How to Plan for your Upcoming Homeschool

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to educating your child. In fact, the key to homeschooling lies in tailoring your approach to suit your child’s unique learning style and your personal preferences.

To help you navigate this exciting adventure, we’ve compiled a list of ten practical tips for planning your upcoming homeschool year.

The following tips encompass everything from time management and self-care to embracing the joy of learning. Whether you’re a seasoned homeschooler or just starting, these insights will guide you toward a more productive and enjoyable homeschool experience. So, let’s dive into these invaluable tips to ensure your homeschooling adventure is not only educational but also deeply fulfilling for both you and your child.

So how to plan for your homeschool? Check out these top ten tips.



Get your Guide to your 1st Homeschool Year

There is not one right way to homeschool. Except there is this: if you are not considering how your child naturally learns or how they actually engage; if you are not cosidering what you actually think about what an education is, how you like to learn or how you like to teach, engage, or facilitate. If you’re not considering your child, you and your partner, then you might not be doing it “right”. Is what you’re actually doing working?

Teresa Wiedrick, author of Homeshcool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer


So how to plan for your homeschool? Here are my top ten tips.

  1. Be realistic. How to do this? Time block your time to discover how much time stuff ACTUALLY takes. And practice being right here now.
  2. Self-Care is a requirement, not an option.
  3. You can influence a child, but you can’t control them.
  4. Academics are not synonymous with an education.
  5. Plan for the “S” question. You’ll have to answer it to infinity and beyond.
  6. Plan for YOU in your homeschool too.
  7. There is no ONE right way to homeschool.
  8. Everything isn’t always going to go well all the time.
  9. Always work toward fun in your homeschool days.
  10. Above everything, know yourself.

Practical tips to plan your upcoming homeschool:

  1. At 4 pm, put stuff neatly away (& find the erasers, scissors, and pencils to find them later).
  2. Once a day (or a week), bullet point what you actually did in your homeschools.
  3. Don’t be the only person to read aloud (perhaps read aloud 15-30 minutes post-breakfast), then grab your drawing book, knitting, quilting, and have a child read aloud to YOU!
  4. Try not to do other stuff while your kid is working beside you. This teaches you (& them) to focus.
  5. Phone is not allowed during your study time. Limit your screen time too.
  6. Short, focused math lessons: “Look for the math concepts”, help them not train their brain into mistakes and apathy and boredom: short & sweet.
  7. Read about learning, read about learning to learn, learning to write, learning to read, etc. This is training YOU to engage your child.
  8. Steve Demme’s rule: show them until they ask to do it, then let them do it.  (Make it a strategic playtime, not painful math time).
  9. Assume that conversations count as learning. Respond to most of their questions.
  10. Make fun of your goal…take the seriousness out of education, and play in the new educationese focus, y’all know it’s what you want your kid to enjoy anyway.


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Teresa Wiedrick

I help homeschool mamas shed what’s not working in their homeschool & life, so they can show up authentically, purposefully, and confidently in their homeschool & life.

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