Yes ma'am. It's time to start getting ready for the school year! If you are super nerdy like me and LOVE planning and researching curriculum, you might have started a few weeks ago (or before last year ended!), but if you are normal, then you know it isn't quite time for all that nonsense. It's only the middle of July, for goodness sake.
Here are some homeschool prep items you can do right now that will help your year run much smoother...and they have nothing to do with academics!
House Organization
We just finished a two-day clean out of our youngest daughter's room. We threw so many bags of stuff out, and have more to give to friends or donate. And now her room is so much simpler and easier for her to keep clean. This has everything to do with school because now in the mornings she can make her bed, find her clothes, and even have a peaceful place to go read her school books. We just did ourselves a big favor because once the busyness of the school schedule starts, there will be less time for major cleaning.
Now I'm looking around at my house to see what else I could tackle that might make our days run smoother. You know, as homeschoolers we are home more to take care of things, but we are also pretty busy with school. The older your kids get, the longer the school day takes (we don't finish before lunch anymore) so doing those house tasks now will be a real help.
Things like:
straighten up inside the kitchen cabinets
clean out the pantry and see what staples need to be re-stocked
clean the carpet that we will be sitting on during the year
go through the kids' clothes
clean out that medicine cabinet
What could you do at your house now to make the school year run more smoothly?
Meal Planning
Many, many years ago I came across a plan called 30 Meals. No, not Whole 30--this pre-dates Whole 30 by a long shot. (GASP! The blog post is still there! Thank you, Internet. 30 Meals) Basically, you work to get a list of 30 meals your family likes and can eat, and then you work through that every month. I had my list made, my cards filled out, and every week I just selected 7 cards and purchased those groceries. Meal plan--DONE.
But then life threw us diabetes and multiple food allergies and my entire list of 30 Meals was useless. However, I'm determined to bring it back. We have been eating this way for a long time now, and I'm pretty sure I can come up with a good list (maybe not 30, but we'll see) of meals to rotate through. It really is such a time-saver! Why not use the rest of the summer to test meals on your family so that when the school year starts, you will have less to think about every evening before supper? You could even get some freezer meals cooked so you will be ready when life throws you a curveball.
Share the Chores
You knew this would come up, right? If your family will be new to homeschooling, you are about to be blown away by how much time your kids have to help around the house. This is learning. These are life skills. Take some time to teach and train your children now for jobs that you need them to be automatic on during the school year. Should all your children know where dirty clothes go? Probably. But a "refresher course" on simple things like that won't hurt. Call it CHORE BOOT CAMP or something fun and gather up those chicks. March everyone around the house and show them how to do the chores. The next day, go on the same rounds, but this time have the oldest child demonstrate what you taught them the day before. Guess what? Keep going until everyone who is capable of that chore has had a chance to practice and be praised. Many hands make light work. It is a good idea to have several points scheduled into your day for chores. I'm going to be over here trying to figure out how to get everything done with just me and the one child who is left in our homeschool. Hmm.
Doing these things (and other things like them) now will really help your school year run more smoothly. We can figure out the planning and academics later, but this is a great start. If you are ready to start the other planning, just visit my homepage!
Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash