” I have lots of plans.” Or so I thought! Whether your are here for the free Master List of Free Online Resources (which will be offered in the pop up), the free PDF of over 65 field trip ideas for all my fellow PA people (skip to the end if that’s all you wanted), because you enjoy reading of first year homeschooling adventures or perhaps you are thinking of homeschooling and want to get ahead of the curve by reading up on things to pay attention to or things to avoid… it’s all right here!
Let me start this by saying we are officially done! Woohoo! Summer is upon us and school is over the boxes are checked and papers signed. So now that we have made it here.. through the tears and the threatening to return to school and the days where Netflix made our school day; I can go back to the beginning and evaluate our journey this first year. Let me also preface this post by saying to all those veteran homeschooling families out there that I by no means have it figured out, as most any homeschooling parent will admit. Even though I have “big plans” for our next year I know that things will change, different challenges will arise, and we will inevitably fumble our way through them and hopefully still come out loving each other on the other side!
So some things that looking back I didn’t know, or these ideas weren’t helpful to us. And for those that don’t really like to read I made this simple by numbering them so you can just skim the numbers if you like. I will also then address how I am doing things differently for our next school year below.
THE DON’TS
- Not Enough Planning. Yes this sounds like a no brainer that you must plan, but for me with not having my summer to make my school plans and not knowing what to expect… I decided once I had the curriculum before me (we did it eclectic style with mixing some unit and family studies in) that I would sit down (a week before school which was when I found the time) and plan! Man was that a bad idea. I had no idea what to do. So after coming up with a schedule that looked very much like a high school students daily schedule and writing the lessons down I wanted to cover I called it good, packed everything up and said ” I really have no idea how to pace things so I am just going to see how these first two weeks go then I’ll plan out from there.” This is unrealistic for me. By the time Friday rolled around I was so done with school and now that I had a day job (teacher) I needed to figure out how to balance my wife, mom and homemaker duties as well as my job as a realtor. I didn’t feel like grading papers (SO MANY PAPERS) or lesson planning by the time the weekend hit.
- Too Worried About Getting The Days In. We need to complete 180 school days just like everyone else. When I sat down with my schedule and compared it to the days the regular schools took off for vacation and teacher in-service days let alone snow days or just the regular holidays I went mad thinking we will be doing school until the end of June. I was really very rigid with our days. Not allowing the joy of homeschooling to take place with our schedule. I was so focused on the work and days that we actually finished before I realized it! A full 2 weeks before local schools were finished. The thing about homeschool is that because our days can be shorter I would often not take advantage of that and if we had a field trip that only took half a day I would still make the kids do their work for the other half! This rigid schedule didn’t allow for the fun of going places when we want to investigate something further, or to participate in a lot of activities which included other kids. I would count this as number 3 so let’s get into that a little more.
- Not Enough Social Time. While my son didn’t mention it much and my youngest doesn’t know what school was every like. I still know it was missed. My middle child, the social butterfly, stated that was the only thing she missed about regular school was seeing her friends everyday. Now since we live on the outskirts of town in the country she doesn’t have friends that live close by…but that is definitely no excuse and an area we look to improve on next year. They did get to socialize at least once a week all year long but going from a daily to a once a week is a big difference.
- Other unnecessary things. So here we are just at the broad category of things I will eliminate.
- “Brain breaks.” These did not get utilized once! The kids didn’t want to pick a popsicle stick with a ‘fun’ activity on it they just wanted 5 minutes to go outside or color a picture. Letting them have the breaks they choose is a much better idea.
- Tons of extra books and pinterest pins. Again unless I plan something beforehand using one of these extra resources.. just having them sitting in the cupboard they didn’t get used once. Perhaps you are different from me in this area but I would rather eliminate the clutter of extra books and only use what I have planned.
- School desks. Now this is to each their own, however my kids ended up not using their school desks at all so we eliminated them. Since our house is already limited on space with no designated school room; my kids would rather sit at the dining room table, with its cushioned chairs, than sit on the hard wood or metal chairs with their desks. So away with the school desks. Sitting around the house would include: the office, on the futon, on the couch, on the floor, at the side table, or at the dining table. If there was a lack of focus while one was sitting on the couch then to the table they went.
