focus on support for the whole family. Though they most host activities, unlike a local support group, their emphasis normally is on preserving homeschooling rights and giving you support through your whole journey.

Tip: Ask the Regional Group what is their mission. There usually is a Board of Directors and some method to their communication whether it’s email, private e-loop, online newsletter and yes even some groups still prefer snail mail of newsletters. Find out and get that communication.

If a group can define their mission and the way it seeks to accomplish that mission, then prospective new members can see if it is a fit for their family.

Homeschool Co-ops, Support Groups and Regional Groups How Does It All Fit @Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Support Group – This term is perhaps the most general.

A support group can be anything from a private e-loop on yahoo or google plus groups that plans field trips to a meeting at the park each week by a few families.

It can have fees or no fees. Some groups may want you to sign a statement of faith or may indicate that religion is not a factor in their membership.

Some support groups act more like a group that hosts field trips and part like a larger regional group. Again, support group is a very general term, but it too has a defined purpose.

So find out what it is.

Look at some of these general questions to ask any support group:

  • What is the age group preferred?

Some groups plan activities for young and old alike and the whole family is involved.

Some groups are formed specifically for tweens, others for highschoolers or preschoolers.

  • What is the group preference?

For example, is it for gifted children, a specific religion or just Christians or secular?

  • What are the activities hosted?

Some host field trips. Are the field trips set at regular schedules or just when the members plan them?

Examples: Are there activities to focus on a special skill like Lego building or character development or are the activities varied?

  • Do they have a board of directors?

This question you basically are asking here is how organized are you without being so blunt.

Let me explain here too before I go on.

Leaders or Board of Directors are not door mats and don’t get paid normally for their service.

They render these services to the homeschooling community for a love of people.

Most Leaders I know spend countless hours planning and hosting activities (all to the exclusion of spending time with their family on weekends or weeknights).

Some Board of Directors may have been lulled into inactivity. So be sure you see a schedule of events coming up or speak to them to see what is planned.

For example some Board of Directors may be slanted by only meeting the needs of one particular group of their members.

For example, are they meeting the needs of the new homeschoolers and not just the veterans?

Are they meeting the needs of the mom with preschoolers and not just highschoolers or vice versa? It is no easy task .

A group may not possibly be meeting all of these criteria as it takes man power or like most groups woman power to do that. That is fine. As long as they meet your needs, it may be a good fit for you.

One group may not be a fit now in your journey while it may in another couple of years.

Homeschool Co-ops, Support Groups and Regional Groups

Co-op.  A co-op is a class on ANY subject.

It is a group of families that get together for a purpose. Co-ops are as varied as support groups.

They can be informal and just for fun or serious and supervised more like private schools.

They can be on any topic and can form and dissolve each year based on the needs of the area and those that are willing to lead them.

They can be held once a week, once a month, or every day.

Look at some of these specific questions to ask a homeschool co-op group:

  • What is your focus?

The emphasis is on fun and socialization on the co-op I was lead.

We have so many members we feel they each prefer their own method of schooling or academics. So when we meet, we spend more time doing games, listening to speakers about certain topics, learning to square dance or even learning to draw.

Some groups are more academic focus and this can be a huge advantage to a mom that is overwhelmed or feeling unprepared on a subject.

For example, the co-op can meet for preparing for the SAT. It can meet to help homeschoolers with math. Too, for science you may dissect an animal.

  • What is the cost?
  • How long do they meet?
  • Do you want parents involved?

The co-op we lead is not a drop off service. We require parents to be involved. Some co-ops are more like private schools and parents are not required to be present.

You can navigate these groups better by defining what you want too from each group.

Remember there is not a limit on how many groups you can join.

Which groups will you belong to this year?

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Check out some more tips!
5 Days of a Homeschooling Co-op Convert

1 CommentFiled Under: Begin Homeschooling Tagged With: homeschool, homeschoolco-op, homeschoolmultiplechildren, multiple children, new homeschool year, new homeschooler, newbeehomeschooler

Should You Switch to a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule?

May 27, 2015 | 17 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Switching to a 4-day homeschool schedule for a majority of my journey is not only one of the best homeschooling tips I can share, but it saved my sanity when many things about home and school collided. Addressing some of your concerns first and then sharing the numerous reasons why the advantages of homeschooling a 4-day week outweighed a 5 day schedule, I hope these tidbits will help you too.

