How To Plan It Out Right For Your Homeschool

It’s that time of year when many of us are beginning to wrap up the school year while simultaneously looking ahead to plan for the next school year. It can feel crazy to me… kind of like glazing over the summer months that we look so forward to… but it’s so essential for our family that we have a foundation and a frame. Once I begin constructing the foundation and framework for our Principled Academy, I can move right into summertime splendor. It’s during the school year that the walls are put up in place.

I’m using my Plan It Our Right© Homeschool Planner to guide me along in evaluating and assessing our next school year. How about you?

So here are things that go into my beginning planning stages and it’s all contained in my planner:

My Word Study on Education: I like to revisit this and build upon it often or at least rewrite it to help keep it fresh in my memory.

My Philosophy of Education: This is based on my Word Study on Education. It helps me to keep my focus and be productive so that I may work toward the end goal for our family. You can read about How To Develop a Vision to Make Your Homeschool Productive, and if you’re a Caterpillar Member, you have access to printable sheets to help guide you through this.

Personal Verses: I need.these. to help me get through the rough spots. We can have a lot of rough spots during the school year.

How I stay encouraged: I don’t know about you, but in addition to the above, I also need other means to help me. Sometimes it’s going for a walk, or calling my mom or a close friend, or reading a book, or painting. When I’m in the thick of toddler melt downs, baby needs, the busy schedules that comes along with young adults, random things that can pop up, etc. I can feel overwhelmed and find it a struggle to even think about alternatives to get me through. You know how it is when your brain needs some white space but your canvas of life gets cluttered or messy when you didn’t expect it to? Yeah. That.

My character: strengths that I bring to our homeschool, areas for personal growth, and an area to jot down what I need to pray about for resources and opportunities. This all comes down to shaping my thinking. It’s extremely helpful for me to have this written down in one area for me to go to. You can read more about How To Shape Your Thinking About Your Homeschool, and if you’re a Caterpillar Member, you can access free printable sheets to help guide you in this.

A few testimonies from this school year was to pray for a way to have our oldest son, whom I refer to as Scientist, be able to get involved with an Electrical Engineering class. He also wanted to learn how to play the guitar, but we needed lessons within our budget. We have daughters who have desired to perform in choir and prayed for one that would be suitable for our family. There were a couple of languages many of our children wanted to learn, but were out of reach for us for several years. Since most sports team games are on Sabbath, we’ve opted out of them but longed for team games for our kids to learn and participate in. Had these things not been at the forefront of my mind to pray about, I wonder if God would have been so gracious to provide for each of them. The homeschool co-op our kids were in this year offered an Electrical Engineering course for High School, affordable-to-us guitar lessons, volley ball, choir, and language classes we prayed for. Plus, outside of the homeschool co-op is a homeschool league that has practice on Mondays and games on Fridays. I’m SO thankful to my Heavenly Father who provides!

Life can sometimes feel hectic with its ups and downs and the ever changing landscape of family life.  It’s so helpful to me to have one place where I can keep track of three areas:

• The Foundation Laid for my family (the vision or Philosophy of Education and Life)
• The Framework (what we focus on teaching)
• The Building Up of My Home (focusing on our hearts so as to be molded in that of Yeshusa’s)

So, this is what I’m up to as of late on the sidelines of teaching our children and managing our family life. I hope you have an exciting time planning the upcoming school year for your family. May your diligence be blessed and your needs provided by our Heavenly Father.

If you’re interested in learning more, keep an eye out for the next newsletter where you can learn about our upcoming free course for Planning It Out Right for your individual homeschool. Not on our newsletter list? Sign up here.

Blessings!