As summer is nearing its end, and it’s time to prepare for a new school year, I can’t help but feel a bit sentimental. So let’s dive in to review this past homeschool year before starting another year of adventure.
What Went Well This Homeschool Year
We experienced some triumphs and challenges this school year, but I’d like to focus on the positives first. This past homeschool year was full of milestones and revelations, transforming how we’ll approach homeschooling forever.
Overall Changes
There were some major changes that took place this year that made homeschooling much more fun and exciting:
- Our Homeschool Tribe -This was an answered prayer and game changer for our homeschool year. In previous years we had typically homeschooled on our own. This year, I connected with an old classmate from middle school and her cousin. We all happen to be homeschool moms who don’t belong to a co-op or network of homeschoolers that we can identify with. Our homeschool tribe began meeting for monthly lessons, playdates, and field trips, and it has made all the difference. My girls have made new friends, and I’ve been able to bond with other homeschool mamas too.
- More Field Trips-As I’ve mentioned in my blog and social media posts in the past, homeschooling can happen anywhere, not just at home. As a homeschool parent, however, it’s easy to become a homebody throughout the week if you’re not careful. Thanks to our homeschool tribe, our family shook off our post-pandemic, hermitlike ways and got back out to explore. Aside from attending each other’s birthday parties and having playdates together, we have also visited several museums out of town together.
- Church Involvement-We’ve always considered ourselves to be pretty active in our church life, but the pandemic had slowed us down. We were already in the process of finding a new permanent church home before Covid, so after weeks of virtual services, it was a challenge to get back into the swing of things. After finally joining our current church, we dug our heels in and got involved. The girls were excited to get involved too, and have done several programs and presentations at our church.
Individual Wins
This homeschool year was truly spectacular! Not only did we have some memorable experiences as a family, but my girls also had some individual wins that we were pretty excited about.
Jazilyn’s Wins
- For the love of laundry: Jazilyn is my oldest child who’s independent and always trying to feel a bit grown up. This year, she decided to learn how to do laundry. She watched me attentively as I sorted our clothes and operated our machines. Learning this new skill not only helped me around the house, but also gave my precocious nine-year-old the adultlike feeling she craves.
- Math Mastermind: Jazilyn has always been more engaged in math and science than language arts. Although this fact grieves the heart of this English major mama, I was overjoyed to see her love for math truly blossom this year. This homeschool year proved itself challenging in math. Jazilyn had previously fought to learn her addition and subtraction facts. This past school year, though, she conquered them and some more complex concepts too. She also memorized her multiplication and division facts, and developed a love for long division, converting measurements, and solving basic algebraic equations.
- Best Friends Forever-Aside from academic wins, Jazilyn also had a social win this school year. Jazilyn likes to get to know people before really opening up and becoming social. She loves to be in the crowd, but she’s often content to just observe or participate quietly. For months she would come home from church and talk about another little girl that she wanted to be friends with. Despite Jazilyn’s efforts, the girls never really built a friendship because they’re both rather quiet around each other. After much encouragement and a few beaded bracelets, Jazilyn and the little girl finally started talking more. Then one day after church, Jazilyn informed me that they were now best friends.
Jilyana’s Wins
- From Scribbles to Doodles-Jilyana’s wins are always exciting, especially with the challenges that she faces. Jilyana is on the autism spectrum, but she’s never let that stop her from achieving. In previous years, Jilyana’s fine motor skills weren’t necessarily as developed as most children her age. This affected her handwriting and her drawings. Not only that, but her attention span often didn’t allow her the patience required to practice and improve. This school year, however, we’ve noticed a leap in her development. She now takes her time-usually- and her drawings and handwriting are noticeably better.
- Those dreaded math facts-Much like her older sister, memorizing math facts just wasn’t Jilyana’s forte. Math lessons dragged on as Jilyana needed extra time to count on her fingers or draw pictures to solve problems. Although there are still a few facts here and there that haven’t quite stuck, this school year we’ve seen dramatic growth. Now, Jilyana enthusiastically calls herself a math wizard.
- Keeping it under control– One of the challenges that Jilyana faces on the spectrum is emotional regulation. Whatever she feels, she feels it in a very big way, and it’s often difficult to keep those enormous emotions under control. This is still a challenge that we’re helping her with, but this year, she was able to take a more active role in her emotional regulation. She’s taken it upon herself to get more rest to prevent herself from being cranky, and seeks calming activities and alone time when she feels angry or overwhelmed.
Jalina’s Wins
- Forever the wiz kid- Jalina is my youngest and most overachieving child. She’s only six years old, but she refuses to fall too far behind her eight and nine-year-old sisters. If she were in public school, she would just be starting first grade this upcoming school year. Instead, Jalina is a rising third grader.
- My little snaggletooth- Despite being academically ahead, Jalina is very much a six-year-old developmentally. This school year was an exciting year for physical milestones in our household, and Jalina was no exception. Jalina lost her first few teeth this school year, and was brave enough to pull most of them herself.
- Who Can Hula Hoop Like You?– One of Jalina’s crowning accomplishments this school year is learning to hula hoop. Not only has she learned to keep the hoop up for over a minute, but she has also added a few tricks like clapping, turning in a circle, and dancing all while hula hooping.
How We Can Grow in the Upcoming Homeschool Year
Although many things went well this school year, there’s always room to grow. Here are some things that really could have been better this past homeschool year, and how we can improve moving forward.
Curriculum
I’m always looking for ways to improve what we learn and how we learn in our homeschool. With each passing year, I feel that we’re excelling at this homeschooling thing. This past homeschool year, I noticed that Jazilyn was growing into a more independent learner. As her younger sisters noticed that she was doing more assignments on her own, they’ve also shown an interest in doing some online lessons without Mommy.
This past school year I’ve also noticed that my girls are needing more practice with their spelling and writing skills. The curriculum that I had previously used for spelling was rigorous but lacking in practice activities, and our writing instruction was almost nonexistent. This upcoming school year, I’ve decided to change our spelling curriculum to one that focused on phonics and spelling conventions with plenty of activities to practice them. I’ve also selected a writing journal with prompts that will enable my girls to write a paragraph each week.
Activities
Despite the trips and friendships that we developed this past school year, I realized that our homeschool could use more regular activities outside of church and our homeschool tribe meetups. We had started strong last school year, and then our activities started dwindling. This upcoming school year, we plan to get out more and learn from experiences. Jazilyn will begin taking sewing lessons with one of her homeschool friends, and all three girls will be taking dance. We’ll also make an effort to make weekly trips to the library, volunteer in our community, and spend more time with family.
An Overview of Our Homeschool Year
Our homeschool year was an exciting yet emotionally challenging one. This school year, we grieved the loss of my maternal grandma. I quietly mourned, comforted my grieving mother, and taught my girls how to deal with a new emotion: grief. The girls have faced this sorrow with a resilience I wish I had.
As I reflect on this homeschool year, I’m left with a lesson I learned from losing my grandma: make the most of the time you’re given. My time with my grandma was limited, and so is my time with my children. No matter what challenges we may face while homeschooling, I want to make the most of the time that we have together.
