First Time Homeschool

We started our homeschool journey in 2022 with my son. At the time he was preschool age, so I used it as a "trial run" in a way and I learned a lot! I know that I will constantly be learning throughout our homeschool journey. But I wanted to share a little of what I learned in that first year and add to this list as we go!

Flexibility is key!

I always heard within the homeschooling community that flexibility in your schedule was one of the biggest perks. But for someone like me who is rigid and struggles to stray away from a routine plan, I found flexibility to be a stressor. If I could go back, I would grab my shoulders, shake myself and say, “it’s okay if things don’t go as you planned!”. We ended up burning out really quickly and school was more stressful than it needed to be.  

So going into this year, flexibility was something I promised myself I would embrace. Something I would implement into our life. It has been a game changer, honestly. Maybe to some people this sounds like a non-issue. But if you’re a plan follower like I am, then maybe you’ll benefit from hearing that you need to be flexible in order to not stress yourself out.

Plan, but don't over plan. 

Because I’m a planner, of course, I planned out each lesson for us down to the library books we would read on certain days. I spent hours and hours planning out our lessons, researching worksheets and printing. This is not to say that you shouldn’t plan anything, but maybe just plan a small chunk at a time. And again, be willing to pivot from your lesson plans if they just aren’t working.

I hope small tips help your first year of homeschooling. If you homeschool and have some things, you learned your first year, drop them in the comments!