Ok now onto our BIG CHANGES for next school year.
THE NEW DO’S
- Starting our year in the summer. Summer field trips, days where we work on a science experiment or the kids do a math lesson and read etc…. Being able to count these days as part of our required school days is such a blessing and will allow more freedom next year in our schedule. Having our affidavits turned in and our letter from the school allows us to start our next year July 1st! Yay for educational fun summer field trips!
- Plan, Plan, Plan. Again the no brainer but now I know what I need to do for me. At least I think I do… talk to me again at the end of next school year. So what this practically looks like. Math, Spelling and Grammar are pretty easy we do these everyday just follow along with the next lesson. However pre-planning our lessons (for the year) in science, history, and art is going to eliminate the hard work of doing this later. Since I do not want a rigid schedule I am not planning lessons out for specific days but rather knowing what the next lesson is going to be when we need to do it. This includes having all the materials on hand and I have a folder on my computer for each subject where I have extra resources or a favorites folder for you tube videos or internet items for each subject. I love art. Sadly we did not do as much as I wanted last year because of the planning and buying of materials. So already this year I have all of our art lessons planned out, every item printed out, and I am now working on buying up all the materials for every lesson we need (this is great because I can use coupons since I am buying things slowly an in advance). The same goes for our history activities, supplemental activities, science experiments etc. Anything that needs to be had on will be here and the corresponding lessons are all done and filed in an expanding file.
- Self grading. Yes… Why did I not think of this sooner! Our oldest is old enough to learn the lesson of integrity when it comes to grading his own papers and with two other children I am schooling this helps the mound of papers. Last year we did this for the final week of school with my sons math. Once he completed a lesson he then graded it and would go back through without the answer key to redo the ones he missed. This was so helpful because then he wasn’t getting behind on his corrections because mom didn’t get to it! This year we are changing our math curriculum and since it’s computer based it will grade itself immediately (what what!)
THE DO’S THAT STUCK FROM LAST YEAR
- Prize Box. The kids absolutely loved this. I kept all prizes around $1 so it wasn’t expensive to throw in some new things. They liked the rubber ducks, small notepads, packs of sixlets (from the baking isle at Walmart), sticky hands, noise making putty etc. We have a rewards sticker program. Each child has their sticker bookmark on the fridge. They can get a sticker for completing a reading book, or for doing exceptional work, this could be their handwriting or their grades, even having a go getter attitude and getting their work done!
- Pre-planned off days for winter blues. Yes it happens to all of us, at least in this house and in the middle of Pennsylvania’s “stick season”. I know that winter is tough on me. Its always so grey and there is nothing to do and the kids go a bit stir crazy and I just need sunshine. So I pre planned our scheduled days off enough to allow us more time off in those months where we just needed a break from school and to go places or just have an at home day where we are’nt focused on schoolwork. I fully think this is in part why I kept my sanity and we do all still love each other.
- A candy dish somewhere special. I got this cute apple candy dish which I kept on the computer desk and I had it filled with individual candies (such as Hershey kisses or peanut butter cups) all the time. The kids loved this little pick me up. They would usually only ask when they were at the computer working on typing or watching one of their videos. It wasn’t something that got abused so we will be bringing this little treat back next year
- Charts. The charts hanging on our cupboard door were definitely utilized. Having a preschooler and 1st grader we used the alphabet, number chart, manuscript and cursive charts, as well as the money chart a lot. Since we don’t have a blackboard or a large whiteboard on the wall anywhere or having to take one and set it up somewhere we also had a dry erase poster chart that we used as our blackboard when we needed one.
- “School activity” for the littles. During the times where our youngest or even my two younger children needed a break or were not doing schoolwork but my son still needed to focus it was great having quite educational activities for them to pull out and play with. Click the item to see what it is in amazon, we got most of these locally. These included:
It feels like a whirlwind and there are so many other things that I know I am either forgetting or not including here for the sake of time. Thankfully we all came out of year one still loving each other and looking forward to next year! I will share more about our homeschool adventures in the future but comment below with any questions or let me know if you would be interested in our art plan for the year!
Here is the list of field trip ideas in PA and some in your local area!