One of the greatest factors for those hesitant to switch to a 4-day homeschool schedule has to do with the amount of weeks or hours needed to meet state requirements.

4-Day Homeschool Schedule

While it’s true that you need 45 weeks instead of 36 weeks, you can still homeschool a 4-day schedule if you stretched out your homeschool year.

It doesn’t even mean you have to school year round, though I am here to tell you flat out that the advantages of homeschooling year round blew away an abrupt stop and start each year.

Should You Switch to a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule?

Schooling year round doesn’t mean all work and no play, but that is another topic. You can check out How to Plan for & Homeschool Year Round here.

Also, be sure you look at my YouTube video How to Create a Homeschool Schedule You Can Stick to

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The second concern I have seen is a mindset that unless we school 5 days we are not really schooling or that we could get behind.  Maybe this idea stems from the fact that we are pressured to conform to the schedule the workforce is keeping.

Clearing my mind of how I thought school was suppose to happen, I set out to do what was best for my family.I do want to mention too that the ages of your children makes a difference in shaping your viewpoint on adopting a homeschool schedule. Having homeschooled from the beginning when all of my kids were little and having no help with the housework gave me the power to move against the norm.

Balancing the weeks we needed to school with the needs of my family took priority.

Advantage of 4-day Homeschool Schedule

Look at some of the advantages of a 4-day homeschool schedule.

When I switched, I maintained more consistency.

Nothing sets back a homeschool year more or builds resistance quickly in a child then to constantly start and stop because you get behind on housework or are just worn out from the constant grind.

When we started a 4-day homeschool schedule, the days were more full and my weeks more consistent because I didn’t start my week depleted of physical energy.

The quality of my teaching went up.

If you are the kind of person that can proceed forward with the house somewhat messed up (I promise I tried hard to do this year after year), I am still learning to follow your relaxed manner.

This is something that can’t be ignored when you are homeschooling.

Either you are more relaxed about your surroundings not as tidy or you are not as forgiving about a messy atmosphere. There is no right or wrong on this because as moms we are wired differently. It is just what is right for your personality.

I realized right away that I could not function when I felt chaos existed in my home. The measuring point is if it hampers and paralyzes you from giving your children 100 percent for the day then it needs to be addressed.

When my mind was heavy with thinking about things I have to still do in the house, it did not make me the kind of teacher I wanted to be.

Instead of thinking it wasn’t important to have my mind relatively free of stress, I embraced my need to have things organized before I started my day.

I used Mondays for cleaning, to have a slower start to my week, to get some of my cooking done, and to look over my lesson plans for the week.

Your week ends or begins on a positive note each month and that triggers a sticking power to homeschooling.

Homeschooling Tuesday through Friday like I did for many, many years or homeschooling Monday through Thursday gave me more control over my time.

It propelled me through each year because I took time on the front end of the week to prepare for school. It ended up being a power booster to keep on homeschooling.

There was a plan for the unexpected.

Another surprising advantage was that I planned for the unexpected.

I find this ironic because I love to plan, but I never gave myself an option for the unexpected in my life.

If I was running a public school classroom this would make no difference, but I am not.

Being at home where life happens, I was more organized because I didn’t have every moment of my life planned.

Feelings of being behind and stressed out that we were not covering what we needed to started to fade.

The bottom line was I had wiggle room in my schedule each week.

Dad’s schedule and support is important.

Though a majority of the teaching was always done by me, it was important to me that when my husband’s scheduled changed that we could spend more time together.

For a good part of our homeschooling journey, he had a set work schedule.  But there were many times during the years that our business was slow and he took advantage of spending that time with us.

Having a 4-day week lesson plan always ready, it didn’t matter which day we took off.  We always had a day to spend with dad because our week did not have every day planned.

Dos and Don’ts of a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule

Look at some of these dos and don’ts when switching to a 4-day homeschool schedule.

Don’t cram 5 days into 4 days. 

Avoiding stress is my goal and so cramming 5 days of lessons into 4 days of school is not a doable plan to keep you homeschooling for years.

This may be good for one or two years if you need it, but it is a recipe for exhaustion if you implement it for many years.

Schooling year round made my 4-day homeschool schedule doable.

Just relax and plod along and remember that schooling year round doesn’t mean you can’t have off weeks or months. They are just spread out during the year so that the time off fits your family.

