How do you deal with competitive homeschool parents?

One of the moms at our regular park day wants to turn every learning-related conversation into a competition where her kids are smarter and better than everyone else. How can I politely shut her down?  

If you started homeschooling to get away from competitive education, you may be out of luck. For every chill, laidback homeschooler who’s never looked at her child’s test scores, there’s a homeschooling mom who watches her — and your — child’s academic progress like a hawk. Your son loves Harry Potter? Her daughter just finished War and Peace. Your daughter is finishing up her math workbook? Her son found that particular curriculum way too easy. Your son loves his new art class? Her son is repainting the Sistine Chapel. Whatever you’re talking about, the conversation always seems to veer to how smart/talented/superior her child is.

Before you get grumpy, consider the fact that this mom may be facing criticism from her family or insecurity about her own abilities to be a successful homeschool parent. She may be aggressive because she feels like she has to convince other people that her child is doing well. While that knowledge won’t make her behavior any less irritating, it can help you deal with it politely, says Maralee McKee, an Orlando homeschool mom and author of the book Manners That Matter for Moms. For starters, resist getting drawn into specifics: The more details you give, the more ammunition she has for comparison. Be vague: “Oh, we’re always reading, but I don’t know what’s on the list off the top of my head,” or “We’re doing pretty well in math right now, but I’m afraid if I talk about it too much, I’ll jinx it.”

If she keeps pushing, it’s perfectly acceptable to let her know you’re not interested in the conversation: “All we’ve done is talk about school stuff! I’d love to know more about that farmers market you were talking to Susan about” or “Jordan’s reading list is under control, but I’m looking for something to read myself. Have you read any good books lately?” And if your polite diversions don’t have any effect, you’re well within your mannerly rights to excuse yourself and relocate your blanket to another part of the playground.

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The Homeschooler’s Bill of Rights

There is no single right way to homeschool. What works for your family is right for your family—and if that right thing changes from year to year (or month to month), that’s okay. These homeschoolers are life learning on their own terms, and you can, too.

You have the right to outsource everything.

There are a lot of things I love about homeschooling. I love how relaxed our mornings are. I love how my daughter gets to focus on what she loves. (Right now it’s chemistry and soccer.) I love how much I’ve learned myself. But I don’t actually love teaching my teenage daughter—and now, I don’t. Hailey takes classes online and at a nearby college, through dual enrollment. Sometimes we talk about what she’s learning, but I’m not her teacher or even her co-learner. I’m just her mom.

I was actually excited about homeschooling when we decided to pull Hailey out of school during her first year of 6th grade. (Cue the usual stories of mean girls, bullying, and unhelpful school administration.) That first year was really terrible, though. Our kitchen table felt like a battleground. I wasn’t confident in my own knowledge — so many countries had rearranged themselves since I learned geography, and apparently you really don’t use pre-algebra that often in real life because I was always getting confused trying to explain problems.

A friend recommended our state’s cyber academy, which we joined in 7th grade. They sent us big boxes with all the books and supplies Hailey would need for her classes. Technically, Hailey was enrolled in the public school system, but for all intents and purposes, she was a homeschooler, logging into her online classes from home. Even though the workload was a little heavy and we opted not to continue with that program, 7th grade was a huge improvement over 6th grade. We really found our stride in 8th grade, signing up for some classes online and taking some classes through a local homeschool group. Obviously I’m around if Hailey needs help or has a question, but I’m not her primary teacher for anything, and for us, it’s much better that way.

Someone at a homeschool group asked me if we considered ourselves homeschoolers even though Hailey doesn’t do any subjects with just me, but I think we’re definitely homeschoolers. In my opinion, homeschooling is about figuring out what your kid needs and finding a way to make it happen for them. That’s exactly what I’ve done for Hailey—and there’s no way I would have been able to discover that without homeschooling. —Jamie C.*

You have the right to change your mind.

Once upon a time, I was the most gung-ho homeschooler you could hope to meet. I knew from the day my oldest son was born that I wanted to homeschool. I help found a secular homeschool co-op in our town and served on the board in various roles for almost a decade. And then, last year, I sent my kids back to school. My oldest was in 8th grade, and his brothers were in 5th and 3rd grade.

There were so many things I liked about homeschooling. I loved getting to spend the day with my kids. I loved learning with them. I liked the slowed-down pace of our everyday life, especially compared to the hectic schedules our school friends were dealing with. But I missed having a “real job” and spending time with other grown-ups. I found it hard to find space to mentally and emotionally recharge. I found it harder and harder to walk that line between being my kids’ teacher and their parent. And so, I changed my mind.

I miss homeschooling, but sending the boys back to school has been the right decision for us. They love their teachers, their classes, their friends. I love my job. I feel like homeschooling laid a great foundation for our family—we still learn together, we still make family a priority, it just comes together in a different way now. I like to think that our life now is just another phase of homeschooling since we’re making the learning choices that work best for us as a family. —Alison H.*

 You have the right to use those workbooks.

I have a confession to make: We use workbooks. And I really like them.

When we first started homeschooling and went to our first park day, there was a group of moms making fun of workbook-users. They weren’t doing it to be mean — they definitely didn’t know that I had a little stash of Scott Foresman workbooks in my tote bag. Later, I would get to know these moms. I would understand that when they made fun of workbooks, they were making fun of the school system that had let their kids down. Their experiences with the school system had been bad, and workbooks had been a tangible piece of that experience. Once they got their kids away from fill-in-the-blanks or circle-true-or-false, those kids had bloomed.

But that first day, when I was a brand-new homeschool mom with no idea what I was doing, those comments about workbooks were like a slap in the face. Was I going to give my kids a terrible learning experience? Were they going to be stuck in a little intellectual box because they answered some multiple choice questions every couple of days? Why had I even thought workbooks could ever possibly be a good idea?

So I hid those workbooks in my file cabinet, and I decided that we would do something else. We tried unschooling. We tried narrations, the Charlotte Mason way. We tried Waldorf. But nothing felt like the perfect fit — until I pulled out those workbooks again one rainy day, and they just clicked for us. My daughter liked filling in the blanks and circling the letters. I liked being able to see her progress on the page. We liked workbooks. And so we kept on using them. We’re still using them — not exclusively and not every day, but workbooks are a significant piece of how we learn.

Sometimes other moms still make snide comments about workbook users. Often, I just keep quiet. Every once in a while, though, I’ll say, “We use workbooks.” Not because I want to put those moms in their place but because there are always new homeschoolers at park day, and I think it’s important to recognize that homeschooling can happen lots of different ways. Including with workbooks. —Amanda P.*

You have the right to not use a curriculum.

Every summer, all the homeschool groups and forums I belong to start buzzing about curriculum. What are you going to use, what’s the best program for language arts or math or music? Where are you going to buy it? It’s a conversation that I always feel a little left out of because our family doesn’t use curriculum.

We’re unschoolers — even though I know some unschoolers who use curriculum (usually in a relaxed, child-led way but not always), we don’t use it at all. I think most homeschoolers understand how unschooling works. I feel like I’m always explaining to non-homeschoolers that yes, my kids choose what they want to do all day, and no, we don’t do any sit-down lessons unless they want to learn something specific and ask for them, but yes, my kids can read and write and do math. Homeschoolers — even more traditional ones—understand what unschooling is about, so no one ever seems to look askance at us because we’re living curriculum-free. But the times when everyone else starts obsessing over curriculum are the times when I realize that our choice to unschool is still pretty unusual. 

