Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Dear Homeschool Mom

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Whether you're a veteran homeschooler, or starting your first year, whether you've got a high schooler or a first grader, the beginning of a new school year can be both exciting and a bit daunting. Each year is bound to have its own unique challenges and joys, and often you don't which is coming next. We can all use a little encouragement, so that's what today's coffee break is all about.



The most important piece of advice I like to give every homeschool mom (including myself!) is this one: You can do this! You are uniquely qualified to make sure your kid gets the best possible education that suits your kid's unique needs.

Prepare for your homeschool year with prayer. Pray for your kids, pray over your curriculum choices, pray over your schedule. Pray for yourself and for your marriage. Pray for your local homeschool community and support groups. Pray for your friends and for your kids' friends. If it's not already part of your homeschool planning, you might want to consider choosing a theme Scripture for your homeschool or for each school year. Following are a couple of the ones I've chosen in years past.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.  It's a good thing to expect your students to give their best effort, and as homeschooling moms we need to be giving our best effort as well, but we're human and none of us will likely be at the absolute top of our game for the entire season. And frankly, we'll fail some days, and struggle with some things. Roll with it and resist the temptation to compare your homeschool to someone else's, because they aren't perfect either, no matter what their blog or Facebook page or yearbook photos might look like.

Your lesson plans and schedules should be realistic and have room for flexibility.  Because stuff will come up to disrupt your schedules, and you'll get behind in some things even while moving much faster than you'd expected in other things. Give yourself wiggle room in the planning stages, and give yourself permission to adjust as needed for your sanity.

Building character and making memories are important.  In a way, more important than stuffing their minds full of facts. We're raising up the next generation, and while they definitely need to know history and have marketable skills, they will most need to have godly character and wisdom so they can put their knowledge to use. The foundation of faith, and strong relationships built with family and friends will carry us through when we face tough times.

Dear Homeschool Mom, I hope you have a wonderful school year ahead. As I wrote this, I prayed for you and for your family, because I don't know your individual needs, but God does, so I asked him to provide for those needs and to bring you encouragement and blessings at just the right times throughout the year ahead. May we each find support from family, friends, and a homeschool community, and may we graciously give support and encouragement to other homeschool moms as well.

What's the best advice or most encouraging word you've been given as a homeschool mom? Leave a comment and let me know! Make sure to visit the Homeschool Review Crew Blog to find all the encouraging Dear Homeschool Mom notes written by other Crew members in this final day of the Back to School Blog Hop!

This post is part of a Coffee & Conversation Link Party at PatAndCandy.com and is also linked at the Encouraging Hearts & Home Blog Hop hosted by Apron Strings & Other Things.

This post is part of the August 2019 Homeschool Collection on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.

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 ©2006-2019 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

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Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Not-At-Home School

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There have been days - weeks, even - when "homeschool" doesn't describe our world very well, because we haven't spent a lot of time at home. I think this is true of many homeschoolers, and there are a lot of opportunities outside the home that enrich our education and experience in a significant way. Home is our home base, of course, but as homeschoolers, we've got the flexibility and freedom to include field trips, co-ops, and plenty of other extras.

Our family relied on our short term spring co-op when the kids were younger. This co-op ran once a week for about 12 weeks during the spring, and was a true co-operative effort among parents. The classes were parent-taught and were a great supplement for elementary grades. For most of those early years, we also attended a homeschool gym class that was a co-op style effort. And then, as students reached high school level, and the academic demands were raised a bit, I had to question whether we could afford the time away from home to participate in co-op, in gym class, in field trips, and just in general. We aged out of that K-8 spring co-op, and there were a couple of years that we opted out of spring semester gym class because the kids were playing community baseball or softball and we couldn't fit both into our schedule.

Here is what we have found worthwhile during high school years.