Do decide how to use the day off.

Deciding to switch to a 4-day homeschool schedule only works if you value the reason you are switching.

For me, because all the children were little and I had very little help with the housework and in running our business, I knew I needed a day at the beginning of the work week to unwind when the Mr. was back at work.

I wanted a slower start to the week and doing that gave me momentum for during the week.

Though I say it was a day off, it ended up turning into a day of relaxed housework and savoring my lesson planning time.

As the kids grew and got older, I had them cleaning the house after school.  We still kept a 4-day schedule but started taking off Fridays.

We used that day for field trips, shopping, swimming or just enjoying the slow days of summer or beautiful weather in fall.

Again, I find it amusing how life and homeschool has turned out now as I look back.

Though I say I followed a 4-day homeschool schedule, my kids still did many educational activities, though unplanned by me on our day off.

They ended up watching educational movies, doing a project, or even if it was just playing outside and in the dirt, they were still investigating, exploring and learning.

A lot of weeks, I counted our day off as homeschooling because of some of the projects the kids would find to do.

Do write our your schedule and study it.

I am a huge advocate of writing it all out because seeing where your homeschool year starts and ends keeps your goals clear in mind.

Too, you are not bothered with the hype of homeschool schedules because you have set a pace that works for your family.

Don’t worry that your stress free schedule seems effortless. Do you really need complicated homeschooling?

Homeschooling is complicated enough. There is no need to constantly question ourselves because we don’t have all the struggles everybody else is having.

Finding your groove to homeschooling can be not only fulfilling, but painless.

Managing your time means to make your time more meaningful while maintaining spontaneity.

A 4-day homeschool schedule was key to not only maintaining my house suitable for us to live in, but advancing to more rigorous academics.

Sitting down to begin our week, we were armed with a full day of activities, rested, and ready to learn!

What about you? Are you still struggling with a schedule that works for your family?

Should You Switch to a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule?

You also love these other tips:

  • Homeschool Day: 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting It All In
  • The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule 
  • How To Create a Homeschool Schedule That You Can Stick To
  • 7 Advantages to Starting Your Homeschool Year in the Summer

Hugs and love ya,

Should You Switch to a 4-day Homeschool Schedule @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

17 CommentsFiled Under: Schedule/Balance Home & School Tagged With: homeschool schedules, homeschoolmultiplechildren, multiple children, organizedhomeschool, schedules

Homeschool Day: 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting It All In

April 6, 2015 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I can’t drive and talk on the phone at the same time and have any kind of quality conversation much less pay attention to my driving. Add in a homeschool day and In this day and age it’s called multitasking.

I really don’t like that term in my homeschooling day because it makes me think that I am not giving 100% to the task on hand.

Not only do I not feel productive while driving and talking, but in a lot of places it is illegal because of the dangers.

Simply put, we can get side-tracked.

Homeschool Day: 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting It All In

1. Homeschool Prioritizing = Important Things First

Prioritizing is a term I prefer to use because that is really what a homeschool day is about.

Did you know that prioritizing is the secret in not surviving homeschool, but treasuring each day?

Homeschooling is a long trek and stacking all the things we want to do in our day by multitasking can leave us sidetracked with very little ability to do what is needed.

Prioritizing your tasks in order of importance is the key to a stress free day.

I am not really even talking about getting an early start in the day even though this proves very successful for most homeschoolers.

What you need to remember is that what ever time is first in your day, that time needs to be your school zone.

Your teaching needs to be given priority so that before anything else comes up, you have accomplished some of your goals.

2. Do Opposite Planning

Another mistake I was making for many years is setting my homeschool schedule to the beat of my oldest son.

If your household is filled with lots of little ones, your rhythm needs to beat to the youngest and not to the oldest child.

Many years ago, I heard David Hazell of my Father’s World give the best piece of advice.

He said the oldest child needs to be dethroned.So true! In other words, quit setting the schedule to suit them.

We worry so much about our oldest child that he may view his time as absolute to the other children’s time.

It is okay to worry about doing school with them, we need to be conscientious.

However, the lessons we teach our oldest child about patience, forgiveness and an independent attitude to pursue some learning on their own is what homeschooling really is about.

How does this fit in with getting it all in the day? We are moms first and it always take priority.

