It is that time of year again. I hear buses in the morning rolling (fast!) through our neighborhood, the school supply shelves are picked over and practically empty at Walmart, backpack drives and giveaways are finishing up, and the kids are going back to school! Well, all except my kids.
We are a homeschool family, so not much will change as we move into the Fall season. But there is some preparation that will take place as we get back to serious homeschool business. So what does ‘Back to (Home)school’ look like for our family and other homeschooling families?
Summer Training
The preparation for the homeschool parent/teacher begins in the summer, sometimes at the end of the last school year. My wife and I share in the responsibilities of teaching our children, although she handles most of it, so we both do some type of prep and training. Throughout the summer, we have been attending parent practicums, training sessions, and webinars to prepare for what we will be teaching our kids. We use the Classical Conversations Homeschool curriculum, which does a great job of preparing parents to adequately teach their children. In addition, this curriculum equips us to lead our homeschool group(s).
Setting up the school calendar
Although our kids don’t go to a physical location five days per week for 180 days, we are required to have 180 days of instruction by our state (Indiana). We have no problems meeting that, and actually do way more than that. We even set up a calendar complete with a first day of school (first Monday after Labor Day), breaks (Fall, Winter, Spring), and a last day of school. In addition, we schedule at least one big field trip per month, and our kids participate in various extracurricular activities…
Read more: Jackie Bledsoe Jr., Black and Married with Kids
