Scroll down to view our sponsor giveaway and enter for your chance to win!
If the past eleven years of homeschooling have taught me anything, it’s that homeschool planning is both essential and beneficial.
Having a plan helps us stay focused on our homeschool goals, mission, and vision. Planning out your homeschool year doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be quite simple. Your plans can be as elaborate or as simple as you want them to be.
One of the many reasons why I LOVE homeschooling is that I have the freedom to customize my homeschool plans. I’m able to construct it in such a way that will cater to my family’s specific needs.
Planning out your homeschool is definitely not one-size-fits-all. There are so many different ways you can plan your year out. Your plans will be uniquely set up for what will work best for your family.
Learning different strategies and/or ideas on how to plan your year can be inspirational. It can even spark your own ideas on how to plan for the new homeschool year.
Planning out your year is not all about what curriculum you will be using, the conference you will be attending or the classes your child will be taking….it’s so much more than that!
As you plan out your homeschool year I want to encourage you not to forget to include these 3 things. They are important to note and may be easy to overlook!
The three things that I believe that you must include in your homeschool planning are life skills, character building, and cultivating the love of learning in your children. I know there are more that can be added to the list and you are welcome to add to it as you plan out your year.
But for the sake of time, I would love to address these three specifically…
According to Dictionary.com life skill is “a skill that helps a person to function well in adult life, especially in social or emotional situations.”
Incorporate life skills into your everyday life. It can help children develop sound judgment, good habits, responsibility, independence, and the list goes on. It is crucial that we teach our children how to take care of themselves, manage a home, cook, be great communicators, be thinkers, problem solvers, to be proactive, etc.
Learning life skills will help build their confidence and independence as they grow into adulthood. As homeschoolers, we have an amazing opportunity to teach our children life skills in a natural way at home. They can also learn valuable life skills doing chores around the house, volunteering in the community, and serving at their church just to name a few.
For example, your child falls and scrapes his knee, you can teach him how to take care of the scrape, (first aid). Maybe your children have a disagreement, so you intervene and coach them on how they could have solved the problem before it escalated into a major argument, (communication skills) or having your child plan out dinner on Friday.
Here is a list of life skills to get you started.
This is one that you do not want to overlook and think that your child will learn on their own. Building character in our children takes intentionality and consistency. We need to be intentional when teaching our children the character traits we want them to develop. There are many ways that you can add character building in your homeschool naturally or even as part of your lessons.
Here is a list to get you started.
Here is a list of character traits.
It’s important that you plan to provide your children with free time in your homeschooling. During the day they need to be able to pursue the things that interest them or that they are passionate about learning. This will ignite a love of learning in their hearts. If you cultivate that love of learning in your children they will become life long learners, thinkers, problem-solvers, and self-motivators.
They will learn how to find answers, develop a new skill, further their education on a particular topic, etc.
Letting them follow their passions and interests will lead them into a world of opportunities and possibilities to grow in the calling that the Lord created them for.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Prepping for your homeschool year? Here are 3 Things You Must Include In Your Homeschool Planning!” quote=”Here are 3 Things You Must Include In Your Homeschool Planning!”]
So after they do their assignments for the day cut them loose to explore, discover, and create.
Here are some tips on how to cultivate the love of learning in your home.
Here are some fun ideas and tools to help cultivate the love of learning.
As you pray and plan out your homeschool year, don’t forget to incorporate life skills, character building lessons, and make time to cultivate the love of learning in your children.
You won’t regret it!
Common Sense Press publishes curricula for homeschoolers, traditional schools, and parents who want to enrich their children’s education. Our materials are complete and require a minimum of planning. Education is more than just getting the right answer on a multiple-choice test. Learning should be meaningful, comprehensive, and stimulating to the student.
1 winner will receive Learning Language Arts Through Literature – Both the Teacher and Student book of the grade level of your choice! LLATL is a literature-based language arts program that integrates all the parts of language arts into one curriculum. Choose between grades 3 – 8. Value $62! US Residents Only.
Jessica is a follower of Christ, Homeschooling mama with a Masters of Arts in Counseling Psychology, Wife, and Mother raising 3 godly men. She writes about Intentional Living, Motherhood, Homeschooling, Travel, and More. Her heart is to inspire and encourage moms to live an intentional life, one day at a time.
Facebook I Facebook Group I Pinterest I Instagram