Caring for our family’s needs, whether it means cradling the toddler, hugging the preschoolers or wiping the tears of a hormonal middle schooler, our homeschool schedule needs to work around our family.

3. You Have to Plan

Sample Homeschool Schedules

Another tip for maintaining a calm flow to your day is to plan it or schedule it.  Don’t let a schedule stranglehold you.

A homeschool schedule is a like a vacation plan.  You use it to be sure you don’t miss any of the important things along the way.

It is a guide to your day but should never be viewed as another stress inducer.  It points your direction so that you keep going along.

Look at two of my homeschool schedules I followed for quite a few years.

Older Household

Mon. off.

Tue –  Fri. School

9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

2:00 – 4:00 reading time, chore time and quiet time.

Younger Household.

Mon. off

Tues – Friday School

10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

1:00 p..m. – 3:00 p.m. school (school, hopefully while the toddler and preschooler napped)

3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. chore time and quiet time.

I even did school on Saturday one year when I had a toddler and a newborn.  The Mr. was home and I could get so much accomplished with my oldest son.

If you love white chalkboards like I do, then you’ll love this whiteboard for organizing.

Instead of panting through the day and giving homeschooling, cooking or caring for the little ones with meager energy, prioritize your day.

Seasons of time pass by quickly. Don’t spend precious homeschool days that won’t last forever by pushing your limits to the max.

And if you need more help, you’ll love my book, Homeschooling 31 Day Boot Camp for New Homeschoolers: When You Don’t Know Where to Begin Paperback.

You’ll like these other posts and helps:

  • Public School is NOT Free! (but neither is homeschool)
  • Controlling the Time Spent on Homeschool Subjects or Running a Homeschooling Boot Camp
  • Stop the Homeschool Time Drain!
Homeschool Day: 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting It All In
Homeschool Day. 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting it ALL In @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

What does your homeschool schedule look like now?

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Organization, Schedule/Balance Home & School Tagged With: homeschool, homeschool challenges, homeschool schedules, homeschoolmultiplechildren

4 Secrets to Creating Your Own Successful Homeschool Co-op

January 18, 2015 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Savoring the food of the Amazon region in a banana wrapped leaf, dancing the minuet like George Washington, creating Native American crafts with beadwork and studying the healing power of plants like Lewis & Clark did are just a few of the adventures that my sons and I have participated in as I led a homeschool co-op.

4 Secrets to Creating Your Own Successful Homeschool Co-op

In my many years of homeschooling, I have seen numerous elaborate definitions of a co-op, but in its most basic form a co-op is simply a group of two or more families meeting together to share their collective efforts in teaching their children all together.

Depending on your personal experiences in participating in co-ops, you may conjure up in your mind a picture of your children engaging in awesome hands-on activity along with socialization or you may picture a mini-version of a very regimented public school that you probably fled not too long ago.

Understanding some basic facts in how co-ops are developed will help you to determine if a co-op is a good fit for your family.

Enhance Your Journey or Encumber It

There is no one set of rules for any co-op. Co-ops can be very informal without many rules or it can be as formal as public school.

Take time to ask questions after you determine if you want to meet for socialization or to meet strictly for academic purposes.

One note of caveat for new and struggling homeschoolers is that sometimes you may join a co-op to ease the burden of teaching, but actually create an environment where you may feel trapped.

Regimented schedules, turning in homework assignments and preparing extra-curricular activities are a few reasons why some homeschool families find co-ops more stressful than helpful.  They can feel a little too much public schoolish.

Do not leave the rigidness of public school to trade it away the freedom so quickly to a very regulated co-op.

Co-ops can spring up or shut down at any time. Realizing that most co-ops are ran by homeschooling parents like yourself, you will appreciate that rules are made by the homeschooling parents as they lead the group.

Most co-ops expect all the parents to shoulder some of the responsibility of running the co-op whether it is teaching, supervising toddlers, cleaning or making copies.

Unless the co-op is being ran like a small private school, most co-op leaders welcome the help. Normally it is the few doing the work of the many.

Because there is so much variety in classes like teaching crafts to preschoolers to preparing teens for driving in high school, co-ops can spring up and shut down each year or at any time during the year.

Most groups try to have their goals written down by the start of the school year, but even that can change.

Clear expectations by either a group you create or either join will avoid a lot of misery down the road.

