Mission Possible: Totally Doable New Year’s Resolutions for Your Homeschool
Small changes can make the biggest difference in your homeschool life. Here’s how to make this year your most satisfying yet.
The ancient Babylonians — who started the whole New Year’s resolutions trend with annual self-improvement promises to their gods — had the right idea: Their resolutions were simple, concrete acts that they could accomplish easily — returning borrowed farm equipment or planting a tree. Today, New Year’s resolutions seem silly if they are not big, sweeping goals: be happier, make more money, keep a cleaner house. The nebulous nature of these pursuits (what does one do to be happier?) make them almost doomed to fail, but if we can hone in on specific, small, actionable pieces of these goals — making time for ourselves each day, say, or stopping the out-the-door chaos on co-op mornings — we can actually see our New Year’s resolutions, well, resolve themselves. We can make it a better year—realistically and meaningfully. So read on for steps you can take to tackle some of the more common homeschool life road bumps, and resolve to make 2016 a better year for your family, one step at a time.
RESOLUTION: Stop being late for everything.
If your clan is chronically late, changing into people who show up on time can be a big task—but it’s doable if you—and your kids—are willing to commit to making a series of small changes every day, says Pauline Wallin, clinical psychologist and author of Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-Defeating Behavior.
Start small. Set one manageable goal per day: I will not hit the snooze button this morning. I will put the library books by the door tonight instead of trying to find them in the morning. If you can’t commit to these small inconveniences, being on time may not be as important to you as you think it is.
Retrain your sense of time. Track your activities for a week — jot down daily tasks, how long you think each will take, and how long each actually takes, from morning readaloud to the breakfast dishes. Often, people are late because they have a fixed but incorrect idea of how long an activity takes.
Resist the urge to do one more thing. The need to feel productive is why you suddenly start opening mail or wiping counters when you should be walking out the door. Train yourself to stop what you’re doing — even if you’re in mid-wipe — at your designated go-time and walk right out the door.
Aim to be early. Plan to be exactly on time, and any unexpected event—your 6-year-old’s missing shoes or forgetting to charge your phone—will make you late. Instead, plan to be 15 minutes early, and bring along an activity you enjoy to fill those 15 minutes. (Family Uno game, anyone?)
What if it’s your kids who are always late? You can’t force someone to be on time— and tricks, like pretending events start earlier than they do, only work once or twice before kids figure you out. If being on time is important for an activity, talk to your kids about whether they’re willing to make it a priority. If not, this may not be the right year for that activity.
RESOLUTION: Clean up your homeschool clutter.
Let’s face facts: for a lot of us, some clutter is part of homeschool life. Even if you’re fairly vigilant about pruning papers and organizing supplies, stuff can get out of hand — and if you don’t stay on top of things, you can watch your dining room table disappear underneath your piles. You may never be a super-organized homeschooler, but you can make your space feel less chaotic with these tips and tricks.
Aim higher. Add shelves to make your bookcases stretch all the way to the ceiling, and you’ll be amazed by how much extra space you get. Store very specific (5th grade math manipulatives or extra printer cartridges) or seldom-used items on the higher shelves.
Color code. Assign each kid a color, and use that color consistently: Buy notebooks, folders, and pencils, cover schoolbooks, and flag important pages in your own books or binders with your chosen color, and you’ll instantly know whose stuff is where. If your kids have lots of writing assignments, you may want to edit their papers using a pen in their designated color, too.
Back up. Invest in an off-site Internet service or external hard drive to keep your computer data safe, and you can scan and toss (or just plain toss) papers when they start to pile up.
Get into the habit. The key to staying organized is to spend about 10 minutes at the end of your school day tidying up your learning spaces and prepping for the next day. There’s no dramatic before- and-after with this habit, but the long-term difference is huge.
RESOLUTION: Get comfortable with imperfection.
Perfectionism gets a bad rap, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing: Heathy perfectionists know how to set ambitious-but-attainable goals and work to achieve them, which gives you a strong sense of purpose and accomplishment and a healthy perspective on the times when things don’t go right. (“This will make a great story someday!”) The problem is that it’s easy to veer into unhealthy perfectionism, where you’re mentally setting expectations that are just plain impossible and ensuring you hang on to that sinking feeling of constant failure. The key is to channel the good parts of your commitment to excellence without dragging in all the negative baggage — and a big piece of that is getting comfortable with the parts of life that may not live up to your high standards. “To be enlightened is to be without anxiety over imperfection,” Buddhists say, so think of these imperfection-accepting strategies as steps along the path to enlightenment.
