Back to Homeschool Collection

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For the first time in quite a few years, I'm not publishing a series for a Back to Homeschool blog hop, which feels a little strange. However, this week really is back to school for us - college classes started on Monday, and the homeschool co-op where I teach has our kickoff picnic this week. The public schools started this week too, although in our state they started with virtual learning. And of course, homeschoolers have varying start dates, but most of the homeschool families I know are starting right about now! Not to be left out, I've collected a couple of bits from past Back to Homeschool Blog Hops and links to those articles as well as to a couple of other very helpful resources for those of you going back to homeschool!

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One of the special things I have done for years to prepare for back to school is choose a School Scripture. A Scripture that serves as a theme for your school year or a calendar year, or even a Scripture of the Month can be a huge help to encourage you and keep you focused. Here is our School Scripture for 2020-2021:

And here's a snippet from my post School Scripture 2019-2020, along with that year's Scripture and a selection of some from previous years:

For most of the past twenty or so years, I've chosen a verse or two from the Bible at the start of the school year to serve as our School Scripture. Often it was my School Scripture, as it reminded me of my purpose for homeschooling or reminded me to be faithful in prayer or to trust God. 

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First day of school pictures are a cherished tradition! I've tried to get First Day pictures every year. This year our First Day pictures are a little different, and I'm sure many families are doing slightly different first day pictures too.

A little bit sweet, a little bit silly.

Okay, gotta study.

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Planning!! The beginning of the school year usually means a lot of planning! How closely the plans are followed, how detailed the plans are, how we keep track of our plans - as many styles as there are homeschoolers. This excerpt from a post in the 2017 Blog Hop 5 Days of Back to Homeschool Coffee Breaks explains how I planned and my favorite planning tools and resources.

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. 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. 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. 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.)

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. 

The Schoolhouse Smart-Mama™ Planner is a resource I am still using - especially this year! I'm using all the calendar pages and assignment listings and other tools in the planner to keep track of all my lesson plans and due dates for the classes I'm teaching at the co-op. Here are a few photos to give you an idea, although my pictures are not very clear for some reason:

The Schoolhouse Smart-Mama™ Planner is included with your SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership, and well worth it! 

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.

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For more Back to Homeschool posts about curriculum, planning, and so much more, visit these past blog hops:

5 Days of Homeschool Encouragement (2018)

5 Days of Homeschooling 101 (2016)

Back to Homeschool 2015

My Back-to-Homeschool Checklist (2014)

Happy Back to Homeschool!

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