How to Prepare for a New Semester of Homeschool

Isn’t there something so magical about a fresh start? Even as a child I loved the feeling of starting back to school. Here are some quick things I do to help prepare for a new semester of homeschool.

Evaluate

The first thing I do is sit down and think about each of my children. What point are we at in their curriculum? Where are they excelling and where do they need more support? Is our curriculum working for us or are we working for it?

Once I’ve answered these questions I make some evaluations. I game plan for how to maximize what is working for us and I ruthlessly cut what isn’t serving my family. I usually end up reworking our daily schedule a bit and maybe even ordering a new math curriculum lol.

Plan Field Trips or Unit Studies

or both! Field trips and unit studies are some of the best memory making parts of homeschooling. It allows you to follow your families specific interests. When you think back to a great conference you went to or a really good documentary you watched in college, it wasn’t just the information that you learned that was valuable. It’s the how and who you did it with. I apply that same thought to planning field trips and unit studies. I usually pick a topic (this semester we’re doing space), and then I try and find some really meaningful ways we can learn about this. For us that means getting The Good and The Beautiful space curriculum, planning a room transformation (more on that in a future blog post), and what will hopefully be an epic field trip to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

Refresh Your Supplies

The last thing I do is refresh supplies. There’s a long list of things I could refresh but I just stick to the biggest needs in January. I order new glue sticks, new crayons, pencils, a new book for me on homeschooling (moms need inspiration to push on too), and usually some more printer ink too.

I hope this helps you when planning to prepare for a new semester oh homeschool!