Be your own measuring stick. Forget your friends, forget the blogs, forget Pinterest, and measure yourself against only your own abilities, says University of British Columbia, Vancouver clinical psychologist Jennifer Campbell. No one can be good at everything.
Know when okay is okay. Sometimes you want to be the best, but sometimes (Tuesday night dinner? Friday morning math?) just getting the job done counts as success.
Embrace the minimum. It is much better to have a terrific spontaneous 20 minutes of history than to plan out an entire year with a schedule so intense that you’re overwhelmed just reading your lesson plan. Find a balance that works for you, and don’t assume that more always means better.
Acknowledge the failures. Sometimes things go wrong, and it’s okay to say “this reading curriculum just isn’t working,” and let it go. Making failures into “I’m-not-trying-hard-enough” is a sure way to get stuck in a bad situation.
Be present. Live where you are with things as they are rather than getting hung up on the future or the past.
RESOLUTION: Make time for yourself.
We get it—oh, boy, do we ever get it: You’re busy. Like, insanely busy. But if you don’t make yourself a priority, you’re going to get burned out and grumpy. There’s a fine line between generosity — an integral part of being the kind of giving, doing parent we all want to be — and martyrdom, and we cross it when we get hung up on doing everything, including the things that someone else can do just as well — or sometimes better — than we can. It’s tempting to see this perpetual doing-too-much as an expression of love, but always putting yourself last will ultimately make you feel stressed out and resentful. And worse, over time it actually makes our kids appreciate all the things we do less and less because real respect can only come when someone recognizes that another person has hopes, dreams, and goals, too. Make this the year you channel some of your generous spirit into an area that needs it: you.
Consider yourself important. You are going to feel guilty about making me-time as long as you have the idea that your me-time is somehow less important than making-dinner, teaching-science, or cleaning-the-bathroom time. Say no to things that don’t feed your soul. Making yourself a priority means crossing some things off your to-do list. What can you let go of?
Write me-time on your calendar. Treat it just like any other part of your schedule, and write in 15 minutes a day of me-time — in pen.
RESOLUTION: Stay motivated when homeschooling gets hard.
Starting the school year, we have all these great plans and ideas for making this year the Best One Ever. By February, though, many of us hit a slump, where homeschooling feels like a slog and we’re taxing our inner resources just to do our version of the minimum. Sometimes, this is a sign that you need a mid-winter break. But if a break doesn’t boost your motivation, there are other ways to get it back.
If-then your routine. When you’re planning your week, anticipate bumps so that you have a plan in place to handle them: If we don’t get to math in the morning, we’ll do a lesson after dinner. If it’s raining, we’ll watch a documentary for nature study.
Be reasonable. If your homeschool plans are too ambitious, you can lose steam and give up. Set smaller goals, like doing an hour of school every weekday or doing one family project a week, and increase if you want to as you build stamina.
Keep a daily record. Some people opt to be accountable on public platforms, but even jotting down a paragraph in your homeschool journal every night can be commitment enough to keep you motivated. Feeling responsible to someone, even if it’s just yourself, can really help you stick with something when you aren’t feeling motivated.
Find a support network. One of the best tools in your motivation toolbox is a network of people who understand your challenges and will empathize or cheer you on as the situation requires. Every homeschool parent really needs at least one fellow homeschooler in her social circle — if you don’t have a real-life community, find an online group where you feel comfortable. (Just don’t forget to return the support when your friend is the one needing a motivation boost.)
Put your own learning on the lesson plan. One of the best ways to stay motivated in your homeschool life is to enjoy the process, so why limit all the learning fun to the kids? Sign up for a local college or online class that sparks your interest, and share your enthusiasm with your kids.
Remind yourself why this all matters. You’re more likely to stay motivated when a goal has true personal meaning for you, and when you hit a slump, remembering that meaning can pull you through. Multiplication drills may not inspire your heart, but raising kids who don’t stress over every math test they encounter might. Keep an eye on the big picture.
This article is excerpted from the winter 2016 issue of HSL.
Delightfully Doleful Books for Dark and Dreary Winter Days
When the weather outside is frightful, embrace the dark side with a gloomy, Gothic reading list that makes a bleak winter day seem positively cheerful by comparison.
