Top Ten Homeschooling Tips for Moms

Top Ten Homeschooling Tips for Moms

Are you looking for some tips to make your homeschooling be the best it can possibly be? Well, look no further! Here are my top ten homeschooling tips for moms! These tips are easy to do, and tried and true! Here goes!

#1 Tip- Plan to Use Time Wisely

Each day includes 24 hours, and as busy moms we need them all! Homeschooling deserves our time, but it need not take all of it. Planning for a healthy balance of time and adding some margin helps the days go smoothly.  Making a schedule or routine way of doing things helps us give our children the time and attention they need to homeschool successfully. Roughly planning out the days we will homeschool helps us stay on track and finish on time.

Heart of Dakota helps you plan to use your time wisely by keeping days short for little ones and adding necessary independence for older ones. You will also save time by not having to prep and plan. HOD’s guides are open and go, and they already plan for you to use your time wisely. To see other HOD homeschool moms’ schedules/routines, check out this ever-popular, viewed nearly 250,000 times post: Let’s Share Our Schedules.

#2 Tip – Have What You Need

Nothing derails homeschooling more than not having what you need. Many homeschool curriculums say they cover all subjects, but your first day of homeschooling you unfortunately realize they don’t. Trips to the library, to the science store, to the grocery store, and online to buy more things delay your homeschooling and take precious time away from your teaching. The burden should not be on you to ‘complete’ your ‘complete’ curriculum.

HOD includes all subject areas and makes sure your homeschool children receive a complete education. This alleviates the pressure of when to teach what to each child. HOD also uses common household and art supplies you readily have on hand. This alleviates the pressure to leave your home to go out and find what you need to ‘home’school.

#3 Tip – Use Your Space Wisely

Children who attend public school do school crammed in a classroom nearly all day with 20+ students. Not ideal. Not something to recreate in your own home. In homeschooling, we can use all our space. We can congregate together and spread out for space. We can stay indoors and go outdoors.

Look at the space you have and think how you can best use it ALL.  Couches make excellent places to cuddle up and read together. Recliners by the fireplaces make wonderful places for children to read independently. Kitchen tables, dining room tables, and desks make terrific places to do seat work – either together or spread out separately. Kitchens make fantastic places to do science experiments, and bedrooms and playrooms make excellent places for siblings to play together.

Armoires, bookshelves, and cabinets with doors to hide the clutter make marvelous places for children to store their books. Try having an art box or caddy for each child to make supplies mobile and to give ownership of their own supplies. As children mature, they long for their own workspace and some independence. Recognize that by having work areas they can call their own.

HOD makes using space wisely easy by noting which portions of the plans are “T” teacher-directed, “S” semi-independent, and “I” independent. This makes it simple to choose how to use your space to its best advantage!

#4 Tip – Choose and Expect Cheerful Attitudes

To be able to homeschool is an incredible blessing. Each day we homeschool we can thank the good Lord we can. Modeling a good attitude helps our children choose a good attitude as well. When we choose cheerful attitudes, we can expect our children to choose cheerful attitudes as well. If we choose negative, complaining attitudes, we can expect our children to do the same. I know which I prefer!

Have the attitude you want your children to have! When the day does not go as planned, pray about it. Prayer makes fresh starts possible not only in the mornings but also throughout the day. With your husband, share the positives. He needs to know you love homeschooling and he needs to see it as a blessing too. Refrigerators make excellent places to hang special schoolwork. Schoolwork papers make wonderful places to put stickers. Tables make fantastic places to light lovely candles, eat yummy treats, and drink hot cocoa with whipped cream and sprinkles. Photoframes make terrific places for slideshow digital pictures of your special homeschooling moments.

HOD is as fun as it is academic. Each day incudes many picture perfect moments, lovely full-color notebook pages, and memories to cherish. HOD also includes a lot of the Lord. It is Christ-centered, and each part of the plans invites Jesus into your home and your children’s hearts. Cheerful attitudes come easier when Jesus ‘comes to school.’

#5 Tip – Figure Out Chores and Meals

Sinks full of dishes, trashes overflowing, laundry piling up, toys strewn all over the floor, and hungry pets, children, and husbands do not make for a happy homeschool experience. It takes the whole family to homeschool!

Before you begin your homeschool year, figure out who will do what chores and when. Assign each chore to the youngest child who can do it. Little ones can take out the trash and fold washcloths. Middle ones can unload dishwashers, fold towels, and set the table. Older ones can feed the pets, wash dishes/put them in the dishwasher, and do laundry. Train each child in each task with encouragement and patience. Keep in mind, you will probably always do it all better, if you did it all yourself. But then, who would do all the teaching? And the errands and appointments? And the meal planning? Which brings me to meals.

Figure out set breakfast and lunch meals ahead of time. Make a simple menu. Short, “to-the-table quickly” meals are the goal here. Healthy meals as able, or now and then, are nice. Teach older children to help. Post your menu and have the groceries for your menu the weekend before the homeschool week starts.

HOD’s blog posts and message board have ample ideas to help with both chores and meal planning. We support families in everything that makes homeschooling go well!

