Refreshing your Home and Homeschool for the new year is very helpful for me to avoid mom burn out. I actually reorganize our Homeschooling Space (aka the dining room) twice a year once in the beginning of January and once in the beginning of Summer, whenever we officially finish that Homeschool year and right before we dive in to a new year. I’ve found this to be extremely helpful in controlling the chaos that can sometimes happen with curriculum and art supplies….and toddlers.
It inspires me to see what we can bring to the front of our lessons that have been getting pushed to the back. Sometimes having things front and center helps me make time for them easier during our lesson time and that’s also helpful with reevaluating our Daily Rhythm and Time Table. It almost feels like the fresh start in summer! So here are my tips and suggestions I use to maintain that balance between being a SAHM and Home Educator.
How to Refresh your Homeschool Space:
Check your Daily Rhythm/ Time Table and reevaluate it first: I like to go through the second half of our year at a glance plans and see how things are going, what’s working and what isn’t working and then change things up from there.
I find keeping a visual schedule hanging up in our Homeschool space beneficial because then we’re all on the same page of what to expect in our day, adding a Time Table displayed in our Homeschooling Space is also good for my formal student to get a break down of our lessons and the times I’m hoping to get them done while also keeping lessons short and things flexible.
Declutter and Organize your Homeschool Space: I like to do this after I go through our plans because then I can bring things out that weren’t getting done, maybe make more shelf space for them to be front and center. But also a lot can accumulate in a Homeschooling Space (especially a small one), in such a short amount of time that it feels good to start back up in a renewed space and hopefully better organized. Adding some fresh new supplies is fun, like a new art medium or notebook.
Bring out things for younger children to have on hand: With organizing the Homeschooling Space twice a year I can bring things in depending on everyone’s ages and needs. Right now I’m got a dedicated shelf on my rolling cart for my toddler to have things at the ready for her to do as well as fun things for my preschooler. Both sometimes do their own thing and play but at other times want to be at the table with us, which is why I’ve found it helpful to have things I can quickly pull out so lessons don’t get too much interruption.
I’ll focus on this in another post but also filling up the youngest members cups first with my attention and time will usually give them a longer stretch of feeling content during lessons.
Rotating out board games and puzzles for new ones or ones that haven’t been played with for a while is really helpful as well, my kiddos are pretty into both!
Plan Field Trips and Fun Things: I love a good spontaneous adventure and we get outdoors almost daily but having Field Trips and Adventures planned is also exciting. I like to look at event pages at our favorite Field Trip spots and put fun events I think my kiddos would enjoy in my planner. Friday is our dedicated Adventure Day as well as a catch up day so we also like to plan nature hikes and park meet ups with friends on those days. We do things during the week but I try to keep those until after lessons when I can. I find having fun adventures with friends on the calendar to really be motivating for my kiddos and myself to look forward too.
Now lets move onto the home aspect of things…
How to Refresh your Home:
Getting into a cleaning routine you can do: Making time for cleaning my home is a big part of homeschooling in a way. I will get stressed or feel uneasy with messes looming over me. I’m both Type A and B so I can let things go but I also don’t want the messes to wait too long it becomes impossible. So I commit to our everyday chores that need to be done daily broken up into Morning and Afternoon times. I do also follow “The Fly Lady” cleaning method that breaks the home into zones and just requires deep cleaning for 15mins each day, not a big commitment but I feel it makes a big difference while balancing out lesson time and helping me stay focused as a Home Educator.
Meals you can make ahead or easy and quick meals: I really love waking up to a breakfast I can just pop into the oven. Anything you can make the night before makes mornings goes smooth, muffin batter, freeze pancakes and waffles to reheat in the oven for 10 mins or even baked oatmeal made the night before and popped into the oven to reheat. All of those things make our mornings flow smoother and we’re more likely to follow our Time Table or Daily Rhythm when I hope we will. That goes for lunches and dinners too. I utilize my slow cooker 3x a week so I can whip up breakfast as well as dinner and the burden of needing to cook during the afternoon eases a bit. I also like healthy and easy lunches I can quickly make so that right after lessons it doesn’t take me too long to make.
Training good habits in your kiddos and you: Good habits are made by training them daily. As a mom I can’t do everything and when I try the burden can really weight me down. Instilling good habits in my children is important. They all have chores they do and things they help with. Even toddlers can fold washrags and be taught how to put the toys they just scattered everywhere back into the bins. The Barney Clean up song is highly motivating to my toddler. Having my kiddos do their morning and afternoon chores at the same time I do mine feels great, we’re working as a team and we’re all ready for the day. If you’re wondering how to train good habits in your children and your self but not sure of where to start, I use Laying Down The Rails to tie in our home school philosophy to our habit training as well.
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