Every so often, it’s important to evaluate how your homeschool is doing.
Coming back from the Relevant Conference, with all of the great workshops and the files full of notes on my iPad, has given me plenty of things to think about.
Am I putting as much effort into homeschooling as I should be?
Laura Booz said it best in a session called Balancing Blogging and Homeschooling. She said,
“Prioritize homeschooling.
Prioritize homeschooling.
Prioritize homeschooling.” (emphasis mine)
And I haven’t been making homeschooling a priority. It does get done, mostly. I always plan to do more than we get to. We start late, finish the basics, and then I let other things (like blogging, or Twitter… Let’s be honest here) get the rest of my attention.
Late fall is the perfect time for a homeschool evaluation.
Where are things are lacking? I know where I’ve been slacking. Do you? My boys think school should end with lunch. We used to use the afternoons for finishing up bookwork and working on science or history projects. I also never used to answer the phone before lunchtime. That’s not an issue now, but the Internet busy-ness has taken its place.
What needs to stop or be put on restriction?
- Internet usage. Even checking email can send me down one rabbit trail after another. It can wait.
- Lazy kids. Do they take advantage when you’re not 100% with them, such as when the phone rings or you go to the bathroom?
- Seat-of-the-pants lesson plans. Do you have a weekly plan, so that you know where you want to go?
- Electronic distractions. Are they veering off into YouTube land or games when they should be doing an online program?
What should start?
- Go to bed on time. Mom AND kids!
- Set up a morning routine with a regular wake up time for the kids.
- Morning devotions.
- Exercise, Momma. Are you getting yours in?
- Finish what they start. Are they getting the schoolwork done after lunch that you planned for them?
- Hands-on activities. Board games, experiments, field trips, etc. Get out and do something!
We don’t have to wait for standardized testing time to come around to do an evaluation of our homeschools.
Take a look at how you are spending your time, and decide which things are needed and which are just distractions. If it is hard for you to make decisions on such things, ask a trusted friend or your husband to help you sort through your daily activities. Momma, it’s okay to say NO to things which interfere with your mission to educate your kids. This is just a season, and it will pass faster than you know.
Thank you for such an honest post about evaluating. That's such good advice and I see a lot of myself reflected in what you wrote. That time after lunch for the girls and me also is a big challenge. It seems like we can't get that same momentum going as in the morning.
Caregiving also has taken a lot of my energy and time, and I'm hoping that with things settling down again after a very stressful couple of weeks (both my parents were hospitalized in two different hospitals for two different reasons), that we can get in a routine again and make homeschooling a priority again.
Sometimes I wonder too that when I wrote the plan for the school year if I might have put too much down hoping to accomplish it, but not realizing the actual time it takes to do some of the lessons or read some of the longer books. It's a learn-by-doing process, I guess.
Ann, after 13 years of homeschooling I STILL sometimes overplan for the school year! I think that it's easy to start off with good intentions, that all those neat books or programs will work out, but then time constraints and the needs of our kids show us what we can really accomplish. It's perfectly fine to stop using something that isn't fitting in very well. We did that with something this year too. It sounded great but it just didn't fit.
Wow, I could really relate to this post 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Yes! Sounds a lot like our house. 🙂
This year we scheduled some months for review and catching up periods. Our first block is right after Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to hitting some of the subjects we tend to neglect.
Oh Heidi that is a really great idea! I actually do sort of the same thing, but it isn't a planned out "review" time, it just happens that way. I like that you set aside a period of time for it. 🙂
I'm still trying to find a rhythm for writing that doesn't intrude on school. I am learning to wake up earlier, which means must-go-to-bed-earlier! I'm trying. It's all too easy to piddle away the time on the computer, especially since I haven't yet figured out what is the absolutely best bang for my buck, in terms of networking. I need to get a routine, however, or I may burnout at this rate! Thanks for the honesty and reminder!
You are inspiring me! I am so glad that you were able to be transparent and that you are on the way towards making such awesome changes. May you be steadfast and creative! And may you find such joy in the outcome. 🙂
Ouch! I can relate, and I see many of the same issues on my end, too. We have a hard time with schooling around DH's schedule because he doesn't have a set schedule. However, we do try to make up time on the weekends that we works.
Like you, the email and social media are like a whirlpool sucking me down, down, down…
I have been moving our computer work to the afternoon, even though, some of it is core subject matter, just so I can eliminate the computer black hole until the written work is done. This has helped quite a bit.