I don’t worry that my kids won’t learn — every time they have been motivated to know something, they’ve been able to do it with no problem. My daughter mastered basic math skills saving up money for a new laptop, and now she can figure out sales tax in her head faster than I can. My son wanted to learn Spanish because one of his Minecraft server friends is bilingual. We used a free program through the library, and he’s learned enough to pepper his online conversation with Spanish words and phrases. They both learned to read because they played a lot of video games and I wasn’t always available to read the screens to them, and now they both read for fun, too.

I know some unschoolers are pretty vocally anti-curriculum, but I’m not. What works for people works for them. No curriculum works for us. And while it does sometimes make me feel like the odd mom out at our homeschool group, I look at how my kids are learning, and I know I’ve made the right decision for our family. —Lora V.*

You have the right to not push college.

My daughter is a homeschool graduate. She’s about to turn 26, and she didn’t go to college. If you’re a homeschooler, you know that people love to ask “But how will she get into college?” I actually had a lot of answers for that. When Josie was in elementary school, I’d tell people about that homeschool family whose kids had all ended up in Ivy League schools. When she was in middle school, I’d talk about the homeschool advantage — how homeschoolers actually tend to do better on standardized tests and in college classes that kids in traditional schools. By the time Josie was in high school, I could talk about transcripts and SATs and college visits with the authority of any parent of a college-bound kid. Only, as it turned out, Josie wasn’t that interested in going to college. She had gotten interested in photography and slowly built up a photography business during high school, taking senior pictures for the school kids in our neighborhood, at homeschool proms, even at a couple of weddings.

“I’m going to take a gap year and do an apprenticeship with a good wedding photographer,” she told me her senior year.

And, as it turned out, her business kept growing, and she decided she wasn’t that interested in college after all.

At first I felt apologetic. I felt like I had to make excuses about why my bright, homeschooled daughter wasn’t off to some great college like her friends. Then I realized that Josie was doing exactly what our homeschool life had taught her to do: going after what she wanted without getting stuck thinking that there was one right way to get there. I’m so proud of her. There are still times where part of me wishes that she had chosen college, but then I have to remind myself that this wish is about me, it’s about showing the rest of the world that homeschooling was the right decision for us. That I did right by my daughter educationally speaking. Josie doesn’t need that. She’s not wasting any time wondering whether she had a well-rounded education. She’s doing what she loves, and I love that. —Corey H.*

You have the right to give your child a bad grade.

My son has a C in 11th grade English on his transcript.

As homeschoolers, we talk a lot about how grades don’t matter, but when your child starts high school and you have to start thinking about transcripts, you kind of have to think about grades. And they do matter, at least a little, because your transcript is a record of your homeschooler’s academic experiences. If you’re a homeschooler, it’s easy to see that transcript as a measure of your own personal success — or failure.

I assumed that my son’s transcript would be full of good grades. Isn’t that the point of homeschooling? We wouldn’t have to speed up or slow down to accommodate anyone but ourselves. We could play to my son’s strengths. He could pick the classes he wanted to take. There was no way his transcript would have anything but As on it, right?

English has never been my son’s favorite subject, but he’s always done the work. That changed during his junior year — he had four novels on his reading list, and he always had a reason he hadn’t kept up with his reading. Our “book discussions” were basically just him promising that he’d catch up next week. By the time February rolled around, he’d only made it halfway through one of his assigned books. He ended up writing a decent paper on that one book, which he did finally finish, but the comparing and contrasting authors I’d planned never happened.

People talk about mom-made transcripts, and this was the first time I really understood how tempting it is to give your child a good grade no matter what his actual performance was. I have to be honest: There was a big part of me that wanted to just give him a B and move on, trusting that he’d learned to work harder next time. But I knew that wasn’t fair to all those other moms out there making homemade transcripts. We all live under the shadow of colleges and universities thinking that we’ve inflated our children’s grades — if I gave my son a better grade than he earned, I’d be making it that much harder for every transcript-making mom. But more importantly, my son hadn’t earned a better grade. He’d had the time and ability to complete his work. He’d had the freedom to decide what that work would be. And he’d chosen not to do it, he’d chosen time with his friends and playing video games and soccer practice over English. That was his choice to make, but it meant he’d earned a C.

I worried that he would be upset, but my son didn’t seem surprised at all. He knew he hadn’t done his best work or even good work. And in his senior English class, he earned an A. He might not have learned everything I thought he should have learned from 11th grade English, but maybe he learned something even more important. —Allyson E.*

* last names omitted for online publication

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Moving to the Passenger Seat — Literally and Metaphorically — as Our Homeschooled Kids Grow Up

Homeschooling may not look exactly the same as our kids get older, but we’re all still homeschoolers at heart.

 We circled the parking lot several times before settling for a parking spot a block away from the library. So many station wagons and minivans signaled that today was preschool story time. It had been years since I loaded my preschool aged children into our Volvo wagon to make our weekly trek to the library, where we’d sit on carpet mats on the floor of the community room to hear our favorite librarians read out loud. 

“It seems like just yesterday that we were going to story time, and now you’re driving me to the library,” I said to my daughter as she parked my Subaru.

Times change, cars change, roles change. And just like people tell you when your kids are young, it happens so fast. My little girl is now taller than I am. She has her driver’s permit and has claimed her own set of keys to my car. In a few weeks, she will be done with high school, two years ahead of schedule. In a few months, she will get her driver’s license and begin taking classes at the local community college. If all goes according to her plans, she will also get a job. These are the events she’s been preparing for the last ten years of homeschooling, but it’s hard to believe they’re scheduled on this year’s calendar.

Even though I have one child on her way to college, and another child who has opted to attend a traditional middle school after homeschooling throughout the elementary grades, I am a homeschooler at heart. Some things don’t change. As my kids have grown and chosen their educational paths, our classroom has expanded beyond math at the dining room table, science at the kitchen island, PE at the park, literature via audiobooks in the car, and field trips to historical monuments. Learning together has become our family culture, and I imagine our shared education will extend far beyond their graduation. I look forward to the lessons they have in store for me. There’s so much to see from the passenger seat.

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How to NOT Teach Your Kids Shakespeare (But Do Something Else Really Important Instead)

This spring a fellow homeschooling mom I know mentioned a book she was planning to use with her family, Ken Ludwig’s How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare. Ludwig, an award-winning playwright and Shakespeare aficionado, believes that the best way to truly appreciate Shakespeare is to memorize passages from his plays and poetry, so he’s selected a wide range of kid-friendly Shakespeare passages and laid out a step-by-step method for breaking the passages into manageable bits. 

As a literature geek, I was immediately salivating at the thought of sharing Shakespeare this way with my son, who’s 13, and my daughter, 10. I knew it might be a stretch for us: my kids tend to be stubborn autodidacts who resist any activity that casts me in a “teacherish” role. But they’ve also enjoyed seeing outdoor Shakespeare performances in our local parks since they were little. I figured they might surprise me and agree that memorizing some Shakespeare together was just the thing our summer needed.

