Organizing Your Homeschool
Organizing your homeschool is an important task for continued forward progress on the homeschool journey.
If you struggle with organization you’re not alone. A mom once wrote to me asking for help with this issue. She had tons of great educational resources and lots of insightful teaching ideas—but had not implemented any of them. Disorganized and unproductive, she feared for her children’s education.
Though she knew lesson plans would help her get school accomplished each day, this sweet mom felt inadequate when it came to creating and following the plans. She felt like a failure because she had done so little of what she intended to do. Great books and ideas abounded. Yet nothing was getting done.
Let me say this is absolutely normal. Most homeschoolers experience this scenario in the first few years of homeschooling. But with a little direction, I believe moms can get beyond this and into a positive, forward moving routine. Even a disorganized person can easily implement structure into her homeschool.
Let me suggest that one of our top goals for homeschooling should be to move our children from dependence to independence.
As they move in this direction you will, slowly through the years, transition from teacher to coach to advisor to mentor. We want our children to be self-learners. Individuals who have learned to self-educate will outperform their teacher-dependent peers. However, we don’t want to move our children into independence too early—or too late. Each child is different.
I had one child who was totally independent by nine, and another who was still not totally independent at twelve. Eventually, though, all my children became trustworthy, mature, and self-motivated enough to be trusted to complete their work without constant supervision, checking, and grading. This level of self-motivation is something we should work to instill in our children every day.
Let me encourage you that homeschooling will not always be laborious for you. Once your children have taken matters into their own hands, your load will be significantly lightened. It’s good for them and it’s good for you when they begin to follow the schedule—beginning their work without your prompting, and reading and completing assignments on their own.
The trick is to choose curriculum that allows them to be independent.
There are many great curricula out there that actually work against our efforts to create independent learners. They can be replaced with just as great curricula that work toward self-learning.
Not only is the curriculum you choose of vital importance, it’s essential to create a basic schedule your family can easily follow. For some, a curriculum with a detailed daily schedule, showing exactly which pages to read in which book, is comforting.
For me, it worked to list all the subjects and have the children simply check them off as they completed the assignments. My six year old would read the next thing on her list, find the book, and bring it to me to read to her.
When it was time for math, my boys would set everything up then call me over to teach them the lesson. Most things they could complete without my help, but some subjects required my oversight and instruction. Still, they made it easy for me by independently getting it ready for me to teach.
My children were entrusted with their own simple schedules and daily checklists even at six years old. They didn’t always follow the schedule in exact order, especially if the subject was dependent on me helping out in some way, but that was okay.
Sometimes I printed my children’s schedule on paper. Other times, I wrote it on a whiteboard. Either way, my children didn’t have to wait on me to begin school; they didn’t have to ask, “What’s next Mom?” I never heard, “Are we done with school?” Their daily schedule gave clarity and direction. The required work was obvious to them, and they knew the more quickly they worked, the sooner they could play. Of course, we also implemented the Charlotte Mason rule of short lessons. They only had to do each subject for 10-20 minutes depending on their age.
I truly believe a daily schedule will help with organizing your homeschooling.
Some people need it all spelled out in great detail. That’s one reason I created the notebooking journals to go with my Young Explorer Series books. They include a detailed schedule with reading pages, notebooking activities, and projects assigned on specific days.
As far as having a ton of great material that you cannot realistically implement into a daily schedule, that’s another matter entirely. How I can relate! I think we all can. We see a great book on the human body. We buy it. We see a fabulous video to go with it. We purchase it. We find wonderful project books that will accompany it perfectly. We shell out more cash.
By the time school starts, we have a large stack of resources for teaching anatomy—but no plan.
In fact, that is exactly WHY I wrote the first book in my science series. I had acquired many books to teach my children astronomy—lots of project books, picture books, scientific books, etc. But they were hard to implement. I needed one book that combined all the features that would make teaching astronomy doable (and wouldn’t plant seeds of evolution into their little hearts).
Having one living book that’s easy to implement is a great help toward organization.
And this is why I’m excited to publish Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry and the other volumes that will make up this series. The author, Shiela Catanzarite, wrote the curriculum in a way that integrates all the elements of language arts—grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, spelling, language usage, copywork, etc.—into ONE simple to use volume that combines the student notebook and the instructional lessons. The 28-week full language arts curriculum is scheduled with short lessons to keep your child organized and moving forward.
Choosing curriculum that is easy to implement, and especially if it can completed by the child independently, will go a long way toward a more organized homeschool. Not only does the day go more smoothly, your children will feel a sense of accomplishment. And that’s an important component for developing a love for learning.
In the 1600’s, the great philosopher John Locke once said,
“Of the natural qualities which children possess, curiosity and liberty seem to guide the young pupil most. Liberty here does not mean a complete absence of restraint, but it does entail a sense of independence in action.”
Charlotte Mason found this sense of freedom and self-governance in learning to be of vital importance. She tells us that self-education is the only kind of education.
Researcher William Stixrud discovered that children lose their natural love for learning, their interest in learning, and any kind of desire for knowledge around the age of seven; they are no longer self-motivated. His research reveals this happens because the children have lost their independence.
They’re forced into a classroom with someone else always telling them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, etc.
He writes:
Autonomy is built into our wiring in the same way as hunger or thirst. When we lack this basic need, we experience decreased motivation—or the motivation we have becomes fear-based. (“I’d better do this, or else!”) You can’t become a self-driven person if you don’t have a sense that your life is your own.
As homeschool parents, our top priority is to move our children from dependence to independence as quickly as possible. By giving them charge of their schedules and curriculum they can do on their own, you increase their sense of freedom, empower them with ownership of their education, and encourage self-motivation and a love for learning.
Let me close with a few tips for taking those important steps toward independent learning:
Give them a schedule with check boxes so they experience a sense of progress and accomplishment with each subject completed.
Have your children read the directions and instructions for their assignments on their own.
Have your children check their own work.
Allow them to choose the curriculum and topics of study in subjects like science, history, and foreign language.
Don’t hover over them to “be sure” they are doing what they should. Not only will they sense you don’t trust them, but it will rob them of the autonomy that is so necessary for them to stay motivated.
Moving your children from dependence to independence by: choosing curriculum that gives them autonomy, allowing them freedom of choice over their learning, and putting them in charge of their schedule will not only keep everyone organized but will bring freedom and joy to your homeschool days.