Homeschool Gym Class - And I am not going to lie, this was about socialization just as much as it was about getting a Phys.Ed. credit and staying active. Often it was more about socialization! The gym class was always well organized and gave the kids a chance to play all kinds of team sports, and earn time towards that Phys.Ed. credit. It was awesome for me too, because while Kennady was playing basketball or whatever with her friends in class, I had the time to pick up groceries or run other errands - and maybe even go out for coffee with some of my friends. Because their kids were also in the class. And afterwards, it was sometimes a job to collect our kids and head back home, because they were still busy socializing! That said, we are not going to be doing gym class any more. We thought the class wouldn't be offered for 2017-2018, and we've already committed to an academic co-op one day a week, so when gym class was reinstated, our calendar had already filled up.

Chorus and Music Lessons - Kennady has been singing in the Children's Chorus and taking guitar lessons, and both are definitely worth the time away from home! Chorus rehearsals are in the evening, so they don't really take away from school time, but it is a big time commitment for getting to those rehearsals and being well prepared. This coming year it will be an even larger commitment, and a bigger pay-off too, as Kennady will also be interning with the Chorus as an assistant to one of the directors of a younger group. I'm so glad Kennady has been able to study guitar with an excellent teacher that challenges her and is helping her hone her skills. Thanks to the flexibility of our homeschool schedule, we can fit in the lessons and she can play or practice whenever it suits her. Which is most of the time, and sometimes to the detriment of subjects she doesn't enjoy as much, to be honest!

chorus rehearsal in New Orleans

Academic Co-op - This will be a brand new experience for us this year, as this is the first time we've felt like we could make a year-round co-op day work for us. After many years of half-heartedly wishing that there was a way we could expand that little spring co-op to make it worthwhile for older students, one of the moms took the initiative to start pulling together a year-round co-op, so we're in on the ground level! I'm on the Board of Directors (for lack of a better term!) and will be the instructor for the Composition class. Kennady will be doing that class, and will also be taking French I and Speech & Presentation. Other classes offered include Spanish, Algebra, Biology, World History, and Economics. We're still figuring this out, but we're off to a good start for a first year co-op and we're all looking forward to it.


How much homeschooling do you do outside the home? Leave a comment and let me know! And visit the Homeschool Review Crew Blog to find all the Back to School Blog Hop posts about how other Crew members get out of the house!

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 ©2006-2017 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Planning Our Year

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Another confession - I actually enjoy lesson planning. The thing is, there's less planning to be done this year, so I've put off doing it until right about now. I should probably clarify the reasons there's less planning needed - I only have one student, so only one set of lesson plans; and I've already created most of the lesson plans I need, so they now just need to be updated.

Record-keeping is mostly a fun job too, and the only trouble I have there is that I tend to let it pile up before I enter all the grades. If there's one thing I'm super talented at, it's procrastinating. Even so, it's pretty easy to get caught up and I've been doing better at staying on top of grading, so this aspect of homeschooling should go well this year.

All my lesson plans, assignment lists, and grades are in one place - my Homeschool Tracker Online. This is an essential program in my homeschool, and it's easy to use. Here's how I do lesson plans and keep records without losing my mind.

I start with the school calendar, with vacations and breaks and semester deadlines marked out. At this point, I know the co-op class schedule and when those classes start and end. And I know when all the chorus rehearsals and performances are. We haven't planned any big vacations during the school year, and it's likely that any vacation break we take will mean only a few school days missed. Those will be pretty easy to adjust for so I'll just figure it out when we get there. What I don't know for sure yet is when guitar lessons will be, but that's the only wild card I have so no worries.

At its simplest, school year planning is fitting the chapters or whatever material you want to cover into the available school days so that the work is spread out into manageable chunks. Thirty-six chapters in the History text? Perfect, if there's thirty-six weeks in the school year. One hundred lessons in the Algebra book? Plan on three lessons a week, and we'll be finished early.