I broached the subject with the kids, pitching it as a way to get in the mood for the Shakespeare performances we’re planning to see this summer. They said “Uh, sure, I guess” in the lukewarm, shifty-eyed way they say yes when they don’t want to rain on my parade but are clearly hoping I’ll forget the whole thing.

Still convinced that they’d get sold on the project once we started rocking our mad Shakespeare skills, I set aside some Shakespeare time on our calendar. Week after week, something always got in the way of us taking a crack at Shakespeare. It was time to face facts: My kids really didn’t want to memorize Shakespeare with me.

I like to make the most efficient use of my mama-energy, and what I’ve found is that I just don’t get a very good return on my effort when I push a project that neither kid is enthusiastic about. On the other hand, I’ve seen many times how powerful the results can be when I back off on my agenda and follow the kids’ interests instead. The learning is deeper and longer-lasting. There’s a flow and an energy that just isn’t there when I force things.

So I put aside my Shakespeare dreams, at least for now, and asked myself the million-dollar question: what had my kids actually been saying they wanted to do this summer? That’s when it struck me: the big thing that my daughter had been saying for months is that she wanted to redecorate her room.

This is a girl who loves design, who constructs dream houses for make-believe clients on Minecraft and revels in mid-century modern consignment stores, a girl who adores thinking about colors and patterns and how they interact. The thought of tackling a room redecorating project intimidated me, but I knew that following through on helping my girl create a new space for herself would mean a lot to her. 

Exit, stage right: Shakespeare memorizing scheme. Enter, stage left: room redo. 

Together, my daughter and I set a budget for our project. We slapped paint samples on her wall and changed our minds about a half-dozen times (we finally decided on Turquoise Twist, a gorgeous shade reminiscent of a robin’s egg). We checked out online painting tutorials and conferred with the friendly folks at our neighborhood hardware store. We applied painter’s tape to baseboards and wooden trim, sanded rough spots, scraped off remnants of stickers and Scotch tape. We calculated how much paint she’d need to get the job done. And finally — deep breath — we started painting. 

Neither of us had ever painted a room before. After swiping a paint roller across her wall for the first time, my daughter frowned and said, “Maybe we should hire someone to do the painting for us. I’m afraid it won’t look good if we do it ourselves.”

I couldn’t help wondering if she might be right, but I assured her that if we followed the painting pointers we’d studied and took our time, we could do a fine job. Maybe not as good as a professional, but good enough. I didn’t want her to miss out on the delicious feeling of competence that comes from trying something you want to do but fear you might not be able to do. (I also wanted to keep her project under-budget.) On this point, unlike memorizing Shakespeare, I was willing to push a little. 

We finished the painting a few days ago. It’s not perfect, but the overall effect makes my daughter really, really happy. I think the room means more to her because she was so involved in making it look the way it does. It’s her ideas and work, made tangible.

We’ve spent the last couple of days assembling a storage unit and a desk. There have been many times when we’ve realized we have a part oriented the wrong way and have to remove all our screws and start a step of the process over. We had to problem-solve with her dad when her desk drawers didn’t line up right. 

Thinking about all the times that she saw me messing up and starting over during this project, it struck me today that one of the very coolest things about doing this kind of a project with my daughter is that she got to see me being a rank beginner. She watched me looking up answers when I needed them and asking for help when I hit dead ends. She saw how I paced myself to get the job done, taking breaks when I needed them, getting my hands dirty and doing the work alongside her to help turn her daydreams into reality. 

In other words, I got to model being a learner right there in front of her eyes. For me, that opportunity to model lifelong learning is one of the most wonderful things about homeschooling. Instead of trying to be an authority who has all the answers, I get to learn with my kids and be surprised alongside them. In the process, I get to show my kids what learning looks like, in all its messy glory. That’s definitely a part of homeschooling I treasure—even if it means I often end up putting aside projects that sound really cool to me in favor of what most interests my kids.

Which brings me back to Shakespeare. If you and your family think Ken Ludwig’s Shakespeare book sounds fun and you decide to memorize some Shakespeare, could you please let me know? I’d love to hear how it goes and find out what you discover along the way!

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7 Signs It’s Time to Outsource Homeschooling

Whether it’s looking into school options, hiring a tutor, or just finding an outside class for a specific subject, sometimes smart secular homeschooling means NOT doing it yourself.

Some homeschoolers happily DIY from kindergarten through graduation, but most of us will face a time when outsourcing — whether it’s one class or the whole shebang — is the best way to preserve our sanity and ensure our child’s education. It’s not because you’re a bad parent or a bad teacher — it’s just because sometimes we all need a little help. Here are some signs that it might be time to explore outside class options for your homeschool:

1. You dread getting started in the morning.

If you’re miserable when it’s time to break out the math books or work on an essay, something needs to change. Everyone hits bumpy patches, but if your bumpy patch feels like it’s dragging on and on, a different teacher might be what you both need.

2. You’re starting to dislike your kid.

No parent-child relationship is going to be non-stop rainbows and sunshine, but you may need to shift gears if butting heads over worksheets is having a persistent, negative effect on your relationship. If you’ve starting asking yourself things like “why is my child so stubborn?” or “why does he always complain?,” it’s a sign you need a break.

3. You aren’t doing a good job.

If you’re operating on autopilot, doing the bare minimum, or just plain never doing your best work, it might make sense to put your energy into what you do well and let someone else take over where you’re falling short.

4. You’re bored.

You can’t fake enthusiasm, but you can hire it. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that a particular subject doesn’t get you excited. 

5. Your student is super-critical.

If you’re getting lots of negative feedback on subject matter, assignments, or your teaching style, there’s nothing wrong with testing whether another teacher might be a better fit.

6. It’s crazy-expensive.

If curriculum or supplies for a particular subject cost more than an outside class would, weigh the benefits of doing it yourself before writing that check.

7. Your instincts tell you it’s time.

You’ve spent years learning to hear what your gut is telling you about what’s right for your child. Don’t stop trusting it now.

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We All Know Self Care Is Important—But Where Do You Find the Time?

Self-care is an essential part of the secular homeschool equation, but you’re going to have to be deliberate about fitting it into your days.

A decade ago, I began homeschooling my children for selfish reasons. Sure, I thought homeschooling would be good for them too, and I read a stack of books about childhood development, learning styles, and homeschooling methods to back up that belief, but ultimately my reasons to homeschool were selfish. I wanted my children to learn free of negative social influences, gold star grading systems, and hours of pointless homework, but mostly I didn’t want to wake up early every day to rouse my sleeping children, pack brown bag lunches, and hurry them out the door. Waking up naturally and snuggling on the couch to read books before we began our day of curiosity driven learning was my romanticized fantasy of homeschool life.

There were many days that we lived out my fantasy, but many more days that I lost myself in the service of parenting and homeschooling. When mothers with more experience than I had counseled me to take some “me time,” I didn’t even know what they meant. All the hours not devoted to the enrichment of my children were spent cleaning up from said enrichment, planning for the next day’s enrichment, and recovering from all the enrichment, plus the usual business of running a household. When exactly was this “me time” supposed to happen, and what was I supposed to be doing for myself?

I recently listened to an interview with a 107-year-woman, and when asked for the secret of her longevity her answer was to eat well, exercise, sleep, and avoid stress — four of my favorite things to do now, but not my priorities during those early years of homeschooling. Hearing it from a woman with a tremendous amount of life experience affirmed that taking care of myself is my definition of “me time,” and hopefully it will buy me even more time.

