Beginning of the Year Mindset to
Plan for the Homeschool Year
Creating a successful homeschooling experience is a journey that combines organisation, creativity, and a deep commitment to your child's education. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore ten essential steps to help you navigate this rewarding path. From fostering a positive mindset to effective goal setting, and from integrating exciting projects to enjoying the process, these steps are designed to make homeschooling not just an educational duty, but an enriching adventure for both you and your children. Whether you're a seasoned homeschooler or just beginning, these strategies will equip you with the tools needed to create a stimulating and productive learning environment at home. Let's dive into these steps and embark on a journey towards a fulfilling and successful homeschooling experience
10 steps to creating your successful homeschooling year!
Create a productive and positive mindset
Wake up in the morning with the intention of completing at least one part of the planning.
Scrolling on FB/Instagram for ideas, will kill motivation, trap you for hours and become overwhelming with unlimited resources and ideas.
Set small goals
Set yourself small goals to complete, e.g 'Create a draft overview of Term 1'.
Setting small goals allows you to achieve a sense of progress and accomplishment, which is crucial in maintaining motivation and focus.
Set a limited number of goals
Setting too many goals at one time makes the process overwhelming and unachievable (no matter how productive you feel).
Set one 'priority task', three 'need to get done tasks' and three 'want to get done tasks'. Try and refrain from setting more goals than that. If you feel motivated after you completed all of the above, then go onto listing three more 'want to get done tasks'. This will allow you to complete tasks that are of higher priority.
Write a list of activities/excursions you’d like to do for that term
Talk with your kids and develop a list of places, activities or topics they would like to learn about. This makes them more accountable in their learning and you know its a topic of interest to engage them further.
Allocate specific curriculum links to terms
Once you know what curriculum links you want to cover, planning the activities will become easier as you’ll know what to look for.
You can complete the same curriculum link across a few/all terms!
Keep it simple, not fancy
Too many people worry about how the content looks over the content that is in it (me included).
A rule I’ve set myself is to use good ol’ word and an exel table to get all the skeletal info down first, and if time provides, make it fancy! Your moderator cares more about the curriculum being covered than how the content looks.
Research with purpose
Open one tab at a time and look at only one topic at a time. If you come across good ideas, open a word document and copy and paste the link in there for later viewing. This will help you stay on track and be more productive!
Think about projects and cross curricular activities
When planning for multiple children across multiple years, use project based activities.
These can hit a variety of curriculum links, which allows you to make things harder or easier, depending on the age or grade level of the student.
Allocate specific time blocks in your schedule to focus solely on planning and preparing
Setting aside the time to plan will allow you to be more productive.
If you only have 2 hours spare in a week to chip away at it, you are going to have to be as productive as you can for that whole time, to set yourself up for success.
Clean the area you’re going to use to plan, send the kids out to a friends or with their other parent/guardian while you give yourself focus time. A clean area allows the mind space to move freely and creatively.
Don’t forget the water and healthy snacks!
Enjoy the process
Planning can be scary and daunting, but that is okay! It is normal to feel this way and it will get easier every year. Enjoy the journey and the satisfaction it provides.
Planning is an ever changing process. Expect it to change as your knowledge progresses (another reason why it doesn’t need to be fancy). As long as you have a rough idea of what you will cover across the term or year, you’ll be on track. Tick off each curriculum link you have covered, at the end of each week. This gives you a chance to check over it all and ensure you are covering all links.
Vitalise the Mind Education Team