[Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. If you follow one of these links and purchase these products, I will earn a small commission, paid to me by the companies, at no expense to you. The commission I make from affiliate sales help me run this blog and provide regular, quality value to you. So, thank you for your support!]
We began homeschooling in the fourth semester of the ‘23-‘24 school year. As we took the plunge into homeschooling, we followed the advice of many to de-school to get started. While my girls continued some work at their pace, we did not follow any curriculum or really plan out “school” days. They mostly enjoyed spending days outside or watching their favorite TV shows and YouTubers. We spent time as a family camping, they went on several fishing trips with Dad, and just enjoyed getting to be kids. With our first full year homeschooling quickly approaching, we’ve decided we need just a little structure to ensure the kids are getting some work done. While I envy unschoolers, we don’t do well without some structure and guidance.
After scouring the internet and checking out other homeschool mom’s organization tips and tricks, I settled on a few options for us to try. First, I ordered a homeschool planner to loosely plan out and track the girls lessons and attendance for the year.
This week I began going through our curriculum and unit studies, researching supplemental resources like books and videos, and piecing together what our days will look like. I’m still not completely sold on the routines I’ve jotted down, but I also realize some of this will be trial and error at first. Secondly, I decided to create homeschool binders.
One for each child and a master binder for myself. The master binder will house things like copies of our intent to homeschool form that is required by the state of Mississippi, completed work from each of the kids, and ideas for improvement next year. For the kids, I divided their binders into Monday-Thursday (Dad is off on Fridays, so no assigned work unless they have unfinished work from the week) and will fill them each week with their worksheets. I also plan to write down their user names and passwords for the online platforms we utilize (Night Zoo Keeper, IXL, and Khan Academy)
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a work from home job, so I will continue to work Monday-Friday. Thankfully, I have a wonderful mother-in-law who keeps my kids and doesn’t mind helping with school work! I have decided we will have to complete some lessons in the evenings or on weekends when I am able to teach them, but hopefully the curriculums we have chosen will be helpful in self-led and self-paced learning for each of the kids.
We are so excited to see what this school year brings and anxious to get started and in a routine!