Homeschool Co-op Conundrum

Avoid confusion of which co-op to join by having clear in your mind your purpose for participating. For example, I knew when I formed our private local co-op that my main purpose was for socialization and enrichment.

I was not interested in anybody teaching subjects like the 3 R’s to my sons because I wanted to do that.

Did I mention teaching my three at home was way more relaxing too?

The co-op serves as a refreshing break in our routine so I didn’t want a weekly co-op, but one that met once or twice a month. In addition, I wanted like-mind parents who have Christian values and a place where my sons could make lasting friends and memories.

Too, I purposely kept the co-op small because it is easier to make friends in a more cozier environment.
Activities like doing a lab, presenting a geography report to an audience and drama are better done in a group setting. It is nice to have an audience for projects.

My sons have benefited from doing those activities and have become more well rounded out in their education.

In one area I lived in we had a homeschool mom who use to be a high school Spanish teacher. My older sons took her classes which was ran more like a mini private school.

Though I prefer a more informal and hands-on setting, I took advantage of local resources for enrichment. It has only strengthened my sons’ skills in foreign languages.

4 Secrets To Creating Your Own Successful Homeschool Co-op @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When You Gift Others

I can’t hum a tune, draw a beautiful portrait or shoot professional pictures, but none of those things are required to serve others.

Sharing with other homeschoolers and teaching is a gift.

It’s true that when you serve in a leadership position it can have trials. But I have a secret to admit and that is I am the one that always feels blessed after leading the co-op.

Over the years I have learned that each homeschooling parent possesses a gift or two whether they admit it or not.

You do not have to be a former public school teacher to teach a subject, but you do need to love the subject you teach.

Instead of looking into joining a co-op, can you form one near you? Beginnings are important. So start slow with a just few of your like-minded friends.

Meet once a month and use forums like yahoo to communicate and set up polls.

Avoid the modern day quick methods of communication like texting that interrupts your day schooling your children.

In the beginning, it’s easy to communicate like this, but as the group grows, your time can be consumed by taking care of the needs of others.

Don’t neglect your own homeschool routine and family.
When you use something like an online forum or email list, each teaching parent can respond to emails after she has taken care of her family for the day. It also trains others in your group that your priority is your own family and to be considerate of your time.

There are a wide variety of curriculum resources to use from laid out lesson plans to unit studies that make leading a cinch. Unit studies are my very favorite in teaching multiple ages because there is something for all ages to do.

Serving others is a joy and your blessing in giving will be immeasurable not only to your children, but for all others that come your way.

Creating the co-op we had took time. My first attempts at meeting with others wasn’t a fit for our family because of either the scheduling or activities.

Forming a co-op after my previous failed attempts ended up being a blessing for our family because we then met with like-minded families.

Shared experiences and fostering friendships for a lifetime have heightened our homeschool adventures.

Have you been part of a co-op that has changed your life?

3 Homeschool Co-op History Resources Worth Exploring

5 Days of a Homeschooling Co-op Convert

4 CommentsFiled Under: Homeschool Multiple Ages of Children, Homeschool Teens _ From Teen to Graduation, Plan For & School Year Around, Teach Unit Studies Tagged With: homeschool, homeschoolco-op, homeschoolmultiplechildren, multiple children, teachingmultiplechildren

5 days of Homeschooling Mid-Year and Thriving. Day 3 Forward Looking–Planning!

November 22, 2014 | 3 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Planning is nothing more than forward-looking and then penning those thoughts to paper.  Planning can be painless and pleasant.  It can also become painful or a burden when we don’t know the basics or lose the simplicity of how to do it.

In our determination to be conscientious homeschoolers, we may clutter up our day with multiple subjects.  Stress sets in because we may feel all subjects are equally important. Then the hours don’t equal to the number of subjects we determine that needs to be covered.

Getting started planning or taking time to review your present lesson planning method mid-year can be broken down into simple steps.

Are You Making This Mistake?

1. Know Your Subject and Subjects.  It is an easy mistake to make.  Take your children out of the grade they are in at public/private school and put them in the next grade up in homeschool.

Grade matters very little in homeschooling because it does not always correspond to mastery. Knowing your child or subject takes time. But because you may want to have curriculum in hand to start school, you have to take other steps.

If you live in a state or country where you are not held to burdensome laws then take your time using very basic workbook style pages to see which subjects your child is struggling in and which ones he is bored with.
Many curriculum providers provide free on line testing and this will help you to make a better fit grade wise regardless of your child’s age.

