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Creating a Homeschool Action Plan

Hi Friends. Welcome to the Cultivating Grace podcast. My name is Courtney Messick and as always, it’s a pleasure to chat with you today. I’m going to dive right in and share a few tips that can help you to create an action plan to approach this homeschool year a bit differently.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Well, why do I want to approach this year differently than the last?,” And that’s a wonderful question. If things went exceedingly well for you last year, you might not need these tips.

However, if you struggled in the areas of consistency, time management, or perfecting your homeschool routine last year, then you may want to hear this. Now, I want to encourage you today that your last homeschool year was not a bust or a waste by any means. If you feel discouraged about how the past year went, know that you need to make mistakes and experience struggles to build upon and learn. Without the struggle we’ll never have the growth.

With that said, let’s press forward to what lies ahead. Now, how can we create a solid action plan to approach each homeschool year better than the last?

Here we go. Grab your favorite notebook or sheet of paper and jot down the areas that you feel need improvement when it comes to homeschooling. Now your list might contain things like consistency, routine, attitudes, curriculum, time management, and any area that you know needs attention to make for a better homeschool year.

Secondly, create an additional space on your paper or notebook for results or fruit you would like to see in your homeschool this year. Now, this list might include things like joy, peace, fun, stronger relationships or productivity.

Each family will have a unique to them list. Once you have a list for areas to improve and a list of results or fruit you would like to see, pray over your list. As you pray over your list each day, also begin to look for dots to connect as God reveals to you how you can grow and press forward in a positive light.

For example, let’s say you and your student may be butting heads or experiencing tears each day over a particular subject. You may need to change your curriculum. Maybe you need to adjust how you’re presenting the subject or the work. You may need to be intentional about your relationship with this particular student. There can be so many different factors that you might want to explore to make positive changes.

Another example may be, let’s say consistency. Maybe last year you just couldn’t seem to get into a groove of a consistent homeschool days and that made you feel behind and grumpy.

The fruit you may want to see would be cultivating consistency in your homeschool, so that you and your students feel good about accomplishing their work and know that you’re experiencing a love of learning. Now, what could you do differently? Some areas might be eliminating outside obligations that kept you away from home or time suckers that kept you from homeschooling, like your phone or Facebook.

This essentially is your action plan. You’re finding out what needs improvement, what outcome you would like to see, and then identify what changes need to be made in order to make a positive impact on your students and your homeschool. The most important element is the follow through, of course. I hope that this simple exercise will help you make a solid action plan to approach this homeschool year differently and have your best homeschool year yet.

About Courtney

Hi there! I am Courtney, a Jesus-pursuing, native Texan, homeschool mom of three, and I believe homeschooling can be a peaceful and productive rhythm. At Grace, Grow & Edify I help families create peaceful homeschooling atmospheres through faith, organizational strategies, and cultivating strong roots at home.
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