Today's thoughts are on Preparing Home, Heart & Mind.
Preparing Your Home:
I like to take the few weeks before we start a new school year tackling home jobs. This includes cleaning, organizing and purging. So far I've tackled most of my laundry room, my preschooler's room and the living room. During the school months there isn't always time to do this. I don't like feeling like I should get big projects done - but can't fit them in. So now is the time!
Things that I've accomplished these past few weeks include:
- donating clothes
- reorganizing laundry room (work in progress)
- switching preschooler's wardrobe and figuring out key pieces needed for fall/winter
- selling curriculum no longer used (work in progress)
- organizing toys (always a work in progress but SO much better!!)
I actually wrote a whole blog post on this for Bright Ideas Press. I gave several tips that really help me to refresh and prepare my heart. Here is a sample:
Remind Yourself Why You Started On This Adventure
Taking the time to remind yourself the reasons you wanted to homeschool in the first place will help refresh you for the upcoming year. If you don’t remember, make a new list. Is it financial? Educational? Was it to spend more time together as a family? Was it God’s calling? Did you dream of being a homeschooling family before you had children?It is very important to take the time to reflect on these reasons. Remember the passion you had that first year. This will bring about excitement for the new year!
You can read the article in full here.
Preparing Your Mind:
This one is tricky. I've really taken time to evaluate our schedule for the upcoming year. I find that leaving the house during school hours really throws us off. This year piano lessons will have to be after 3pm. Having them in the morning just didn't flow right for our day. Another thing is I'm going to have to figure out my shopping run so that I have food on Monday mornings and don't have to run out first thing. This means either running after church on Sundays or possibly using the delivery service.
I also want to have a stricter blogging schedule. The fall is my busiest time for blogging and I need to keep that in check. Trying to put a time limit on internet will be hard but it is something that will help with overall success for all of us.
I hope these tips will be something that blesses your homeschooling plans. Join me tomorrow for planning tips!
You can see more ideas for Back to School by visiting one of my bloggy friends below:
Jennifer @ Chestnut Grove Academy
Crystal @ Tidbits of Experience
Rebecca @ Raventhreads
Jennifer @ Milk & Honey Mommy
Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool
Monique @ Living Life and Learning
Erin @ For Him and My Family
Beth @ Weavings
Or the complete Blog Hop group by clicking on the picture below:
What a great idea to tackle the homemaking projects before the school year begins. Seems like it would be more efficient than trying to do spring/fall cleaning while also trying to stay on top of homeschooling.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea to tackle #homeprojects during the weeks before school starts. This is a great #bts idea. Thanks for this suggestion.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips! I am working on my getting the house in order, but I've had to wait until my husband was able to finish putting sheet rock in the garage. I expect with everything else we have happening in the next few weeks I will still be working on that after school starts. I guess I will focus on getting my mind & heart prepared!
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