7 Things I'm Changing In Our Homeschool

Next weekend is the big Catholic homeschool conference in Minnesota (and if you're around you should come and tell me and we'll hang!). Last year I was just feeling it out, but this year I feel like I'm a woman on a mission! So while I prep my dream lists for the used curriculum fair, I thought I'd write down seven things we're changing in our homeschool next year due to lessons learned this past year.

1

Staying home more

It seems to obvious, you need to be HOME to homeschool, but when I only had preschoolers/toddlers it made more sense to leave everyday. Once I had a kid who needed to sit down and *do* school I realized that we need to be more intentional about what times we will be home.

I have kids on the extroverted side (and so am I) so we won't be staying home all day every day, but we need a few hours blocked off Monday-Thursday if I want to get school done without tears.

2

Utilizing the car time

This was our first year owning a car, and I'm slowly making my peace with driving being a necessity now, but it's such a time suck! I'm thinking about using that time for good by switching some of our schooling, like music and some history, to be "car subjects". 

(Crazy? Who's done this and want's to send me ideas?!)

3

Then there were two

Therese is turning 4 this summer which moves her into "real school" in our house. She'll have her own books and syllabus to do. It's still very gentle and low key, but it is another layer of complexity to add a kid to the main homeschool day.

4

Homeschool in the kitchen!

Even though we do have the space for a school room, I liked the idea of using that room as a library and using the eat in kitchen space as our school room instead. This past year I found I was having to leave the school space all the time. To get a bottle for the baby, pour a cup of coffee, set the crockpot, etc. If we're already in the kitchen, it's that much easier to keep everyone on track while still getting done what needs to get done.

5

Activity boxes rock

This past year I got some scrapbook boxes off Amazon and made activity boxes for Therese. They were intended as an easy way for her to entertain herself while I was working with her brother. But they were a huge hit with both of them! The sewing box and play dough box were extremely popular.

I'm bringing them back this year, but with a little bit of a twist as the kids are older. As part of my school prep (maybe once a month instead of weekly) I'm planning to change up the boxes to include materials that we are currently learning about. So there might be a nature exploration box, a sensory box, a science experiment box, a go-outside-and-use-me box (for messy stuff/nature exploration). Lots of ideas!

It's the meal prep of kid activities.

6

Outsource

Minnesota is a wonderful playland of resources for homeschooling, and I intend to take advantage of it! The park district near us hosts homeschool nature and science classes, there are free forest school meet ups, Y homeschool sports classes, etc. I'm not a huge fan of co-ops personally, but I do like the idea of using classes when it works for the kid and the family needs.

Those schedules won't be released until later in the summer, so we won't be deciding on those particular classes until then.

7

Monday is Too Late

I'm going to have to prep for the week on the weekend. I wanted to hold off doing work on Sunday, day of rest and all, but waiting until Monday to do things like print off the weekly checklist and gather materials just made for a stressful start to the week. Sunday evenings are what has worked best so I'm going to admit that's what I should do.

What lessons did you learn from the school year? Any changes you are planning to make?