3 Must Haves for Your New School Year

The new school year is just around the corner! That means moms are making plans for a great year of learning. But even with the optimism and energy that comes with a new year, it’s easy to become overwhelmed when planning. What to include? What to leave out? The most important question to ask yourself is… What do you absolutely need? Here are three things to consider first.

A Flexible Plan

Yes, every homeschool mom needs a plan. But more importantly it needs to be a flexible plan. Think of your homeschool planning as a guide, not a carved in stone law that determines success or failure.

Moms get frustrated when they have a carefully crafted plan for months at a time and then run into the reality of daily life. First they are a day behind, then two days… and then three. They feel frustrated and so they take it out on their kids for not cooperating.

Plan for all the disruptions. Allow your plan to be a guide, but don’t be a slave to it and allow it to control how you feel about your homeschooling endeavors.

Engaging Learning Materials

Choose learning materials that will truly engage your child. It doesn’t matter what works with other kids or what other moms like. It doesn’t even matter if you find it personally appealing. What engages your child as an individual? Finding materials that work for your child will make your homeschooling endeavors so much easier!

Heirloom Audio is a great way to engage lots of different learners at different ages! It’s possible to incorporate them into many different areas of your homeschooling – history, geography, writing, vocabulary and more. If these will engage your child, be sure to add them to your list of materials to enjoy while homeschooling.

Realistic Time Expectations

It’s human nature to overestimate what we can accomplish in a certain amount of time. Most homeschool moms expect far too much of themselves and their children as they plan for the coming year. Going into the year with realistic time expectations for each day can greatly reduce stress and pressure.

Part of being realistic is planning lots of time for your children to just be children. It’s not realistic to expect small children to do focused learning all morning. They need to work in small bites of time (10-15 minutes) with lots of breaks in order to run around, jump up and down, and get out the wiggles! Even older elementary children will greatly benefit from breaks, so be sure to be realistic when mapping out your time each day. One of the beauties of homeschooling is the freedom it provides so take advantage of it!

Enjoy your children and have a wonderful year of learning together!