That kind of planning is easily done with pencil and paper and doesn't take long. Then I can start putting it into the Lesson Plan in the Homeschool Tracker program. I've saved Lesson Plans from past years, so I don't have to recreate them for courses that my older students have done, just assign them as needed. I've already got complete Lesson Plans saved for the Notgrass history courses, for example, so those are ready to go. I did need to do a new Lesson Plan for Algebra this year, and I'll need to do one for Composition. Lesson plans for Chorus and Guitar are simply having a repeating rehearsal time in the assignment grid. As for the classes she'll take at the co-op, I'll have to wait and see how the instructors will do grades and if they'll give a syllabus at the beginning of the year. So I'll probably figure that out as I go.

Assigning lessons using Homeschool Tracker Online is very easy. All I have to do is tell the Tracker when to schedule the assignments from the Lesson Plan! I usually assign about a month's worth of lessons at a time, and then print assignment lists by subject, so that Kennady has a list to check off as she goes. Rescheduling is easy too, so if something comes up to throw off our original timeline, it's no problem to adjust the due dates.

Homeschool Tracker also keeps records of time spent, the resource lists, and all grades that I enter, so it's relatively easy to calculate quarterly or semester grades, produce report cards, and even produce a transcript.



(Read my full review of Homeschool Tracker Online here: Homeschool Tracker Online: A Homeschool Coffee Break Review.)

A big picture planning thing I recommend if you're homeschooling through high school is a Four-Year Plan. This is something I do using pencil. Because stuff changes. Ideally, start planning during the eighth grade year, especially if your eighth grader is already doing some high school credit work. A Four-Year Plan lets you easily see the required credits and how they'll be spread out over the student's high school years. 

For four-year planning pages and all kinds of other record-keeping and planning helps, visit SchoolhouseTeachers.com. They have tons of resources for planning and record-keeping, whether you prefer to keep grades online or print out a planner.

Another option I can recommend for those that like to do all their planning on paper is The Ultimate Homeschool Planner from Apologia. This 52-week homeschool planner was designed by best-selling homeschool author Debra Bell, and has calendars, planning and record-keeping pages, and guidance on how to plan and pray and use the planner.  

(Read my full review of this planner here: The Ultimate Homeschool Planner - A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

I mention this last, but it actually comes first in the process. Pray about your homeschool year. For many years now, I've chosen a School Scripture for the year. Something that reminds us of our higher purpose, and challenges us to put things in perspective and trust God with the plans we make.

This particular verse was our School Scripture a few years ago, but I like to remind myself of it every time I work on laying out my plans for what to accomplish in our homeschool. It might not go the way I envisioned, or the way my kids had hoped, but it will work out as God leads us through it. As long as we trust him and the guidance he gives us along the way.

What's your lesson planning method? Do you have a favorite Bible promise to claim for your homeschool? Leave a comment and let me know! And visit the Homeschool Review Crew Blog to find all the Back to School Blog Hop posts about lesson planning and record keeping.

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This post is also part of the Planning, Planners, and Preparing for the New Homeschool Year Round-up on the Homeschool Review Crew blog. See what other Crew members are sharing on this subject! (August 10, 2018)

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 ©2006-2017 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Coffee and Other Essentials

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I have a confession - I don't shop the Back to School sales for notebooks and paper and pencils. I haven't for a number of years. If I happen to see something we'll need, of course I pick it up at that lower price, but for the most part, I go find school supplies when we need them, rather than when the retail people tell me I need them.

Also, we're kind of past the stage of needing glue sticks and crayons, and a new spiral notebook every September. Of course we go through our share of paper, 3-ring binders, pens, and pencils, but our list of supplies that we must have on hand looks more like this:

Coffee - I mean. Clearly, this is a must-have item. This is just such a big part of who we are and what we stand for, so the coffee is brewing each and every morning, and we're glad to stop while running errands for a coffee break too.

Computer and Internet Access - Even though we don't do a lot of online curriculum, we do rely heavily on our devices and the internet to get through a normal schoolday. Kennady has chosen to continue with No-Nonsense Algebra, which means every lesson has a short video component. That's the only course where we must have the internet every day for the lesson, but there's so many times we need to research something, or check out a book from the library, or order something from Amazon (like maybe SAT prep), we'd be a bit stuck without our internet. I do my grading and record-keeping on the cloud, using Homeschool Tracker Online (which I'll talk about more tomorrow!). And in the writing class I'll be teaching at the co-op, I'm planning to allow the students to submit their essays for feedback and grading using Google Documents. When we are not schooling in the same place (for instance, I'm at work and the student is at home), messaging online is the best way to make sure school is getting done!