After a (too) long, (too) hot summer, winter has finally arrived in Georgia and the weather people on the news are saying things like “prepare for ARCTIC BLAST 2017.” It’s gloomy and grey outside and pitch black by 6 p.m., meaning that I’m ready to get PJ-ed and hop into bed by 6:30. Some people like to read about the beach and happier tropical climes when the weather outside is frightful, but I prefer to hibernate with a stack of library books by my side featuring frost-bitten protagonists trying to survive the elements, so I can revel in my warm, afghan-covered indoor-ness while they’re being chased by wolves. It’s time to build a fire and read To Build a Fire.
For many in my generation, Joan Aiken is the queen of this sort of middle grade gothic, with her loosely connected alternate history series beginning with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. In Wolves, two young girls fight back against an evil governess (and an assortment of wolves) with the help of hermit-boy Simon, who lives in the woods and raises geese and bees. Simon moves to London and becomes the protagonist in my favorite book of the original trilogy, Black Hearts in Battersea, where he thwarts a Hanoverian plot to assassinate the king. Simon’s friend, Dido Twite, takes up the narrative (and visits America) with her adventures in Nightbirds on Nantucket. I didn’t realize at the time that Dido went on to star in several more books written by Aiken, but I’ve been catching up with the series and all the treacherous Hanoverian plots, my favorite of which involves sliding St. Paul’s Cathedral into the Thames during the coronation of King Richard IV.
If you prefer your wolves and evil plots a big closer to home, Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty is the start of another great middle school series, set in the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding forests and mountains of Asheville, Tenn. I’ve visited Biltmore several times, and it’s a treat to see the rooms I’ve toured come alive in Beatty’s version of life at Biltmore in 1899. Serafina, daughter of one of the house employees, prowls the house at night and designates herself Chief Rat Catcher, but children both upstairs and downstairs are going missing and Serafina soon realizes that there are evil forces at work, discovering her own magical heritage in the meantime. The second book in the series, Serafina and the Twisted Staff, picks up where the first book leaves off, continuing the fight against evil and Serafina’s journey of self-discovery.
This past year, my favorite example of Dickensian dreariness was in the three volumes of the Iremonger trilogy by Edward Carey. Carey, an Englishman, has said that he was inspired to write the series after moving to Austin, Texas, and missing the grey gloominess of London. Beginning with the first novel, Heap House, he creates a complete world around the Iremonger family, who live in the midst of the vast rubbish dump produced by Victorian-era London. The enormous heaps are a dangerous ecosystem of their own, but also the source of the Iremonger wealth, and each member of the family is assigned a “birth object,” a particular item that they must carry with them for their entire lives. I loved everything about these books: the detailed (and very gloomy) illustrations, the always-not-quite-right Iremonger names, and the story, which ultimately spills out of the heaps to infect all of London. The books are aimed at middle school readers and teens, but I think they’d be great fun as readalouds, as long as the listeners are okay with the occasional (very) unfortunate event.
Let me know if you have any grey and gloomy favorites that keep you warm over the winter, and Happy Reading!
This was originally published in the winter 2017 issue of HSL.
How to Turn Homeschool Movie Days into Active Learning Days
Kick your next movie day up a notch with these movie-inspired activities.
There's nothing wrong with a movie marathon, but sometimes, you need to kick it up a notch. If you're looking for a way to write your next movie day into your curriculum, we've got you covered with fun activities inspired by the movies.
WATCH: Edward Scissorhands
Tim Burton's story of fear and difference set in a technicolor suburban landscape may just be one of the great modern fairy tales.
DO: Soap carving
Get inspired by Edward's exotic topiaries and make your own sculptures with a butter knife and cakes of Ivory soap.
WATCH:: Home Alone
Come on, who doesn't dream about having the whole house to yourself every now and again?
DO: Indoor obstacle course
Build your own adventure with cushions, pillows, books, and whatever else you have lying around the house, inspired by Kevin's DIY home security system.
WATCH: The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin's chilly classic has some of the most iconic cold weather scenes in movie history.
DO: Pantomime show
Borrow Chaplin's silent movie style to create your own silent comedy show based on British holiday pantos.
WATCH: The Karate Kid
Choose your experience: the classic with Ralph Macchio as a misfit turned karate master or the newer version with Jaden Smith as a the karate kid.
DO: Karate
Rent a beginner's DVD, and turn your family room into a temporary dojo. If the horse stance proves a hit, you can sign up for real-life lessons.
WATCH: Treasure Planet
Disney's updated-for-the-space-age take on Stevenson's classic novel is surprisingly good.
DO: Have a treasure hunt
Make a map and send your young explorers in search of hidden treasure.
WATCH: Zathura: A Space Adventure
This underrated flick has all the qualities that director John Favreau would put to such great use in the blockbuster Iron Man.
DO: Make your own board game
All you need are markers, paper, and cardboard to create your own board game. Obviously, making all the rules is one of the best parts,
WATCH: The Gnome-Mobile
This hidden treasure of a film sends two children (yep, they're the kids from Mary Poppins) and their grandfather on a quest to help a gnome find a wife.
DO: Make a gnome habitat
You can occupy several hours creating a gnome garden complete with quirky inhabitants.
How to Beat Midwinter Cabin Fever in Your Homeschool
Upgrade your midwinter homeschool with these cabin fever-busting strategies.
Feeling cooped up can muck up your sleep schedule, set your nerves on edge, and even make you sick — and in the middle of another shiver-me-timbers winter, cabin fever can be the straw that breaks the parent’s back. We can’t make spring get here any faster, but we can suggest a few ways to stymie cooped-up boredom and get a little break from the cabin fever blues.
Go camping in the living room. Set up a tent (or rig one out of pillows and blankets), roll out the sleeping bags, and eat s’mores while you tell stories by flashlight.
Go on a treasure hunt. Put together a series of maps or clues (bonus points if they rhyme) to guide kids to a treasure hidden in your house. Use your kids’ ability level to decide on your clues: They should be tricky enough to need solving but not so tough that kids lose interest. Your hidden booty might be a new game, a craft project, movie tickets, or another boredom buster.
Paint a mural. Kids who like drawing or painting will love the opportunity to work on a big-scale project. Cover a wall with a giant canvas or roll of paper — or paint right on the wall, if you’re feeling particularly brave. Get kids started mocking up their mural on standard-size paper, then transfer the perfect mural to the wall using the grid method.
Set up an obstacle course. You can keep it simple — do 10 jumping jacks here, run around in circles there — or get more complicated with Lego building stations, Ninja-sliding walls, and pillow-jumping paths.
Start a marshmallow war. Build marshmallow shooters and compete to see who can shoot marshmallows the farthest and most accurately. You can get cull instructions on the Come Together Kids blog, but all you’ll need are plastic cups, balloons, mini marshmallows, and a pair of scissors.
Make a time capsule. Pick a future date, and let the kids write a letter and put together a package for their future selves. Store this in a safe place, and you and your kids will be delighted to rediscover it down the road.
Learn a secret code. Pick up a copy of a book like The Book of Codes: Understanding the World of Hidden Messages: An Illustrated Guide to Signs, Symbols, Ciphers, and Secret Languages and read up on the history of codes from prehistoric cave drawings to modern day graffiti.
Host your own film festival. Pop plenty of popcorn and settle in for a movie marathon. We think a mix of classic musicals (Singin’ in the Rain, Annie), engaging documentaries (Miss Representation, Walking with Dinosaurs), and family favorites (Toy Story, Labyrinth) is just about perfect.
Publish a family newspaper. Kids can review movies, music, and television shows, report on important family news, interview each other for profiles, and opine on current events in editorials. If you’re handy with a video camera, you can turn your paper into a news show.
Find a pen pal. A pen pal can be an excellent opportunity to hone writing skills and give your kids something to do on quiet afternoons. Find a pen pal through your homeschool group or an organization like Homeschool Pen Pals, and stock up on stationery.
Break out the family pictures. Face it: Your 90s prom hairstyle is never going to stop being hilarious to your kids, so suck up the embarrassment and pull out your childhood photos. Consider creating a scrapbook — The Johnson Family’s Most Embarrassing Memories, for instance — or a photo album of great family photos with captions.
Create a concert light show. With Snap Circuits Lights, you can create individualized light shows for your favorite (and least favorite) songs. Kids can build their own light board, then program it to interact with songs from an mp3 player.
Throw a mad tea party. Dress up in your fanciest party clothes and your favorite hat for a Wonderland tea party. Of course you’ll want to serve tea and crumpets.
