Have you started homeschooling again?

What month do you usually start? Or do you homeschool all year round?

Whether you start homeschooling intentionally on a specific month or you homeschool throughout the year, you still need to make time for preparations for the new school year.

It is good to pause from all the busyness and take some time to recalibrate for the new school year.

This practice helps us, homeschooling parents, to improve how we homeschool our children and to make the lives of everyone in our household more pleasant, at the very least, during the school year.

Aside from being a homeschool mom, I am also a Management, Human Resource and Training Consultant. I encourage my corporate clients to set and hold strategic planning sessions with their people. It helps make their teams more effective and cohesive. It helps them improve their chances of reaching their goals or targets and even achieve their goals faster.

So, let me share with you 10 steps that I strongly believe will help all of us prepare for the new school year.

Even if you have started the school year already, these steps can still help you. If you have not done some of the steps after starting your school year, just do it now or in the next few days. I’m confident that doing these steps would be helpful to your children and to you no matter what month of the school year you choose to do them. But of course, it would be best to do them before or at the start of the new school year.

STEP 1: PRAY for guidance, wisdom and direction. If you are a Christian, this is the important first step that you need to do. I have just conducted an online retreat for homeschool parents titled At the Feet of Jesus. This was an offshoot of the devotional that I wrote and launched last year titled Homeschool Moms at the Feet of Jesus. This was based on the Bible passage wherein Jesus reminded Martha that she was distracted and overwhelmed with many less important things. It is also in this passage where Jesus praised Martha’s sister, Mary, for choosing the better part which is to sit at His feet. Together with other homeschool parents, I sat at Jesus’ feet also and allowed myself to be affirmed, instructed, encouraged, taught, renewed, and equipped by the Greatest Teacher to ever walk the earth. It felt so wonderful! If you want to have access to the recording of that online retreat, watch out for announcements on this blog and on our Facebook Page. We will make it available soon for parents who would like to go on a retreat at their most convenient time with the help of that recorded retreat as a guide. Also, those who attended were given free copies of the devotional. In the same way, those who will purchase access to the recording will receive a free copy of the devotional, too.

STEP 2: REVIEW your family’s PRIORITIES and GOALS as a family and for each of your children. Let this be your compass as you homeschool. Don’t let yourself be swayed or lose touch with what are the most important things for your family.

STEP 3: REVIEW what you have done and covered in the past school year. By doing this, you can choose not to cover topics that you have finished or you can choose to cover the same topics but you can dive deeper. Again, we begin with the child. Does the child show interest in going deeper and learning more about this topic?

STEP 4: IDENTIFY areas where your child NEEDS to focus more this new school year. This could be their areas of strength or areas where they need more assistance. It can also be areas you have not covered but you think and feel your child needs to learn in order to grow.

STEP 5: ASK YOUR CHILDREN what they want to learn this new school year. I always involve my kids as soon as they can understand and communicate. I want to know them more. I want to understand them more. I want more cooperation and fewer battles of the will during the school year. This will only happen if we ask our children and allow them to help us create their own curriculum or program for the year. Ask their goals for the year.

STEP 6: CHECK the expected competencies or milestones for kids for your child’s age or grade level. You may be homeschooling independently or have a lot of freedom in creating your child’s curriculum for the year. But it still helps to check every now and then the milestones and expected competencies for children for the age and grade level of your child. Why? This gives you an idea if your child is at par with his/her peers or if there are red flags that you might need to look into. Or it could help you better equip your child if you plan to enroll your child in a regular school in the future.

STEP 7: SET GOALS for each of your children for the new school year. Make your goals SMART. Make your goals exciting for your children. Align them with their personal goals and interests.

STEP 8: LOOK FOR RESOURCES that would support your child and your family in achieving your goals for the new school year. These could be books, workbooks, online resources, classes outside of the home, co-ops, etc. Just a word of caution. Don’t overdo it. Identify the basics and differentiate them from the nice-to-have. Again, go back to your goals and priorities. There are many good things and groups to join. But, if these things crowd the most important, then you have to stick to your priorities. Remember that the enemy of the best is the good.

STEP 9: CREATE A ROUTINE OR SCHEDULE that would help you and your children move closer to your goals for the year. One family’s schedule or routine may work for them but it may not work for you. Craft one that suits your unique needs, interests, dynamics and preferences.

STEP 10: IMPLEMENT IMPERFECTLY. Don’t wait for 100% readiness for you or your children. If you do that, you may not be able to start at all! Make room for adjustments and improvements along the way. Goals, schedules or routines, what materials to use, and even the homeschool approach to employ are not cast in stone. Modify as needed. Ditch even an expensive curriculum or material if it is not helping your child. Remember, the child is more important than the curriculum or the method. Observe your child or your children. Whatever is not working should be changed in one way or another.

I hope that these 10 steps help and guide you, especially if you are homeschooling for the first time this school year. These steps are also helpful and applicable to parents who are not homeschooling to some degree.

I wish you a fruitful, memorable and fun school year this 2022-23! God bless!

If you are homeschooling, I invite you to join my support groups on Facebook, the Homeschooling Parents Support Group PH and the Catholic Homeschooling Parents Support Group. I’d love to connect with you and help you!

Lastly, if you like listening to podcasts, I invite you to listen to my podcast Follow God with Teresa. Season 2 of my podcast is all about homeschooling. It’s available on my website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.