As the new school year approaches, and you thoughtfully select and prepare curriculum for your children, consider the enrichment of yourself as well. Schedule “me time” in your daily planner, and keep the lesson plan simple: eat well, exercise, sleep, and avoid stress.

Here are a few sample assignments:

• Eat vegetables with your breakfast, because at the end of a long day when the idea of making a salad seems as monumental a task as teaching Latin to a preschooler, and you wonder if the marinara sauce on your pasta counts as a vegetable, at least it won’t be your only vegetable that day.

• Station your kids on the front porch with a timer and have them record how long it takes you to walk (or run!) around the block multiple times. Find the mean, median, and mode of your times and call it a math lesson. Extra credit if they cheer you on.

• Schedule a 20-minute power nap for that particularly stressful time of day when you begin to consider packing a lunch for your children and dropping them off at the nearest public school.

• Replace a “should” with a “want”: I should (insert an activity that stresses you out), but I want to (insert an activity that feeds your sense of self). You can’t avoid all shoulds in life, but if you’re not careful you may successfully avoid all of your wants.

• One of the greatest lessons I learned and passed on to my children is the importance of taking care of oneself. If you don’t make yourself a priority, who will? A bonus to this lesson is that others often benefit from your acts of selfishness. My selfish desire to homeschool was a selfless act of service to my children, and an inspiration for friends to choose alternative educational paths.

Families make great sacrifices of time, energy and resources in order to homeschool, but caring for yourself does not have to be part of that sacrifice. This school year, make “me time” a mandatory subject. What is good for you is also good for your children.

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How do I homeschool a subject I don’t know much about?

My daughter wants to study Latin — which is great, except that there aren’t any homeschool Latin classes in our area, and Latin is — well, Greek to me. Is it possible to succeed in teaching a subject when I know almost nothing about it?

As you move into middle and high school, you may find yourself with a kid who wants to take classes outside your knowledge base. It’s totally, absolutely, 100-percent okay to outsource those classes, either by using a plug-and-play curriculum that gives you step-by-step guidance, signing up for online or in-person classes, or joining a co-op where another parent can take over. The older your student gets, the more important outsourcing will become in your homeschool life. But don’t think outsourcing is your only option: You can teach a class you know nothing about — and teach it well.

The key is to drop the mantle of teacher and put on the mantle of fellow student so that you and your child become learning partners. For this to work, you’ve got to tackle the topic together. How do you do this? It breaks down into three simple steps:

Be upfront with your student: “I don’t know much more about Latin than you do, but I’m excited to learn about it with you.” It’s important to talk about this with your student and to really listen to what she has to say — maybe she’ll be thrilled to continue your learning-together tradition, or maybe she’ll be concerned about whether your Latin adventure will adequately prepare her for the college classics classes she wants to take. Don’t let your ego or your desire to teach everything get in the way of what’s right for your student — if she’s looking for an academically rigorous course and you aren’t confident your plan will deliver it, consider other options. Making the choice that works for your particular kid always counts as successful homeschooling.

Be prepared for a big commitment. Self-directed learning can be invigorating and exciting, but it isn’t easy — expect to spend a lot of time and energy resources in pursuing an unfamiliar subject. For this kind of learning to work, you can’t expect your student to do anything that you’re not doing yourself, from memorizing vocabulary cards to working through translations. You want to keep pace with your student, but you also want to set the pace for the class so that you’re progressing. Expect to spend at least a couple of hours a week working on your own for this class, in addition to the time you spend working with your child.

Choose a simple, straightforward program with a workbook or lots of exercises to give you plenty of practice with concepts. (We use Ecce Romani for Latin, which I really like.) It’s scary to think about taking on an unfamiliar subject in your homeschool, but if it’s something you’re interesting in learning about, too, this kind of learning together can be a homeschooling win-win.

This Q&A is reprinted from the summer 2016 issue of HSL. (We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)

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3 Summer Planning Tips for a Happy Homeschool Year

Nothing makes a secular homeschool year run more smoothly than spending some summer hours creating a specific plan for the following academic year.

Who else looks forward to summer days spent lugging coolers and towels to the beach and spending hours refusing to move off your beach lounger for all but the most desperate of cries? Summer is meant to be enjoyed and during a good summer break, a house should be full of sand, dirt, and sunburned kids.

On my beach lounger, though, I begin to dream about our homeschool. I maintain that nothing makes a homeschool year run more smoothly than spending some summer hours creating a specific plan for the following academic year. 

If you school year round, this post is for you, too. Use use whatever break you take for an annual review and planning what comes next.

STEP 1: The Theme

Decide what overall education values are important to your family. Essentially you are creating a mission statement for your family’s homeschool.

A good starting question to ask yourself is: If I teach my child nothing, ever, what is it important that my child has absorbed living in our home? For our family our theme is, generally: learning is a privilege and a delight; don’t screw it up.

Many people’s answers will be education related, but others are not. Some families want to emphasize familial closeness or cooperation. This is your family; there is no wrong answer.

Remember, though, not to be too specific. Be general. Often I find with my friends that their mission statement could apply to everything they do as a family, not just the homeschool part.

Why this step matters: 

When you are in the nitty-gritty of the school year and a problem pops up, sometimes it’s difficult to see what specifically isn’t working. Re-examining the difficulty from a more generalized vantage point often allows a better diagnosis of the problem, and gives us permission to change things.

STEP 2: Get Creative

Set aside a chunk of quiet time by yourself with no distractions (put that phone away!) This might be the most important step of all, and I encourage you to pencil a good block of time into your family’s schedule. If you have little kids, line up childcare so that you can close the door to your office or, better yet, leave the house. 

Have a notebook handy to jot down ideas. If you’re the visual type, buy yourself a pretty notebook and nice pens (a new Moleskine and a medium tip Sharpie pen are pretty much heaven on earth). Spend time thinking about each child’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals, both longterm and short term. Jot every thought down; you never quite know how some seemingly benign thought will open up new opportunities.

Think about the past homeschool year. What worked? What didn’t? Write your answers down. Think about them. Chew on them. What would have made things run more smoothly? If you are preparing for your first year as a homeschool parent, think about your goals. Think about why you decided to homeschool, and what you’d like to accomplish, both broadly (I’d like my child to get into Harvard) and specifically (I’d like to teach my six-year-old to read). 

By the end of this time, you probably will have a skeleton outline of what you would like your school year to look like (or, if you don’t, you could put one together by reviewing your notes).

Why this step matters: 

I have learned countless things from this time with myself. Often little things that have been nagging at me reach that “a ha!” moment and forming a solution becomes simple. Often this time alone allows me to see patterns, and plan and change academics accordingly. 

 STEP 3: The Specifics

Now you’ve got a guidepost and a framework, and it’s time to get down to the specifics. Make this part work for you. Do you hate depending on the library? Then buy the books you need to reach your academic goals. Do you like specific, grid-like schedules that take you through the academic year? Make one. Do to-do lists motivate you? Then create your child’s courses and materials in the form of lists that you can check off regularly.

The purpose of the nitty-gritty to to create specific academics for your school year that stay true to your family’s theme, consider your child’s goals (or your goals for your child, as the case may be,) and that are tailored to work for you.

