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Sticking to a schedule and trying to fit everyone into a routine can be tough! Take the stress of yourself, and your kids, by creating a school checklist instead!
One of the greatest things about homeschooling is the freedom to learn as it works best for your family. For some families, trying to get everyone to stick to a routine, causes more strife than it helps. There are solutions to help keep you and your kids’ learning on task without planning out every half hour of your day! Some families have started using a checklist system, instead of a schedule to keep them on task. Here are some ideas and suggestions to help your lessons stay on track using this system:
Keep a short-term checklist. Whether it may be daily, or weekly, have a checklist of lessons, concepts, chapters or projects that need to finished by the end of the time period. For instance, if you want to make sure your student covers chapters 4-5 in American History this week, then you would add that to the checklist. Then if you miss a day, or get behind, you know how much you need to complete by the end of the week to be back on track. This not only helps the student and teacher, but helps the school year as a whole.
Daily checklists are also helpful. They can have lists of chores, as well as lessons that are expected to be completed for each subject. They can be as detailed or as vague as you feel necessary. Depending on the age of the child, they can assist in writing their own, or you can write one for them, keeping in accordance with want you want your students to complete by the end of the week and month.
While it’s beneficial to have short term goals, its equally as important to have long term goals that are monthly, quarterly or yearly as well. As milestones are reached or concepts are understood, you can mark those items off your list, so you know how well you and your students are staying on track. Each month should have a set of, at minimal, basic goals for each subject you’re covering daily or weekly.
If you’re a new homeschool family, take the first three months as an example semester. Look back over your goals and see how quickly, or how slowly, those goals were actually met. This will allow you to evaluate whether you need to revamp your checklist to be easier on your family, or to push them to reach loftier goals. Remember there are more years to learning than this year. Don’t overcram your checklists is your zeal for learning, but make sure to give your children enough time to complete each subject fully.
Example Checklist:
- Feed the cat.
- Make your bed.
- Read for 30 minutes from “Where The Red Fern Grows.”
- Do pages 16-19 in math.
- Read pages 36-38 in science and do the experiment at the end of the chapter.
- Study for Chapter 3 spelling test.
- Take chapter 3 spelling test.
- Read chapter 4 in American History.
- Return all school books to the bookshelf.
Remember that there is never a one-size fits all method to homeschooling.  Just find something that works for your family – that is all that matters!
Catch up on our prior posts in this series: