How To Prepare For a New Homeschool Year

We made the decision to homeschool our kids when my oldest was starting kindergarten. If you’re interested in reading why we chose homeschooling, check out my blog post, 7 Reasons Why Homeschooling Was Our Best Option.

Now, we are just about to begin our fourth year. Although, we are still fairly new to the game, I have come to enjoy prepping for the new year of learning. I love playing a huge role in my kids’ education!

Whether you’re brand new, a seasoned professional, or just looking for some tips to make homeschooling easier, I hope I can give you some inspiration.

Homeschool Style

Determining your homeschool style is important because it helps you narrow down curriculum choices. It is so overwhelming!

Our first year of homeschooling, I went with traditional textbooks and worksheets. I had never been in charge of someone else’s education before so I was worried that I wasn’t teaching my kids everything they needed to know. But we were so miserable. I was bored teaching and my son was far from being engaged while he was learning. Once we switched curriculums, which I will go into more detail later, my son was eager to begin his day as soon as he woke up.

There are so many quizzes out there that can help you determine your style. Be open minded and don’t be afraid to try something new if what you’re currently doing is not working. Homeschooling will not always be all sunshine and rainbows but it definitely should not be something you dread and fight over either.

Supplies

I remember as a teenager, school supply shopping would easily cost a few hundred dollars per kid. One benefit to homeschooling is that it doesn’t require a lot of money to start. A few supplies that we can’t have too much of are pencils (Ticonderoga: a little more expensive but the lead doesn’t break every time you sharpen them), markers, crayons, colored pencils, printer paper, construction paper, glue, scissors, and a good pencil sharpener.

I am super excited about the new colored printer that I splurged on for this year. I love printing off themed worksheets and games I find on TeachersPayTeachers. They have free and paid ones that are very affordable. So I needed a printer that could connect to multiple devices. Since we don’t use a printer every day, I wanted one that wouldn’t end up with dry cartridges every time I needed it to work. With extensive research, and a perfectly timed sale, I am super happy with my purchase of the Epson EcoTank ET-2720.

One last thing I recommend buying, especially for younger kids, are workbooks for their grade level. This gives the little ones something to do so you can focus on helping the older kids. The most difficult days are when you are being pulled in multiple directions. So prepare for those moments ahead of time. Highlights Learning is one of our favorites when buying workbooks.

Curriculum

One of the reasons why we wanted to start homeschooling was so that we could choose to do something other than traditional schooling. It doesn’t make any sense to me that the world has changed so much since I was a kid but the way school is taught hasn’t hardly changed at all.

I was so excited when I found an online curriculum to use that my kids actually look forward to doing every morning. Last year we used Time4Learning. It is a self led, all in one curriculum that covers language arts, math, social studies, and science. On the parent dashboard, I could enter in our start date, finish date, and holidays we planned to take off. Then, it would generate a weekly amount of lessons each child needed to complete. From there, I could assign each lesson to a different day of the week. This made it so easy to determine our daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

This year, we decided to try Miacademy. It is also an online, all in one curriculum. It has a few more options in terms of extra curricular activities like foreign language, music and arts, and life skills. Miacademy also has a school newspaper and a store for students to safely interact on. After I get a chance to try it out, I’ll definitely be writing up a review and comparing the two programs.

The all in one online curriculum combined with our kids’ iPads, allows us to take our school work anywhere. In the past, we have done our school day in bed (when they were sick), on the couch, in the backyard, at the park, at a friend’s house, or even at a hotel while on vacation. The possibilities are endless!

Organization

Organization is constantly changing for me. I look forward to the day when I have a big office or dining room that I can designate as our homeschool room. But until then, I will have to settle for simple organization ideas for small spaces.

One of my must-haves is a sturdy shelf. With three kids in three different grades, I needed something with cubbies to keep all of their school supplies in, along with their iPads, workbooks, and assignments. Also, some art caddies that will keep all of their art supplies contained are super helpful. No more fighting over whose markers are whose. My last organization tip is to buy a 3-ring binder for each kid. This keeps all of their worksheets and other loose papers neatly tucked away.

Having a designated place to put all of your school supplies at the end of the day helps to keep it from taking over the whole house.

A major part of getting organized is to also determine a schedule in which your school will operate. For the most part, we try to start our day by 9am. But another great benefit to homeschooling is that it allows us to be flexible. Some of our best days have come from not starting our school day until after dinner because we spent the whole day having fun with friends.

Community

It is so important to find those that you can lean on for support while homeschooling. There are going to be good and bad days ahead. I love having a couple of close families I can call when we just need an afternoon at the park or someone to join us on a field trip.

My kids are part of a homeschool enrichment program through our school district. So once a week, they join other homeschooled kids at “school” where they are taken through a day of multiple different classes. These classes are typically things I would struggle to replicate at home, like art, PE, science, foreign language, computers, etc. We have met some of our best friends through this program!

There are also other homeschool enrichment programs that are sometimes organized at local churches. But if that isn’t an option, you can always ask around or search in social media groups.

Celebrate All The Moments

Every fall, we make sure to celebrate the beginning of a new school year. My sister hosts an annual back to school party where my kids get to enjoy riding 4 wheelers, a bonfire at dusk, some s’mores and ice cream sundaes. This is something they don’t get to participate in while living in the suburbs of Denver. It is the perfect way to wrap up our summer vacation. At the end of the year, we also like to enjoy a picnic in the backyard after their half-day field day.

Along with celebrating the beginning and end of the school year, be sure to celebrate the little moments in between; like when your child overcomes a challenging lesson or when they finish an assignment they thought they would never figure out by themselves. This is all just part of a memorable homeschool experience. I want my kids to enjoy these years and always remember how hard Mom tried.

Are you homeschooling this year? If so, how are you preparing your family for the new school year? Let me know in the comments!