And it should be noted that, for some families, what works for them is a boxed curriculum that lays everything out for you every week. (If that’s the case, you’re done! Go back to the beach!)

Step three can take awhile. I sometimes spend hours agonizing how to divvy up specific books so that they will match up, timeline-wise, with some piece of historical fiction I have chosen for a particular child. Let me repeat what I said above: You’re making a plan that works for you. If you want to assign your child The Witch of Blackbird Pond while you’re studying ancient Greece, then do it! It’s your life and your family.

Step three can also involve a lot of research. If you have decided your daughter needs to focus on diagramming sentences and you’ve never done that before, you may need to spend some time researching what texts are out there and how you are going to plug that work into your school day.

Why this step matters: 

By the time you are done, you will have all the materials you need for the school year ordered (or know where you can locate them), and a plan for how you are going to execute the day to day of your homeschool for your entire academic year, and that feels pretty great.

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Our Favorite Homeschool School Supplies

Did we become homeschoolers just so we have an excuse to buy all the school supplies? Shhh.

Never underestimate the allure of shiny new school supplies. I don’t care if you’re an unschooler, a high school homeschooler, or just a mom standing in front of a back-to-school notebook display, there is something about school supplies that just speaks to the heart of the human experience. Too much? OK, maybe so, but school supplies are pretty magical, and these are the ones making our homeschool especially happy this back-to-school season.

Document Holders with Snap Covers

If you use my super-painless homeschool organization system, you already know that envelope organizers are a secular homeschool mom’s best friend. These have the added bonus of being pretty!

Buy on Amazon

File Folders

I use file folders to organize weekly readings, keep track of writing drafts, trade work back-and-forth with my kids, and keep my fancy cardstock from getting crumpled at the corners. When the kids were little, I color-coded everything, including file folders, but now that they’re older, I opt for the prettiest folders I can find.

Buy on Amazon

Binder Clips

Binder clips play an important role in my homeschool organization system, but they’re honestly just so handy. You can use them to clip together research or writing drafts, to keep folders from spilling their contents all over the place, to keep up with what you’ve done in your curriculum so far — if you always have a container of them on your shelf, you will be surprised by how often you reach for them.

Buy on Amazon

Ellepi Klizia 97 Stapler

Truthfully, my Swingline is our homeschool old reliable stapler (I’ve had this one since our second year of homeschooling — I bought it when she was in 3rd grade, and it’s still going strong as she heads into her junior year of college), but I could not resist this one, which other people call “sleek” and “aesthetic,” but which I think looks like a paper-chomping dinosaur.

Buy on Amazon

Braun BNE001BK

OK, confession time: I cannot use my kids’ graphing calculators without consulting an online tutorial these days. And while I know I can math anything up on my phone app, I really like having a calculator on my desk. So I bought this elegant little version (it’s in MoMA’s architecture and design collection), and it makes me very happy.

Buy on Amazon

Basic Clipboards

This is my only homeschool design hack: Instead of hanging up posters, quotes, etc. on the walls of our homeschool space, I hang up a bunch of cheap clipboards with command strips. This makes it super-easy to show off awesome work; add new quotes, charts, and pictures; and make our homeschool space feel fresh and exciting without having to do a lot of work.

Buy on Amazon

Full Adhesive Sticky Notes

These sticky notes are my new favorite thing — instead of one sticky strip across the top, the whole page is sticky, so they never curl up and fall off. If you, like me, tend to map out big projects on the wall with sticky notes or to use sticky notes to have silent conversations with your students, these are a game-changer in the best way.

Buy on Amazon

To-Do List Sticky Notes

Now that my youngest is in high school, our productive times don’t overlap as neatly as they used to — I am up and going early in the morning, but they aren’t usually ready to dig into anything until after lunch. These sticky to-do lists help us navigate our different schedules — I’ll leave one on my kid’s notebook in the morning, and I’ll often wake up to one they’ve left on my computer. Obviously we could just use scratch paper, but these sticky pads are so cute.

Buy on Amazon

Sticky Tabs

Are you even homeschooling if you don’t have sticky tabs poking out the sides of half your library?

Buy on Amazon

Zebra Midliners

I love highlighters, but I find their fluorescent brightness a little off-putting — so discovering these midliners a few years ago was amazing. I use them for annotations, for note-taking, for lecture prep — really, I use them all the time, including times where I don’t even need them, because I like how they look so much.

Buy on Amazon

Time Timer MOD 60-Minute Visual Timer

A basic timer is such an underappreciated homeschool tool. After all, one of the great things about homeschooling is that we never have to be on the clock unless we want to. But timers can really be a great tool for homeschooling middle and high school — when kids are overwhelmed by a task, set a timer, and see what you can get done in 10 minutes or 15 minutes. The time limit takes some of the open-ended stress out. Set a timer for subjects where practice is important but annoying — 20 minutes of focused, concentrated math can feel manageable in a way that a less structured math class doesn’t. Timers can also make clean-up more collaborative — set your timer, and everyone pitches in to clean up the chemistry experiment or board game for however long.

Buy on Amazon

HoveBeaty Hand-Blown Hourglass

It’s basically a 15-minute timer, but so much fancier.

Buy on Amazon

Sharper Image Light Up Electronic Word Clock

Speaking of time management, Suzanne was skeptical when I bought this clock with words instead of numerals, but every single person who walks inside the Academy falls in love with it. It’s true, if you’re going for to-the-second precision, there are better options, but I’m going to keep insisting that you cannot beat this for a cool homeschool clock.

Buy on Amazon

Anchor Pro under-desk headphone hanger

This is one of those gadgets that you didn’t know you needed and now can’t live without for us. My kid is very big into Outschool (our favorite teacher is Michael Schwartz if you have improv nerds, too!), so these next couple of school supplies are really gadgets that make our online workspace more comfortable. This little hook attaches underneath your table to hold your headphones when you’re not using them — so they’re never in the way, and you never have to spend the 10 minutes before class hunting for them.

Buy on Amazon

Soundance Laptop Stand

Similar to the headphone holder above, this laptop stand makes online classes so much more comfortable. Who knew? I’m always reluctant to buy something that takes up desk space, but this has been totally worth it.

Buy on Amazon

Bentgo Classic - All-in-One Stackable Bento Lunch Box Container

We seem to spend a lot of time NOT at home these days, and that means I have to think about lunch more than I would like. I’m a fan of this laidback little lunchbox — it’s big enough to satisfy a teenager’s appetite but still compact enough to travel easily. (And I really like that it comes with built-in utensils.)

Buy on Amazon

Fjallraven Kanken Laptop Backpack

I’m including this because it’s the one thing my very un-acquisitive homeschooled teenager requested for not-back-to-school this year, and it turns out to be kind of an awesome bag for carrying around your laptop and a bunch of books.

Buy on Amazon

Palomino Golden Bear #2 Pencil

I used to be Team Ticonderoga all the way, but they’ve slipped in recent years, I think. My favorite pencil these days is the Palomino Blackwing 602, but they’re a little spendy when you’re buying in bulk. So these are now my homeschool pencil of choice: the Palomino Golden Bear #2 Pencil. The erasers work well, the pencil lead is clear and dark, and they feel good in your hand.

