Finding Consistency in Our Homeschool

A new year always brings about a sense of a fresh start. New goals and for some, new resolutions. Personally,  I'm more of a goal and resolution setter throughout the year whenever I see the need for a change. Why wait for a new year? There is one instance however where I can see how a fresh start at the new year can be a good thing and that's with homeschool. For those of us who start school in late summer or early fall, we have a few months behind us to reflect on what is and isn't working so far in our school year. Perhaps it's a curriculum that just doesn't click with your kids or a schedule that needs tweaking or maybe it's that your organization of your homeschool just plain stinks. Suddenly changing things, especially curriculum, can seem like a scary feat to be preforming mid-year but I promise you that being open to changes will benefit all involved.

What changes do you feel need to made in your homeschool routine? I would love to hear about it in the comment section!

As for us, I'm forever in need of improvement in consistency. I like to have a plan in mind for what I am doing overall for the year but when it comes down to the day to day planning, I always end up flying by the seat of my pants. Sounds like a train wreck, right? Strangely, it works for me. I've tried plotting out our days a week even months in advance and found that the commitment weighs to heavily on me and I need flexibility in our schedule. Even though we get our work done, I do have a problem with being consistent and would end up way heavy on the science portion and forget handwriting or spend hours on math but forget to finish our state capitals. About a month ago, I realized that I could help with my consistency problem by creating us a "rough" daily schedule. It's the same schedule every week (for ease) and I have allowed us permission to do the subjects in whatever order we feel like doing them in so long as they all get done. I made one for each child and have noticed that it's makes it easier on them to know what they have to do that day. 

Now I finally have an "outline" for what to do each day which helps me think ahead at least one day and have an idea in mind for what I want to do in each subject. As for my daily planning, I tend to write it down as we go along and I do it in the least glamorous way possible. I use a plain old 17 cent Wal-Mart spiral notebook. Yep, that's it. No fancy planner or planning sheets. I've tried it all and my notebook, while not pretty, is the one thing I seem to be consistent with. 

I've tried workboxes but found that some assignments were always getting missed then buried to be completed at a "later" date until finally they were no longer relevant. I decided to be uber organized at one time and created a big fat fancy notebook (see my post on that here). That was a great idea but for someone with consistency problems who craves simplicity, I couldn't keep up another year of it. 

How do you organize your homeschool?

Perhaps you are a little fancier than I am and would like something more than an ugly old notebook. If so, you can download some daily goal planning sheets I created. All you have to do is click on the link below to find them in my TPT store. Oh yeah, they are FREE!