Make a puppet theater. Home Depot has a handy plan for building a permanent puppet theater, or you can just repurpose a cardboard for your family puppet shows. Make sock puppets from partnerless socks, yarn, fabric glue, and other odds and ends, and put on puppet shows based on classic fairy tales, nursery rhymes, or your own stories.
Start a chain story. Begin a story with a few paragraphs, and take turns adding “what happens next.” You’ll be amazed at your kids’ imaginations — and all the wacky twists your story can take.
Hold a music education class. Mosey on over to YouTube, and let each family member put together a list of must-listen music to share with the rest of the clan. It’s fun to talk about what makes a song your favorite versus the best and how much that answer can vary from person to person.
Have a costume parade. It’s really a shame that Halloween only comes once a year when making your own costumes is so fun. Set a day for your family costume party that gives kids enough time to work on their costumes — you can set a theme, such as Literary Characters or Animals, or let imaginations roam free — and hook everyone up with supplies and costume-crafting assistance. This can be especially fun if you invite friends to join the dress-up party.
Plan a road trip. Collect a pile of travel guides from the library and plan your ultimate family vacation.
Put together a science fair. This one may take a little effort on your part, but as Shelli discovered, it’s well worth it. Kids can choose a topic, conduct research and experiments, and present their findings — and if you can find a host location and get other homeschoolers on board, too, so much the better.
Make a laser course. Use yarn or string and masking tape to create a web of “lasers” for kids to make their way through, super spy-style. This works best in a hallway or narrower room — just don’t block the way to the bathroom.
Play cards. Pagat.com can remind you of the rules to pretty much any card game you can think of, from the basics like rummy and spades to games you’ve never heard of, like Skitgubbe or Svoi Kozyri.
Make a bird feeder. Plenty of birds stick around through the winter, and a bird feeder is a practical way to assist your local wildlife in addition to being a fun boredom buster. Position your feeder near a window with a bird identification guide handy, and you can start a list of local birds.
This list is excerpted from the winter 2015 issue of home/school/life.
Transitioning Back to Homeschool After the Holiday Break
How to amp back up the learning part of your life after the holiday fun ends.
This week most homeschoolers are getting back into the swing of things after a few weeks off for winter break. It’s hard for everyone – adults and children – to start getting up early and getting back to work, so here are a few ideas to make that transition a little more bearable. Please add your ideas in the comments section!
Play Games
Instead of pulling out the curriculum, pull out your games. Pick the most educational games you have on hand and do it during your regular school time. If you like to get up a little earlier in the morning for your homeschool routine, use the games as a way to ease back into that schedule. It’s much easier waking up for a fun game than spelling lesson!
Plan a Field Trip
If you spent a good portion of your holiday in your pajamas, sleeping late and watching movies, you might find that planning a field trip will help you ease back into a routine. You’ll need to get up early, get dressed, and best of all, you can plan a trip to a place that will spark someone’s interest. Ask your child to take a notebook and sketch their favorite exhibits or jot down ideas for follow-up once they get home.
Plan a Trip to the Library
This is easy, and it feels good to watch our kids pick out their own books. While you are there, you might pick up that history book you’ve wanted to read to the kids too. Once you’re home, you have a stack of books that will kick start your new season of learning.
Find a Good Book
You might not need a stack of library books, but just one great book that pulls everyone together on the sofa. And especially if you spent most of your holiday visiting relatives, dressing up, and being on your best behavior, you might enjoy easing back into your regular routine by cuddling together in your pajamas for a good readaloud. (Click here to check out some books we've recommended in the past.)
Watch a Documentary
Do you want to do something educational, but you’re still not ready to do much planning? Try getting the family together to watch a documentary. See Family Time: Our Favorite Documentaries for a must-see list of documentaries.
Make Art Your Lesson
A great first day back might be an art day for your family. Be sure to check all the past issues of home/school/life for Amy Hood’s great ideas on how to explore art with your children. You can read one of her columns online too.
Ask Your Child How to Begin
Finally, if your child is just not transitioning well, or even if he is, but you want to make the transition fun, ask him what he’d like to do to get back into the swing of things. How about research a new subject? Make a poster. Make a film. Or do a puppet show? You might kick start a whole new project!
SUZANNE REZELMAN is home | school | life magazine’s Book Nerd. Subscribe to home/school/life to read her brilliant book recommendations and literary musings every issue. Your library list will thank you.