#6 Tip – Look at Each Child Individually

In public school, all children of a certain age are lumped together and spend the same amount of time schooling. In homeschooling, we can look at each child individually. Sometimes it works to combine, and sometimes it doesn’t. Younger children need less time homeschooling, and older children need more. Older children need to gradually be preparing for middle school, high school, and life afterwards.

Babies and toddlers need time too, and if it’s not planned, they’ll demand it. It works well to schedule little ones first. Times when little ones take naps and feedings go on the schedule or routine first. Playtimes partnering little ones with older children in a rotating way go on the schedule or routine next. Time for breakfast, lunch, chores, and snack times/breaks gets added too to the schedule/routine too.

Then, alternating teaching times with independent times, and rotating through children several times finishes out the schedule or routine. It makes sense to take into account personal preferences (i.e. early morning risers vs. night owls). Older children should plan on longer days than younger children, so olders should probably get started earlier or do ‘homework’ (of tomorrow’s independent work) the night before.

Older children need to take on more independence as they mature. HOD’s guides gradually teach and increase independence as children work through them sequentially. This makes independence for olders a success and frees up time to teach youngers!

#7 Tip – Plan Fun Times with Siblings, Family, and Friends

Plan for fun times with siblings, family, and friends! Daily playtimes of 30 – 45 minutes among your children help you intentionally set aside time for fun! While two children play together, you can teach another child independently. Then, they can switch! Snack times give more time for fun together. Our sons have always had a hot cocoa and snack time together at 11 AM. They look forward to it and always make homemade cocoa for it. Mom is not invited – that’s fine! Mom needs some alone time too! Siblings make the best of friends, as they last lifelong.

Plan for family time fun too! Take vacations when no one else can – you make your own schedule homeschooling! On sunny, nice weather days, enjoy a picnic lunch or a playtime at the park. Play board games or go fishing together. Pop some popcorn and watch a movie together. Visit grandparents or go for a nature walk. Family time is always time well spent!

Invite cousins/friends over for an afternoon playtime or get-together. Meet at the park, the zoo, or the movie theater. Play nerf guns in your yard or in your basement. Our three sons have always gotten together with their four cousins (seven boys altogether). When they were younger, we’d alternate playtimes at our houses and the park. Just a few hours a few afternoons a week worked wonderfully well and did not derail our homeschooling! As our sons got older, they planned their own get-togethers; nerf gun wars, movie watching, board game-playing, train building, backyard swimming, tag-playing, geotrax building – many fun times, many precious memories!

#8 Tip – Take Time to Begin

Start slowly! Better to carefully and properly follow plans with a slower pace than dive into the plans and do them improperly with a faster pace. Take two weeks to do the first week of plans. HOD makes this easy! Just do the left side of the plans one day, and do the right side of the plans the next day. This will automatically spread the first week of plans into two weeks, which gives you time to do the plans right the first time!

#9 Tip – Plan Time to Interact and Correct Work

Make sure to include time to interact with your older children, as well as time to correct their work. As children mature and work more independently, in addition to teaching time, you will still need to plan time for discussions, interactions, and correcting completed work. If your schedule/routine does not include some time for you to do these things, they will not get done. Work that goes uncorrected or remains unedited begins to pile up.

Children who have no one meeting with them to interact with them and to correct their work in a timely fashion lack accountability and begin to feel as if their work does not matter. So, make sure to plan for daily time with each child – even older children – several short increments of time to interact, correct, and encourage work well!

#10 Tip – Expect Good Habits and Behavior

Just as you would not allow your children to exhibit poor work habits, receive failing grades, or behave in a disrespectful or rude behavior at public school toward their teacher, you should not allow your children to do these things in your own home. Good habits are formed one habit at a time. Expect your children to complete their work cheerfully without complaint. Expect them to work to the very best of their ability. If they turn in their work and it is incomplete, give it back to them to complete the work. Likewise, if the work is failing, help them revise it until it is “A-level” work.

If your children backtalk or behave disrespectfully to you, send them to timeout for a minute. Any nearby corner in the room works well for a minute-long timeout. Children can face the corner and think about why they are in timeout as they wait for the minute to pass. Children who roll their eyes, sigh, make noises, or act disrespectfully toward you can begin their minute over again. At the end of the timeout, ask the children why they received a timeout. If they don’t know, politely tell them. Then, pray together about it – for happier attitudes for everyone involved.

Expect good habits and behavior, and reward children for them! Praise them for their good attitudes and hard work! Tell their father about their progress in homeschooling. Hang their lovely work on your refrigerator or on picture stands on a bookshelf. Stickers, happy little treats, hugs and kisses, and sincere compliments are all ways to show you’ve noticed their good habits and behaviors! We need not be stingy with loving our children as we homeschool them – but expecting good habits and behavior is a must – not only from our children, but also from us as homeschool parents. And grace. There is always grace, praise God, for both children and for parents!

In Closing

With these ten tips, I pray your homeschool journey is as wonderful as mine has been these past 20+ years! You deserve that and so do your children – God bless!

In Christ,
Julie

P.S. Before you begin homeschooling, I am assuming you have checked your state’s homeschooling requirements. If you haven’t, be sure you do so!

P.S.S. If you are excited to begin homeschooling but have questions or need help with placement, call HOD at 605-428-4068! I will probably get to help you personally, as that is what I do! Let’s do this – together!