5 tips to make homeschooling easier

Whether you have chosen to homeschool or have had this lifestyle thrust upon you there are strategies that will help you along the way.

As a parent who has homeschooled since day 1 (and ran a family daycare before that) I have had days that I felt like I had it all together and other days when I felt like I was failing on all levels. Thankfully I have now found a flow that works for me and my family. There are some pivotal concepts that create the basis of the way we work and I am sharing them with you today:

It’s not school at home. This is the biggest thing I see from new homeschoolers, they have this idea in their head that their kids need to be sitting in a simulated school room from 9am to 3pm. It’s so far from the truth and its a great source of anxiety.

Typically early primary children require only 1-2 hours of homeschool time per day. It rises as children get older but think of it like this – there is little transition time (walking from class to library for example), waiting for other students to catch up, assemblies and other school activities plus all of a sudden you have a much lower ratio of student to teacher.
This shorter amount of time can be completed whenever works for your family as well. Want to do your learning from 4pm – 6pm, go for it! There is no rule that students only learn between set hours, in fact, exactly the opposite.
There is also no rule about where you do your schoolwork. If you are a registered homeschooler your moderator will want to see that your child has somewhere to work but this doesn’t have to look like a schoolroom or anything you find on Pinterest (expert tip: do not look on Pinterest for ‘homeschool room’, it is not helpful for your mental health!). Currently we do all of our work at the kitchen table but in the past it has been the couch, in bed or outside!

Deschooling – While we are on the subject of homeschooling not being school at home let’s take a moment to talk about deschooling. Most of us (unless you were lucky enough to be homeschooled yourself) have had a large number of years in public school institutions, it’s very ingrained in us to conform to the rules of school without even realising it. You may find that both yourself and your child need some time to deschool which means you may do nothing (yes not a scrap of formal schooling) while you readjust to the new norm and how different it is to the idea in your head.

Quality not Quantity – one of the pivotal concepts which helped me to have less anxiety about homeschooling was to focus on one thing and do it well. Forget trying to tick off all the boxes and just concentrate on the one thing you are working on with your child right now. One of my favourite ways to do this is with loop scheduling which is a process where you list everything you want to cover and you put it in a loop. You only move on in the process after you finish the step before. There is no time requirement or dates attached, it’s simply a flow. Here is an example:

Maybe you get through 3 of these steps in one day, maybe it takes you 2 days to get through one, it doesn’t matter, you get to everything eventually (you can find more information on loop scheduling online).

Plan ahead but don’t go down the rabbit hole. There are so many amazing resources out there for homeshoolers but it can be easy to end up spending all day downloading resources and printing things off. My best advice is know what you are looking for first then look for a specific resource. Perhaps you start with a skill your child needs to learn or maybe you choose a topic they are interested in and do a lapbook or unit study. I have included some great resources at the bottom of this email that you could start with if you aren’t sure. My number 1 rule with planning is to spend less time prepping and planning the activity than it will take your child to complete it.

Record everything – my last tip is to record everything you do. One of my favourite apps is called ‘Evidence for learning’ which you can use to take photos and record an activity as well as link it to the curriculum. Some other ideas for recording real life learning are: using social media (a closed facebook group for example), a giant A3 notebook where you print photos and record what you did, online photo albums. Nearly everything we do in daily life can become homeschool evidence – collected chicken eggs and discussed where they came from? Science! Added bubble bath to the bath and discussed how it created bubbles? Chemistry! Discussed the speed limit signs on the road? Math! Be creative and use everyday activities to have in depth conversations, these are often more valuable than any work done in a workbook.

Above all, remember that this homeschooling journey is something to be enjoyed by both you and your children. It is a great opportunity to learn and grow together.

Resources I love:

Homeschool Share – a wonderful source of lapbooks and unit studies

Maths Online – an Australian site that not only provides maths learning but introduces each topic with a video lesson

Teach your monster to read – a free (usually, if not wait till they make it free again as they do it regularly) online reading game

The Measured Mom – sets of free early readers that you can print off online

Stairway to Reading – a Canadian based site with a free reading program for children who are finding it challenging to learn to read

Kids Online Fitness Fun – this is my weekly online class for kids of all ages to enjoy some fun functional movement activities. You can book directly at the link, just scroll down to the online calendar.

Books I love:

Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie

Free to Learn by Peter Gray

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

Sharon is a homeschool mum to 2 boys, she is also a movement teacher, energy healer and virtual assistant. Sharon is passionate about living life with ease and joy and sharing her strategies to help others who are on a similar path to herself. She has juggled working at home with having her children home full time for the last 8 years and during that time has built a thriving business and happy home life.