Buy on Amazon

Secular Homeschoolers Unite T-Shirt

Don’t test-drive a new park day without one! (But really, haven’t you always wished there was an easy way to identify your fellow secular homeschoolers in the wild?)

Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils (72-Pack)

You probably don’t NEED a whole new box of colored pencils, but I always buy one this time of year anyway. (I bring the old ones to our art supply box at our homeschool group so they don’t get wasted and I can enjoy my new pencils guilt-free.) Don’t forget the Prismacolor Premier Pencil Sharpener!

Buy on Amazon

Uni Jetstream Slim Multi-Color Pen

I love annotating — here’s how we do it — but sometimes hauling around a stack of colored pens is just inconvenient. Still, colored annotations can be really useful. This pen saves the day — it will remind you of those amazing four-color pens we used to own in middle school (you can still buy those!), but this version is slimmer and easier to write with. If you’re introducing annotating this year and want to make a little annotation supply kit for your teenager, definitely add this pen to it!

Buy on Amazon

Le Pen 12-Color Set (Micro Fine Point)

These were my absolute favorite pens in middle and high school, and I still need a new pack every year. I use them for the increasingly complicated family calendar, but mostly I use them for writing letters to my best friend, who appreciates their multi-color magic. (I used to use them for my bullet journal, but I went digital this year! See below for details.)

Buy on Amazon

Lamy Safari Fountain Pen

I really thought my kids would be fountain pen people, and it turns out neither of them are — but I am, so I definitely recommend at least giving your kids a chance to see if they, too, are nerdy fountain pen lovers. This is a lovely but not-too-expensive one to try out.

Buy on Amazon

Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pen

You know how sometimes, with the right pen, everything you write just looks amazing? This is the right pen. (You can pick up some of this correction tape in case your gorgeous handwriting is so mesmerizing that you skip some letters. It’s a known risk.)

Buy on Amazon

Yoobi Fuzzy Llama Pencil Pouch

You don’t need a pencil case, but don’t you kind of want this one? I do.

Buy on Amazon

Midori MD Notebook

My teens both love these dot-gridded notebooks, which give enough writing guidance so that you can feel confident writing long paragraphs but not so much structure that you feel like there’s no room for doodles and charts. My kids are also averse to the writing texture of that super-smooth, shiny paper, and these notebooks have a nice “scratch” without feeling thin or cheap. We are apparently very picky about paper products over here!

Buy on Amazon

Dotted notebook pack

I buy these in bulk and keep them everywhere — in my bag, in the car, at our homeschool group, in the kitchen, in the family room — really, everywhere. We use them all the time, for everything from keeping score in Munchkin to writing poetry to figuring out how to move the furniture around in the music room. We can never have too many.

Buy on Amazon

iPad Mini

I recently (in January) made the switch from the paper bullet journal I have used for 12 years to an iPad bullet journal — and it took some adjustment, but I am loving it. I’ll do a big review when I’ve made it through a year, but if you’re on the fence, I recommend giving it a try. (I got this case because I still wanted it to feel like a notebook, and I opted for the mini size so I can just toss it in my bag like a notebook.) If you want to write in it (which is what I do — there was no way I was going to actually use a planner if I had to switch to typing everything), definitely get the paper screen protector.

Buy on Amazon

Verilux HappyLight Touch Plus therapy lamp

It might be cheating to include this one since I haven’t used it yet, but it is the secular homeschool school supply I am most excited about this year. Winter always gives our homeschool a lingering case of the blues, and some of my friends have raved about this light therapy lamp.

Buy on Amazon

PLAYABLE ART Ball

Because we always need more fidget options for our homeschool!

Buy on Amazon

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4 Easy Ways to Homeschool Lunch

One of the biggest practical challenges of homeschool life is feeding everybody all the time. And lunch — right smack in the middle of your day — can be the biggest challenge of all. These four strategies won’t make lunchtime hassle-free, but they will free up your brain enough to worry about what you're going to do for dinner instead.

Solution 1: Lunchboxes

• Pros: lunch is ready to go whenever you are

• Cons: requires nigh􏰁t-time prep; not always the most budget-friendly option

Take a cue from the school set, and simplify lunchtime by packing it up the night before. Stick with the classics — we like hummus, quinoa, cucumber, and grated carrots on a spinach tortilla or peanut butter, honey, and banana on oatmeal bread for easy sandwiches, with little containers of yogurt, fruit, veggie chips, and a cookie for dessert. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can steal some cute bento box ideas, but kids who don’t pack a lunch every day are likely to be just as excited about a plain sandwich and apple combo. (I get all my best sandwich ideas from the Saltie cookbook.) Make a lunchbox or brown bag for each kid, stash it in the fridge, and lunch is ready to go even before you start your morning coffee. 

Solution 2: Freezer Meals

• Pros: easy on the budget

• Cons: gets boring; does require some advance planning

Once-a-month freezer stocking ensures that you’ll always have a hot lunch at the ready. Our freezer faves include macaroni-and-cheese bowls; black bean and butternut squash burritos; soups and chili; and chicken potpies. There are lots of freezer meal cookbooks out there, but I’ve splattered and dog-eared Not Your Mother’s Make Ahead and Freeze Cookbook enough to recommend it. Freeze meals in individual portions (so you don’t have to listen to a 10-minute argument about whether you should heat up spinach lasagna or kale, sweet potato, and lentil hand pies), pop them in the fridge at bedtime, and they should be ready to heat up for the lunchtime rush.

Solution 3: Snack Plates

• Pros: great for picky eaters, no cooking needed

• Cons: assembly required; can be expensive

The beauty of this cheese plates-inspired lunch is that you can assemble it with all the random bits and pieces in your fridge and cupboards. Presentation is what makes a snack plate like this feel like lunch, so take the time to arrange small wedges of cheese, little stacks of chopped vegetables or fruits, cured or smoked meats, leftover tuna salad, and other hearty nibbles. Add crackers or vegetable chips — homemade or store-bought — and spoonfuls of mustard, jam, chutney, and purees to the plate. Set it out, and the kids can assemble their own lunches from the ingredients. It’s nice to give each kid her own plate, but you can also set up a fancy spread on a serving plate or cutting board for everyone to share.

Solution 4: Emergency Pizza

• Pros: versatile; easy to customize for picky eaters

• Cons: requires last-minute stove time

Until a genius friend introduced me to tortilla pizzas, I always thought pizza was too much hassle for lunchtime. But using a tortilla for a base makes a quick pizza as easy as a grilled cheese sandwich. The usual tomato-mozzarella-mushroom combo is great, but you can get adventurous with pesto topped with leftover grilled chicken, veggies, and fontina cheese; butternut squash puree topped with goat cheese and bacon; or even hummus with crispy chickpeas, avocados, and roasted garlic. Lay your tortilla flat in a cast-iron skillet, layer on toppings and cheese, and let it bake in a 375-degree oven for about 13 to 14 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned and crispy.

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How can I get people to stop talking about our decision to homeschool?

The first rule of defending your homeschool decisions is also the most liberating: You have no obligation to justify or explain yourself to anyone who isn’t your co-parent. Period.

We have decided to homeschool our 9-year-old this year, and I’m really excited. But everybody seems to have an opinion about it. My mom. Our neighbors. The lady behind me in the checkout line at the supermarket. No one ever asked questions or second-guessed our decision to send him to public school, but everybody seems to want to weigh in our decision to homeschool. I feel good about our decision, but the constant questioning is really weighing me down.