Y'know what is truly sad about this? Just a couple of days ago, I spilled coffee on my Chromebook, and I'm not sure yet whether it will survive. I was trying to think how long I could go without it, before buying a new one, and I've realized it is a genuine essential and if it doesn't revive I will have to buy another. Not the way I wanted to find out just how much we rely on it, but yeah. We do.





And a printer - I use the printer a lot, now that I think about it, and it's never good news when I run low on ink. For me, it's been worth it to have a teacher's account with Staples. Makes it easy to have ink - or other supplies - delivered the next day (no charge!), or ready for me to pick up in the store.

A vehicle - We have places we need to go in order to do our learning! Co-op classes, chorus rehearsals, and guitar lessons all require us to do a bit of driving in order to get there.

Travel mugs = also a necessity, because I need
to take coffee along on the road.

A comfortable place to work - Over the years I've learned that kids don't all work best at a desk or table; or at least not for every subject on every day. My oldest did most of his high school work sitting or lying on the sofa in the family room. My middle two generally used a desk to do their work, but not always. If they had a lot of reading, they would usually lie down to do that. And now my youngest does some work sitting in bed, some sitting on the floor in her room, and tries to do her reading lying in bed. I'm not exactly sure why she has a desk. She keeps stuff in it and on it, I guess. And she does use it when she works on an art project. But she's most productive when sitting on the floor. Go figure. Bottom line? As long as the work is getting done, it's fine.

What are your must-have supplies beyond paper and pencils? Be creative! Leave a comment and let me know! And visit the Homeschool Review Crew Blog to find all the Back to School Blog Hop posts about school supplies.

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©2006-2017 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Curriculum

This post contains affiliate links - using affiliate links from Homeschool Coffee Break helps fuel this blog and our homeschool - thank you! 

After so many years of researching and hunting and figuring in order to put together a curriculum and course line-up for the coming school year, it was odd to have so little that I needed to sort out for this year. Some of our courses for Kennady's junior year were decided before we were halfway through her sophomore year! And a couple of others fell into place without a lot of effort on my part. Now, I will still be doing a fair amount of lesson planning, but I'll get into that later in this series. For now, here are the courses and curriculum we've settled on for 2017-2018.

Grammar and Composition

We had intended to use The Power in Your Hands from Writing with Sharon Watson last school year, to tell the truth, but not very far into the year I realized that it would be the text used in the High School Writing class at co-op this year, so we sure didn't need to do it twice! We switched things around and in a couple weeks we'll be ready to start on this. I'm actually the instructor for the co-op writing class, so it will be a somewhat new experience for both me and Kennady. I've taught co-op classes before, but not at high school level; and it's been a few years since we were in a co-op of any kind.

(By the way, we were introduced to this curriculum when we reviewed it just over a year ago. Read our review here: The Power in Your Hands (A Schoolhouse Crew Review))

Math

It's finally time to make a switch for algebra. We have loved Life of Fred math over the years, as it is a low stress way for Kennady to learn a subject that just plain causes her stress. Several months ago she discussed with me whether using a video instruction course of some kind would work for her, and while we mulled that over, we had the opportunity to review No-Nonsense Algebra from Math Essentials. Kennady's older brother used it quite a few years ago, and did great with it, so we jumped at the chance, and it has been quite successful so far. So we have made the choice to keep it as our primary algebra curriculum.

