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Homeschooling hacks are on the rise.
I am a homeschooling mom. Well, technically, I was a homeschooling mom. My daughter graduated in 2021. Homeschooling was our best choice ever, even if we only homeschooled her from 9th through 12th grade.
My parents helped me out every day because my daughter stayed at their house and did her work while I was working. At night, we’d go over it. Then we’d discuss the plan for the next day.
During her junior and senior years, she took classes at the local community college. She started on campus, but then “you know what” hit and she continued at home.
I needed a lot of homeschooling hacks to help me keep my sanity.
That’s why today, I’m going to give you a few homeschooling hacks to help you keep up with your child’s (or children’s) education and prevent your house from collapsing from neglect. (NOTE: If your house is already a mess, as mine often is, you cannot blame homeschooling for that!)
Homeschooling Hacks #1: Structured Schedule
Don’t freak out on me just yet.
Homeschooling does not have to have a rigid schedule like public and private schools have. You have a lot more flexibility when you homeschool.
No matter how flexible it is, you need a schedule.
A schedule will help you to maintain your sanity, but it will help with consistency and productivity as well.
Include these things in the schedule:
- Study periods
- Breaks
- Music lessons
- Gymnastics/Dance classes
- Lunch and snacks
- Appointments
- Errands
You may never have the same schedule twice, but that’s one of the perks of homeschooling.
Consider these things when making the schedule:
- Child’s natural rhythm (Does he/she work better in the mornings or afternoons? Put the more challenging things during the time when he/she focuses best.)
- Physical activities (You can let your child read while sitting on the trampoline or backyard swing. Give him/her time to move around during the day.)
- Breaks (Does your child need one long break, possibly a nap, or will several shorter breaks be better?)
Even though you have flexibility in the schedule, having a structured schedule is a homeschooling hack you will want to use.
Homeschooling Hacks #2: Designated Space
My daughter had a desk in our home office where she could work. When she was at my parents’ she worked at the dining room table. Most of the time at home, she worked in her room where she was comfortable and productive.
Make your homeschooling space:
- quiet
- distraction-free
- well-organized
- equipped with all your supplies.
However, you should be able to move things to a different room, outside, a friend’s house, or the park, if you want to.
Having a specific space in your home does make a physical boundary for learning, and there are days you may need to work in that space so that your children will realize it’s time to focus on school. Plus, this space makes it easier for your kids to see the difference between school time and home time.
Homeschooling Hacks #3: Online Resources
Some of my daughter’s classes were books and workbooks, but others were online. As I said earlier, when she attended the community college, she began with one class on campus and the others online. Then they all became online classes.
Today’s world is very digital. Look through and use some of the online resources available for homeschoolers.
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool offers a full program from pre-K to high school. We used a couple of the classes from there.
You should also look at Alpha Omega Publishing. They have Monarch (which is their online system) and LifePacs (which is their offline system). We used LifePacs for World History and loved it.
You can find videos, like Crash Course, on YouTube. PBS has free videos that you can watch on many different topics.
You can use a variety of instructional websites and applications as resources for your daily studies. Naturally, some are free, while others aren’t.
This is a homeschooling hack that you can’t pass up in today’s digital age.
Homeschooling Hacks #4: Customized Curriculum
Homeschooling is amazing because you get to pick what your child learns. You can choose topics for each of your children that fits what he/she is best at, struggling with, and wants to learn more about.
Incorporate:
- Hands-on activities (Does your child want to help make lunch? That could be a science lesson.)
- Real-world applications (Do you need to make a grocery run? That’s a real-life math lesson waiting to happen!)
- Interactive projects
- Each child’s passions (Do you have a child who loves to draw? Give him/her some sidewalk chalk for art class today. Does another child love dancing? You can play “Just Dance” for PE class.)
When your child sees how he/she can learn from the things you do on a daily basis, he/she will become a lifelong learner. Isn’t that the ultimate goal anyways?
Homeschooling Hacks #5: Homeschooling Community
A homeschooling myth you will hear quite often is that homeschooled children are unsocialized. It’s easy to see why a non-homeschooler would think that, right?
Just because your child is educated at home, it doesn’t mean he/she isn’t socially active.
My daughter played softball through the 8th grade in public school. She was injured during practice and ended her season. She never stopped going to practices and games though.
When we began homeschooling in 9th grade, we looked for things she could do. She really didn’t need anything else. We already attended church, with a strong youth group, and she was in Girl Scouts.
During the summer before she started high school, we learned that the local bowling alley had a youth league. She wanted to try it. She fell in love with bowling and bowled throughout high school.
I said all that to say this: find a community to join. It can be other homeschooling parents and kids, or it can be church, scouts, or sports.
If you need support with homeschooling, find a community of homeschool moms that can lead and help you.
Although you are homeschooling your child/children, you don’t have to be isolated and lonely. Find your people who make you and your children feel like you belong and are loved.
Homeschooling Hacks #6: Amazing Flexibility
I think flexibility is the best benefit of homeschooling.
You can learn on vacation, at the grocery store, at the library, or at the doctor’s office. However, you can opt not to learn at those places as well.
Your children can work on things they enjoy, like drawing, cooking, and dancing. They will also have science, math, and reading.
When your children are struggling, you can spend more time on topics. If they catch on to something quickly, you can move right ahead. There is no set pace or schedule for how long you can or have to stay on a certain topic.
If your child finds a topic he/she loves, find more information about it. Visit the library or museum. Take a tour of a place to get an up-close view of how things work.
For example, I’m in NC. Within just a few miles of my house, there are several NASCAR race team headquarters. The Charlotte Motor Speedway is also less than 15 miles from my house.
If my daughter had been interested in racing or anything about cars, designs, or creation, I could have taken her to any of these places to learn more about it.
Be creative in how you teach your children things. The flexibility of homeschooling allows for more field trips than you can imagine.
Encourage your children to be:
- Independent thinkers
- Self-directed learners
- Self-disciplined (to a point)
Adjust:
- Curriculum (Just because you have it doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for your child.)
- Teaching methods
- Schedules
Embracing the amazing flexibility of homeschooling is a homeschooling hack you cannot pass up.
Conclusion
Homeschooling is challenging, but it’s exciting as well.
These homeschooling hacks will help you strike a balance between raising your children, caring for your home, and finding time for yourself.
The secret to homeschooling success is flexibility. It fits into all of the other homeschooling hacks we covered today.
Make a schedule and allow it to change to fit your child’s needs every day.
Set up a place in your home for your child to learn but be willing to move around to other places–including going outside.
Use online resources but print them off if you need to so that some activities can be analog.
Select a course of study but keep the door open to change. The best curriculum for your child may not necessarily be the one you have in place. I promise you can sell it online and recoup part of your costs if it is a printed curriculum.
Encourage your children to learn through things that you are doing in the real world, like grocery shopping or making lunch. Play “I Spy” in the car to work on his/her colors. Middle schoolers need to practice directions. Have him/her write driving directions to a location. Take a drive to see where you end up.
If you are dedicated to doing what you have to do for your child’s education and being flexible about it, you are ready to put these homeschooling hacks to work.
NOTE:
I know that deciding to homeschool your child can be scary. I put it off for too many years because I thought I couldn’t do it. It was our best education decision ever.
Find me on Instagram and send me a DM with any homeschooling, scheduling, or curriculum questions.