I feel like homeschooling is right up there with being pregnant when it comes to people thinking that things that are clearly Your Business are suddenly Everybody’s Business. And while it’s nice to celebrate the whole it-takes-a-village piece of it, it is incredibly frustrating to feel like you’re constantly defending a decision that you have every right to make. It’s insulting — do they really think you have just spontaneously made this huge decision about your child’s life on the fly with no real thought or consideration? — and it’s stressful — you’re already worried about finding the right resources and making it all work without other people trying to add more worries to your pot.

The first rule of defending your parenting decisions is also the most liberating: You have no obligation to justify or explain yourself to anyone. Period. A stranger at the supermarket? A random parent on the playground? You can pull out my grandmother’s go-to response to nosy people, and just say, “What an odd thing to say/ask.” The key to this isn't the words, it's the uncomfortably long pause afterwards that you don't try to fill, where you just look at them as though you’re trying to understand this incredibly strange behavior that you don’t know how to respond to. Usually this awkwardness is enough to change the subject, but if it’s not, you can say, flatly, “It’s weird that you’re trying to insert yourself into my parenting decisions. Please stop.” Resist the urge to explain your thinking, cite your sources, or otherwise justify yourself — give yourself permission to just say, “I’m not explaining this to you because it’s none of your business."

Of course, there are people whose opinions matter to you — your mom, your favorite carpool friend, your nice neighbor. In these instances, you still don’t need to justify your decision, but you want to remind the person in question that (1) this is your choice to make, not theirs and (2) you have put a lot more thought into making this decision than they have put into questioning it. A good script is something like: “I know you’re surprised/concerned by this choice, but I know you also know how much I love Liam and want to do the right thing for him as his parent. Trust me: I feel really good about homeschooling, and I’d like your support.” If they keep pushing, you can just say, “Ultimately, I feel good about this decision, and I’m not going to change my mind. I’d like your support. Can you give it to me?” If the answer is any form of no, you can say, “OK, I hear you — but I’m done discussing this, so let’s talk about something else.” With some people, you may have to go even further, and say, “I can tell you need to talk about this, but I am not the person you need to talk to. Do you need me to give you some space to process this? Or can we talk about other things?”

I think we have a tendency to want to smooth things over, to want to explain ourselves to people because we want to be understood. But we can’t always get that in conversations about homeschooling — instead, we can get pulled into a cycle of feeling that we’re always justifying our decision. That’s not our job, though! We owe ourselves and our children careful, thoughtful decision-making, but we don’t owe that to anyone else, and it’s OK to take a (polite) step back and refuse to engage. 

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How to Transform the Homeschool You Have into the Homeschool You Really Want

If you’ve ever felt like the homeschool you really want just isn’t happening, I have good news: You have the power to change your homeschool for the happier. All you need is a clear vision of where you are now, a little imagination, and a plan for moving forward.

1 : Understand What You Really Want

The first step to getting what you want is knowing what you really want. That sounds simple, but this is where people often get hung up on vague ideas or not-quite-thought-out scenarios.

How do you want your homeschool to feel? What do you want it to accomplish? Life coach Erin Michaelson recommends borrowing a trick from the home decorating world and creating an inspiration board for your homeschool.

“Choose images and words that reflect the way you want your homeschool to feel,” says Michaels. “Don’t overthink it — just grab the images that appeal to you and start pinning them on a wall or Pinterest board.”

Your dream board may look different from what you imagined — maybe you had visions of a nature-centered Waldorf environment, but all your pictures are of cozy book nooks. That’s okay, says Michaelson. “Often, we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for until we start to pin it down. Sometimes, that disconnect can make us feel permanently dissatisfied because we haven’t taken the time to understand what we really want — we’re working toward the wrong things and trying to figure out why we’re so unhappy.”

Really focus on what you want — not on what seems affordable, or reasonable, or doable in your current situation.This is your chance to dream big.

2 : Know Where You Are

You need to know where you are before you can figure out how to go anywhere.

You probably spend a lot of time thinking about what you’d like your homeschool to be, but it’s equally important to understand where you are. Start another inspiration board to capture your current homeschool life: What is a typical day like? What do you do all day? How do you feel? How does your day look?

Find words and pictures that reflect your homeschool as it actually is right now —and be honest. There will probably be good parts and parts that aren’t so photogenic — that’s okay. Go ahead and include what feels true, which may include messes and arguments, unfinished projects and kids playing video games all day. This is where you are, and it’s essential to have a clear picture of where exactly that is.

You probably have a clear idea of the things that aren’t going right, and that’s part of this project. But don’t neglect the things that are working for you, whether it’s little things like finally finding the perfect pencil sharpener or bigger-picture things like figuring out the right bedtime routine. Here are some things to consider:

• Curriculum

  • Think both about the curriculum you are using and the subjects where you aren’t using curriculum. What’s working? What isn’t? What’s getting done, and what’s perpetually on your yeah-I-should-really-get-around- to-that list? What do your kids look forward to, and what do they dread?

• Routine

  • What do your mornings look like? How do your aernoons feel? How do your days wind up? Pay attention to the parts of your routine that work really well and to the parts that aren’t really working. When do you feel the happiest? When is everyone the most productive? Definitely consider the parts of your day that fall under the traditional homeschool umbrella — the times when you are learning or working in focused ways — but give attention to the rest of your day, too, which is an important part of your family’s regular routine.

• Yourself 

  • This is one of those things that you might not usually give a lot of your energy to thinking about, but how you feel about yourself can play an important role in your homeschool. How do you feel during the day? What do you look like? What’s the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing on your mind before you go to sleep? Sometimes, it’s not your homeschool that’s the problem — it’s you. Months or years of concentrated, non-stop effort without a break can slowly erode your patience, your immune system, and your overall happiness. If you suspect that you’re just plain worn out — not an uncommon problem for homeschool parents! — take a mini vacation to clear your head before you decide to change anything.

3 : What’s Missing?

Here’s where things get fun: You’re going to plot a course to start transforming the homeschool you have right now into the homeschool you really want.

A lot of inspiration boards start and end with step one, but to really start to make your happiest homeschool come to life, keep going. Create a follow-up dream board for each of the important elements in your main inspiration board.

For example, if you collected lots of photos of happy families making art in a sunny room but art is always getting shoved off your to-do list, start a list called “Let’s Do Art.” Start adding images of what you imagine your ideal art home- school would look like — cool pictures and projects, a big table, great art supplies, a gallery wall running up your staircase, etc. Do this for all the repeated images that you put together in step one: Maybe you’ll have a page for field trips or carschooling, a page for a super-organized homeschool room, or a page full of nature activities. You might have a page of a happy, well-adjusted student settling into college life or a page of mom outfits that don’t involve yoga pants — anything that you pinned to your dream board more than once should get fleshed out with more images and details. Don’t try to convince yourself that anything is unimportant or unnecessary — you may end up needing to set priorities down the road, but this is not that time. It’s okay if this process takes a while, too — there’s no need to rush.

“It’s tempting to jump right into thinking about what you need to do to get from Point A to Point B, but it’s important to really give yourself room to explore the Point B you want to reach,” says Michaelson. “Pretend that you have all the money/time/ space/whatever in the world: What does this particular thing you want look like?”

