It is that time of year again. I hear buses in the morning rolling (fast!) through our neighborhood, the school supply shelves are picked over and practically empty at Walmart, backpack drives and giveaways are finishing up, and the kids are going back to school! Well, all except my kids.
We are a homeschool family, so not much will change as we move into the Fall season. But there is some preparation that will take place as we get back to serious homeschool business. So what does ‘Back to (Home)school’ look like for our family and other homeschooling families?
Summer Training
The preparation for the homeschool parent/teacher begins in the summer, sometimes at the end of the last school year. My wife and I share in the responsibilities of teaching our children, although she handles most of it, so we both do some type of prep and training. Throughout the summer, we have been attending parent practicums, training sessions, and webinars to prepare for what we will be teaching our kids. We use the Classical Conversations Homeschool curriculum, which does a great job of preparing parents to adequately teach their children. In addition, this curriculum equips us to lead our homeschool group(s).
Setting up the school calendar
Although our kids don’t go to a physical location five days per week for 180 days, we are required to have 180 days of instruction by our state (Indiana). We have no problems meeting that, and actually do way more than that. We even set up a calendar complete with a first day of school (first Monday after Labor Day), breaks (Fall, Winter, Spring), and a last day of school. In addition, we schedule at least one big field trip per month, and our kids participate in various extracurricular activities and sports. This is all put into a calendar template created in Microsoft Excel, and the dates are transferred to our Google Calendars.
Our family is part of a homeschool community, which meets with other homeschool families once per week. On this meeting day, we have a school day that is very similar to traditional school. These dates are included and coincide with our family school calendar.
Setting goals and lesson planning
This is one of my favorite parts. I love to set goals and work on achieving them. We do this with our kids educational goals, as well as our goals as parents. Our goals will be accomplished through the lessons and studies we do throughout the year. We’ll plan out the lessons we will teach throughout the year as well. Our school calendars consists of six week sessions of school, followed by a one week break. During the break week, the kids do light school work, and we plan/prep the next 6 weeks. The lessons will be planned with the objective of accomplishing our goals along the way.
Ordering new materials and curriculum
The curriculum and new materials are typically ordered over the summer after the parent training sessions are completed. At that point, we’ll have a good idea of what we need, in order to teach for the upcoming year. In addition, we will also begin to make a list of reading materials for us and the kids. The library is our resource for getting many of these books. There is nothing like the word FREE! This is also the time to do an inventory check on basic school supplies, so the back to school sales and promos can be taken advantage of.
Breaking the bad habits
I think this is the area where both homeschooling families and traditional school families have the most in common. Although we have been doing light school work over the summer, we have also gotten out of our regular routine. The fact that it was not getting dark until almost 10pm didn’t help!
At the beginning of July practically all of the sports, and extracurricular activities we were involved in stopped. So we literally went from a family that was out doing something (sometimes multiple things) 5-6 days per week to not having anything going on. Needless to say, we got lax and formed some bad habits. Now is the time to be firm on bedtime, firm on waking up at a decent time, and to get rid of that dreaded TV (after the Olympics of course). This is usually our biggest challenge!
Getting ‘back to school’ ready benefits all
So that is how a homeschool family gets ready for ‘Back to (Home)School’ time. Many of the ways we prepare may be similar to traditional school families. Looking at the calendar, setting goals, getting supplies are kind of universal when it comes to back to school time, and are beneficial to all families of school aged children.
Question: Whether you are a homeschool family or a traditional school family what are you doing to prepare your kids to have the best school year possible?
Angela jones says
As a parent of 2, one public school educated and one homeschooled. I homeschooled our daughter from k5-12th grade. She graduated from our homeschool 2011 and took a one year sabbatical. She starts college next week. Homeschooling her taught me a lot about myself. I wouldn’t trade the journey for anything.
Jackie Bledsoe, Jr. says
I couldn’t agree more Angela. We have 3 children…2 of the 3 are school aged and both are now homeschooled. Our daughter is the oldest and we just started her homeschooling last year (6th grade). We are loving it and learning so much about one another and many other things. All as a family. Thanks for sharing!
Sheree Adams says
This is awesome, Jackie! I’ve always toyed with the idea of homeschooling for several reasons. This is a very insightful post!!! Thank you!
Jackie Bledsoe, Jr. says
Thanks Sheree! Homeschooling can be very challenging, but is also VERY rewarding.
Ty Thomas says
Great article! We homeschool too…but we school year round so we don’t “officially” have a back-to-school ritual or routine. We take short breaks throughout the year and it works great for us. Our oldest graduated from our homeschool back in May and he is headed of to college this fall. As a matter of fact…Operation: DROP HIM OFF AT THE DORM is on August 19th! LOL! We LOVE this journey…one down and four more to go for us! Blessings to all!
Jackie Bledsoe, Jr. says
Ty, thanks for sharing your story! I love it when I hear the stories of other homeschoolers and especially those who have gone on to the next phases in life. Congrats & enjoy “Operation: DROP HIM OFF AT THE DORM” next week! LOL
Ronnie Tyler says
Awesome article Jackie. Thanks for giving us a peek into what it takes to home school your children. We do some of the same things getting ready for school…like setting goals and getting the kids mentally prepared to go back.
I am sure you will be writing about this again in the future. So I would like to know how do get beyond your insecurities about being able to teach your kids in certain subjects? Do your kids feel like they are missing out socially? Can you use resources from the public schools to help you with assignments? I have more I will save for later 🙂
Jackie Bledsoe, Jr. says
My pleasure Ronnie! Yes, in many aspects homeschool prep is no different than traditional school prep. Those are great questions! Many of which we had to answer ourselves before we began our journey. I will definitely be answering those questions and more in future posts about homeschooling. 🙂
Anna says
Ronnie- Just wanted to chime in about socialization. This is a common misconception and one we homeschoolers hear a lot! Homeschooling is kind of a misnomer for the most part. We spend some time at home doing school, but most homeschoolers are part of co-ops, sports teams, church groups, and so on. Sometimes, I actually want to ask PS parents the same question hehe. How can children, segregated by age (and most of the time they attend school with a limited demographic) and told not to talk for the majority of the day being appropriately socialized? My children, and most homeschoolers, are out about in the world talking to people all the time. Hope that helps!
Trella W says
Great article, Jackie. I am also a homeschooler and I appreciate the succinct way that you presented your process. Do you mind sharing some of the ways you sought training for instructing your children or was it all based on the curriculum you are implementing?
Thank you again.
Jackie Bledsoe, Jr. says
Thanks Trella!! Most of our training was based on the curriculum we are using (Classical Conversations). However there are homeschool conventions/conferences throughout the country where you can get more training (check out http://www.greathomeschoolconventions.com). Classical Conversations offers 1-day and 3-day FREE Parent Practicums that are open to all homeschoolers and benificial to all, no matter your curriculum choice. The National Black Home Educators (NBHE) may be a good resource to find training opportunities as well. Hopefully, this helps. If you have more questions just let me know. I’ll also be writing more homeschool posts in the future that answer additional questions and dig deeper in some areas, so look for them.
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