(Read our recent review here: No-Nonsense Algebra from Math Essentials (A Homeschool Coffee Break Review))

History, Bible, and Literature

Once again, we started off with something last year and then adjusted expectations and will finish it this year. Instead of completing all of Exploring World History from Notgrass last year, Kennady did about half of it and I adjusted the course descriptions, titles, and number of credits. This year she will do the second half of the course, and we'll adjust as well. Last year we added a few things along the way and this year we'll do the same, so I'm planning on this coming out to a full credit in History, but still looking at whether the Bible portion will be a full or half credit. And we'll have to look at the Literature portion and decide what we want to do there as well.




Electives - Co-ops and Classes

French I - This is being offered by our high school co-op and Kennady had wanted to learn French, so that made for an easy choice! I even signed up to sit in on the class so maybe I'll learn something too. Here's hoping I'm not too much of an 'old dog' for that! 😉

Speech and Presentation - This is also through the co-op, and is a half credit class. I thought it would be an excellent addition to her coursework that will help prepare her for college, for leading worship, and for teaching.



Children's Chorus - Kennady will be in the upper level chorus again this year, in an excellent program that provides outstanding music education in choral singing. It's a full Fine Arts credit. In addition, she has been accepted as an intern with the Chorus for this year, so she'll be assisting the Director of the upper elementary age chorus, and will earn credit for that. As well as very valuable experience if she continues to pursue music education!

Members of the Chorus on the trip to New Orleans in June.

Guitar Lessons - another full music credit will be earned with her guitar lessons again this year. She also gets plenty of opportunity to play and sing in worship teams at church.

Okay, this is her ukulele and not a guitar, but she
probably plays the uke more!

Apparently she didn't want her face to show in this picture.

We don't have specific plans for Phys.Ed. or Art this year, but Kennady already has her required credit for Phys.Ed. so that's not an issue. She already has way more than her requirement for Fine Arts as well, but it's possible that she'll do enough artwork, especially if she's asked to do more backdrops or live art at church, to warrant another partial credit. I always figure if they are doing worthwhile work, they should earn some credit for it!

What's in your curriculum line-up for this school year? Leave a comment and let me know! And visit the Homeschool Review Crew Blog to find all the Back to School Blog Hop posts about curriculum.

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 ©2006-2017 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/

5 Days of Back to Homeschool Coffee Breaks

This post contains affiliate links - using affiliate links from Homeschool Coffee Break helps fuel this blog and our homeschool - thank you! 

Everywhere we look lately the theme seems to be "Back to School" and whether we're excited or apprehensive or somewhere in between, getting our year started is on the minds of many homeschoolers as well. The Homeschool Review Crew is gearing up for our annual Back to School event - a blog hop that will take place next week, August 14 - 18.  

I've been putting together lesson plans for our homeschool and for our new co-op class. We're trying to figure out what our weekly schedule will look like. I'm getting the last few items on our supply and book list purchased. And I'm thinking about the big picture of what we'll need to accomplish this year. So, along with the other Homeschool Crew members, I'll be sharing some of those plans and preparations in the Back to School Blog Hop. We invite you to join us for plenty of different perspectives on curriculum and planning, and for some encouragement and advice for a great year.

Each day of the Blog Hop will have a theme to focus on.

Monday - We'll talk curriculum and resources, what we're using, and some of our favorites.

Tuesday - Homeschoolers love papers and pencils and school supplies of all kinds!

Wednesday - Find out how Crew members do their planning and record keeping.

Thursday - We'll discuss the education we do outside our homes. There are co-ops, support groups, apprenticeships, clubs, and some interesting electives.

Friday - We wrap up our Back to School week by writing open letters of encouragement to homeschool parents.

Join me next week for 5 Days of Back to Homeschool Coffee Breaks. As we go along I'll add links to the individual posts here, so feel free to bookmark this page.

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Curriculum

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Coffee and Other Essentials

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Planning Our Year

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Not-At-Home School

Back to Homeschool Coffee Break - Dear Homeschool Mom

Check in at the Homeschool Review Crew Blog for more info, and the hub to find all the 5 Days of Back to School posts. 

 Don't miss a coffee break! Subscribe to Homeschool Coffee Break by Email!

 ©2006-2017 Homeschool Coffee Break. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://kympossibleblog.blogspot.com/