4 : Let Go

Just as it makes sense to hone in on the specifics of what you really want, it’s important to spend some time considering the parts of your current life that you’d like to change.

Make a page for each thing that’s not working: A schedule that feels too hectic, arguing kids, a perpetual mess, that permanently frazzled feeling you have at the end of every week — whatever it is that’s making your homeschool feel stressful or boring or unhappy. Collect images and ideas for changing these difficult moments: You may want to search for ideas online or in magazines or ask friends for advice about strategies that have worked for them.

“A lot of times, we get so caught up in trying to figure out what’s causing a problem that we never actually address the problem,” says Joshua Holland, a career advisor who specializes in helping people align their career paths with their passions. “Sometimes, though, your time is better spent moving forward in a productive way.”

Instead of wondering why your kids grouch out over morning math or why you fall apart every night after park day, think about what you might be able to do differently to change that problem part of your day. Knowing what you want to avoid is just as important as knowing what you want to concentrate on.

5 : Collect Supplies

Only now is it time to start actually making changes — and that’s because now you know what you really want and how to get it.

You can start with adding things you want or with trying to erase things that you aren’t happy with, but it’s usually more fun — and maybe more straightforward — to begin with adding something new. For example, if your wish-list includes more nature time, you might start by checking out a stack of nature guides from the library to familiarize yourself with local plants and wildlife or sign up for a naturalist-led hike at a nature center. Start spending more un- structured time in the backyard, or set up a bird feeder near the window. Add a daily nature sketch to your journal or challenge your- self to take a nature photo every day. Your goal here isn’t to jump in with a new curriculum or a structured plan of study; instead, you want to incorporate your new experience into your life. Once it feels like it fits naturally into your routine, you may want to look for a curriculum or classes, but for now, you just want to get comfortable.

“Give yourself space to figure out how this thing you want for your homeschool fits into your actual life without the pressure of spending lots of money or time on a curriculum,” says Michelson. In other words, don’t be tempted by quick-and-easy solutions: Some things you will try during this time will be revelatory — they may change your homeschool forever and for the better — but many will just be okay and some will be total failures. Commitment is the last thing you want right now — the thing you need is freedom to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Follow the same procedure to change the things that don’t work. Try earlier bedtimes or saving math until after lunch if you feel frazzled. Sort and toss artwork every week to minimize clutter, or set up a specific shelf for library books so they don’t get lost. Experiment with lots of small, different things to find the ones that work for you.

6 : Move Forward

The process of creating your ideal homeschool is an ongoing one. Every year, the rhythms and needs of your homeschool will change, and you’ll begin this process all over again.

In other words, this is a continuous process, so keep updating your dream boards as your experiences dictate: Maybe free access to all the art materials got too messy, and art study works better one medium at a time. Pull those overstocked art cabinets off your inspiration board and replace them with station-style art storage. Maybe school outside is distracting, and it makes more sense for your family to do hands-on learning inside. Update your dream board with photos of attractive learning spaces. You may find that the more you focus on reading aloud, the better your homeschool works — add more pictures of books and reading to your dream board. Images and ideas will go up and come down — that’s totally normal. Your homeschool is a work in progress.

You can also update your real homeschool board as you find things that work for you: Add that great science curriculum or the writing program that really worked. Add the covers of books you’ve read together and loved or posters from movies that had an impact on your homeschool. Take photos of your own happy, smiling kids to paste on your board, or add tickets from movies, museums, and concerts.

Let the board of your homeschool life gradually evolve to reflect your dream homeschool.

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4 Easy, Effective Ways to Plan Your Homeschool Year

Whether you’re a new homeschooler not sure how to get started or an experienced homeschooler looking for a little planning inspiration, these simple strategies will help you get your secular homeschool organized for the learning year ahead.

Have a student-teacher conference.

Include your kids in the planning process. When kids are active participants in homeschool planning, they take on some responsibility for their own educations and take more pride in their accomplishments.

Start an end-of-the-year homeschool tradition hanging out together at coffee shop or diner to conduct a post mortem of the school year. Which curriculum did your child like or not like — and why? Which publishers’ texts would he like to use again? What area of study is he most interested in exploring further? If you have multiple kids, try to make time for a separate sit-down with each one.

This simple homeschool tradition can give you direction and focus when planning the next year. It can be helpful to bring a list of classes and activities to consult during your conversation — it’s easy to forget things that happened in your homeschool back in October after your second mint-chocolate-chip frappe.

Host a homeschool planning party.

Invite a few homeschooling friends over for a casual secular homeschool curriculum party. Keep it simple — open a bottle of wine and order in dinner — and ask your guests to bring their favorite curricula from previous years and new material they’re excited about using.

These informal get-togethers can be a great way to get inspired and to discover curricula you never knew existed. These planning parties are also a great way to clear some space on your bookcases — keep a giveaway stack of books and materials, and pass on outgrown or not-quite-right materials.

This is also a great opportunity to chat about everything from organizing your day to keeping track of lessons to finding the best calculus teacher. The real experts in homeschooling are the parents who do it every day, so you’re much more likely to find a brilliant system from a fellow homeschooler than you are from a generic organization website. If you’re still building your local homeschool community, a planning party can be a great way to get to know other homeschoolers, but you can also get planning support from Facebook groups and online forums. If your homeschool pals are scattered far and wide, consider hosting a Facebook curriculum party instead of an in-person get-together.

Make a love it-need it-hate it list.

Whether it’s your first year homeschooling or your fifteenth, you’re your own best inspiration. Get oriented by making three simple lists. (I have a whole step-by-step guide for doing this you can grab for free.)

Start with a list of all the things that are going great in your everyday homeschool, whether it’s making Monday baking day, doing narrations with Story of the World, or starting the morning with yoga. You already know that these things work well for your homeschool, so when you’re stuck between two choices, opt for the one that’s closest to something that’s already a perfect fit.

Next, make a list of all the things you need to cover in the coming year — maybe it’s time to get serious about multiplication, or your daughter’s dream college requires a lab science for sophomore year. You’ll want to find materials to help you fill these needs.

Finally, do yourself a favor and make a list of all the things you just plain haven’t enjoyed, whether it’s your drill-and-drone math curriculum or your way-too-busy Monday schedule. Get rid of the things that aren’t working for you, and fill that space with books and activities you do like.

Set up a DIY homeschool retreat.

Sometimes, you just need a little homeschool inspiration before you dive into another year of secular homeschooling.

Book a hotel room for the weekend, and pack your suitcase with some of those books you’ve been dying to read (On our list: Lighting Their Fires: How Parents and Teachers Can Raise Extraordinary Kids in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World by Rafe Esquith, Teaching What Really Happened: How To Avoid The Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History by James W. Loewen, Point-Less: An English Teacher's Guide to More Meaningful Grading by Sarah M. Zerwin) and lectures you want to hear (consider Susan Wise Bauer’s Homeschooling the Real (Distractible, Impatient, Argumentative, Unenthusiastic, Non-Book-Loving, Inattentive, Poky, Vague) Child, The Homeschool Scholar’s A Homeschool Parent’s Guide to Grades, Credits and Transcripts, or Pam Sorooshian’s Unschooling and Math.)

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