Work It In Wednesday: Two Hacks for a Smoother Homeschool Week {5 Days of Homeschool Encouragement Blog Hop}

I am not quite ready to start planning for the 2018-2019 school year out yet--we won't start until the beginning of September and not full until after we attend the Feast of Tabernacles at the end of September. But even though I haven't started the actual planning, there are two things that I know will be included in our plans--our 4 1/2 day school week and our Mandatory Monday Morning basket. It's taken us a few years, but I've come to learn the value of both of these Hacks for a Smoother Homeschool Week, and I'm going to share them with you today as part of Work It In Wednesday of the 5 Days of Homeschool Encouragement Blog Hop.

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Why A Mandatory Monday Morning Basket?

I know that I am not alone in dealing with reluctant learners every single Monday morning. I think it's the same whether your child is in public school or homeschool! Monday rolls around and school is the last thing they want to do. But school needs to get done. Our Monday's are even more crazy,

5 Lessons I Have Learned to Make Homeschooling Less Stressful~Lesson 1: Keep Public School Out! {5 Days of...Homeschool Blog Hop}

Homeschooling is stressful. There isn't a single homeschool parent who would say otherwise. But over the course of my soon to be eight years of homeschooling, I have learned that a LOT of the stress is of our own doing. There are tips and tricks we can use to decrease the amount of stress we deal with--making homeschooling a much more profitable and enjoyable experience. Over the course of this week, I will be touching on five lessons that I myself have had to learn over the course of my homeschooling experience thus far. A few of these are things I wish I had done differently from the beginning, and some are things I recently learned and am enacting in our classroom from here on out. My hope is that you will be able to take even just ONE of these lessons and apply it to your own experience--thus saving you from having to make the same mistakes I have. So let's get started! The first and possibly the MOST IMPORTANT lesson I can share with you is this...

Introducing the April 2018 5 Days of...Homeschool Blog Hop!

It's the time of year when my fellow review crew members and I spend a week on different topics relating in someway to the theme of Homeschool! You will find posts of all different shapes and sizes--some will have free printables, others will offer advice, and some will just talk about their experiences with homeschool. If you are a homeschooling family, I hope you will join us on this adventure this week! So, I'm sure you may be wondering what you will be finding here on my blog...and I thought about it and wondered what I could do that I hadn't done yet. And I decided that I would spend this week talking about some lessons that I have learned over the last seven years to make homeschooling less stressful. Over the next few days I will share some things I wish I had learned earlier to make homeschooling easier for me and for my kids, as well as things we are doing now to decrease the amount of stress we have in our daily school life this upcoming year. Some times I will include things fellow homeschoolers wish they had changed--or are currently doing too.

Once I have nailed down my final decisions for my daily topics, I will list them here so you can reference them all!
Day 1: Lesson #1~Keep the Public School Out! How many times do we find ourselves comparing our children to their public school counterparts?
Day 2: Lesson #2~ Kindergarten is About Exploration (not reading and math) One of the #1 questions asked by new homeschool moms is "what curriculum should I do for my kindergarten/preschooler?" I suggest rethinking curriculum for this grade level and instead focus on what kids do best at this age---explore!
Day 3: Lesson #3~Don't Rush Readiness! One of the biggest frustrations that homeschool parents have during the early years is related to their child grasping reading, writing, and math concepts. Oh how we see the posts of despair that their child isn't getting it. That they both are getting frustrated. Maybe their is something wrong? I have another suggestion...and one that research has backed up--yet isn't being acknowledged in the school system. 
Day 4: Lesson #4~Don't Be Afraid to Give Up...Curriculum that is... As homeschoolers, we invest in our child's education. We research and plan. We purchase products and curricula that we are sure will be JUST what they need. But what if it isn't? What then?
Day 5: Lesson #5 and Wrap-Up~ Streamline Your Subjects For Multiple Students Here is a lessons that has FINALLY sunk in for me in regards to our family. We do best when I can teach both boys the same curriculum at the same time. But how is it possible to do that with a 7th grader and a 3rd grader? Come see some ideas for making it happen and the changes I've made to our curriculum for next year to facilitate this!