The first day of school feels more like New Year’s Day than January 1st. Your homeschooling starts fresh, the kids are looking through the new books and plans, you snap a few photos to mark the beginning of a new year. A new calendar year can be also be a time to start fresh in homeschooling.

What is Working?

If you are anything like me it is easy to focus on what is not ideal in our homeschooling. But what is working? While I don’t expect my kids to love everything they study, I am trying to sort out what the positives are for them as well as for me. Going forward I want to keep what’s working and maybe drop a few things that aren’t really helping us in our homeschooling.

Let it Go

Yes, you can let it go but timing is everything. If your kids are struggling with the current curriculum is that just normal for the grade level or, are they truly not learning? Is there an elective that is sapping too much energy that can be replaced with one your child is excited about? What about your own ideas of what progress looks like? Can mom let go of her expectations and adjust to where her student is at?

On Schedule or Behind

The new calendar year is the perfect time to check and see if you are on schedule to finish by the end of the school year. Are you behind? That’s ok and a normal part of the ebb and flow of schooling. What can you do now to get caught up? Even adding two extra hours per week will make a huge difference. Once in a while having a catchup day might be helpful. The kids can tie up the loose ends of their subjects for that month and you can also use that time to catch up on your own homeschooling work. Just taking a quick look at our progress at the second new year has been the catalyst for hitting our homeschooling target to finish on time.

Planning

Don’t make the mistake of waiting until September to sign up for new lessons, groups, sports, or classes. If you need a new curriculum now is the time to start planning for it. I like to talk to homeschooling friends to see what has worked well for them. Gathering information takes time, so doing it sooner that later is key to getting registered before groups fill up or shipping takes longer than you planned. Maybe you’ve been curious about what learning online is like. Here is a link to Global Student Network for online homeschooling information: https://www.globalstudentnetwork.com.

Make the new year a great one! Enjoy refreshing your homeschooling for a satisfying second half to your school year.

Sarah Brutovski is a homeschool mom of three children. She grew up just down the street from where she and her husband are raising their family now in rural Upstate New York. When she is not teaching her kids, grocery shopping, or drinking coffee you might find  her training for a half marathon, escaping for a morning at the beach, or chatting on the phone with one of her four siblings. Sarah loves writing on her blog sarahswritingcafe.blogspot.com and currently teaches creative writing at her kids’ weekly co-op.