Take time to know your subject or child before you spend dollars on curriculum for a whole year.

Another mistake made by many homeschoolers is to pile subject on top of subject to our children’s day.  If one is good, then surely ten subjects would be enrichment or so we may think.

How do you determine what the essentials are so that your subject load stays streamlined?   You may not be a seasoned educator but you know more than you realize.

Take a lesson from the past. One room schoolhouses focused on the 3 R’s. That is the secret. It is not very glamorous sounding but reading, writing and arithmetic are the solid mainstays of a well educated child.

If you are struggling with when and how long these subjects are to be covered, I get more specific in a 3 part series I covered named: What Subjects to Teach and When to Teach Them.

What Subjects to Teach and When to Teach Them.

What subjects to teach and when to teach them? Part 1 of 3

What subjects to teach and when to teach them? Part 2 of 3

What subjects to teach and when to teach them? Part 3 of 3

The other subjects are enrichment and make learning a delight. However, if a child is struggling with any of the 3 R’s, then all of the subjects can become contemptible to say the least.

For example, your child may love to learn about the animals of the rainforest. However, when it’s time to write a few sentences about them, he shrieks in terror and almost passes out at the thought of it. Tears normally follow because children don’t know how to articulate that something is not right.

Maybe he is struggling with fine motor skills and your expectations are too high. You may want to work on composition but he may not have the basics of penmanship down yet.

If you are a creative writer and your child is not, does he live with the fear of disappointing you? Children can have black and white standards. They are either all on board or not at all when it comes to homeschooling.

If they are not on board, then all subjects can be considered wearisome, boring and mundane.

2. Determine an approach. There are 5 basic approaches to homeschooling. Traditional, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Unit Studies and Relaxed or Unschoolers.

Avoid painful planning by sticking to the approach that works best for your family at the moment. It doesn’t mean you don’t investigate the others as you have time. It does mean that you focus on learning all you can about the approach that works best for your family.
I hear all the time that some homeschoolers are so overwhelmed by curriculum choices. But if you will remember to categorize them by these approaches, and investigate only the curriculum that works fits the approach you are using now, you only have 1/5 of the curriculum to review.
Why try to educate yourself on what is working for everybody’s children? You will be a much better teacher if you just focus on the 3,4,5, or 6 children you have.

3. Assign a time. Pen it. Now that you are more acquainted with your subject or your children and the subjects to consider in school, you have to “assign it all a place”.

By penning the subjects, which children you will be working with and how long you will be doing this, it becomes realistic. We avoid having more subjects in our day than we have hours to school. Pretty looking subject lists with no time slots in our day are stress inducers and turn ugly looking quickly.

Whether you use a phone, iPad, computer or printed curriculum planner to organize your lesson plans, you need to assign it all a place.

I have always said that lesson planning for me is better done the old fashion way with paper and pen.

Taking time to pen and assign hours in my day to the subjects helps it to stick in my mind.

It also creates balance in my day because one subject is not covered more than another or completely overlooked. If the schedule is not working, it allows me to go back and see where I need to adjust time slots.

Homeschool Class Schedule

Over-planning and no planning both bring pain. I provide free forms to help you keep it real and get it all done.

Click here to go to STEP 5b. Form 13 named Class Schedule/Teacher Schedule to create your class schedule. It’s EDITABLE.

These three basic steps have to be reviewed each year, whether you are a new or seasoned educator.

Planning can be rewarding because it rejuvenates our love for learning and creates homeschool harmony and balance.

Hugs and love ya,

 

Did you miss the first two days in 5 days of Homeschooling Mid-Year and Thriving?

5 days of Homeschooling Mid-Year and Thriving. Day 1 Mind-set Matters

5 days of Homeschooling Mid-Year and Thriving. Day 2 Mission Accomplished

 

Grab some other tips here for planning!

Divide And Conquer The Ever Growing List of Homeschool Subjects

Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1

Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2

Gauging Homeschool Progress – Masters of their Material?

Lesson Plan or Lesson Journal?

Homeschool Lesson Planning Backwards Part 2 of 2.

 

3 CommentsFiled Under: A Fresh Start Homeschooling Mid-Year & Thriving, Lesson Plan Tagged With: homeschoolmultiplechildren, homeschoolplanning, multiple children

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