How to Prioritize and Focus Your Homeschool

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Have you ever wondered how to prioritize and focus on your homeschool?

After all, it’s a matter of figuring out what’s good for your homeschool and best for your homeschool.

And the reason you need to know what is good and what is best is that homeschooling is full of the good. Field trips are good. Activities and classes are good. Park days and play dates are good.

So are nature hikes, history projects, science experiments, and heading to the museum.

But the good keeps crowding out the best. If we spend our time on all the good things about homeschooling, you lose sight of the best parts of homeschooling.

You find yourself running around town, exhausted, frazzled, and wondering what happened to your dreams of homeschooling.

Letting the good crowd out the best is an excellent way to drive yourself insane! You need to learn the art of saying no!

So today we’re going to go work through an exercise that’s attributed to Warren Buffet. His is a strategy to figure out what to focus on in a business.

But it’s an easy adaptation for homeschooling!

First, you need a piece of paper

  • Take your piece of paper
  • Place the numbers 1-25 down the side of the paper.
  • Now write down your top 25 goals for your homeschool

These may be curling up and reading good books together, teaching your youngest to read, heading out on field trips, play dates, morning time, etc.

For myself, I assumed the basics of educational responsibility were taken for granted.

We need table time to sit down and study. To learn to read and write. To study math. And to explore history, science, and fine arts. But there is a point where you’re choosing HOW you will explore history, science, and fine arts.

After all, outside music lessons and visits to the local symphony will teach music better than reading a book on music at home.
Science taught by a passionate teacher can do more to ignite a love of science than all the backyard explorations.

On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for a focus on nature study in the early years. Learning about the types of birds, trees, and insects will bring lifelong joy to your child for the years to come.

So sit down and write down your top 25 goals for homeschooling on your piece of paper.

Now circle the top 5 goals.

Yes, that’s right. Work through the list and circle your top 5 priorities. What is most important to you?

Now you have a list of the best in your homeschool and the good in your homeschool. The trick before you is to concentrate on the best and ignore the good. And I know it’s hard. The good has so much to offer!

But you can’t do it all. You must focus on your homeschool.

See when you focus on adding in everything that’s good, you drown out the best that homeschooling has to offer.

In my own homeschool, I’ve found time and time again that when we’re trying to do too much. When I agree to too many activities, my homeschool suffers.

It’s harder and harder to find time for my top 5 priorities. And it’s too easy to give in to the daily chaos of family life and give up on trying to fit those top 5 priorities into the day.

Another way to think of those 5 priorities you just circled, is that they need to come first.

To focus your homeschool, you must fit them into your homeschool day first. Plan plenty of time to get those items done. It may be studying nature and going out for regular nature walks.

So before you do anything else, plan a time to study nature and head outside.

You may have a child who loves dance and dancing has become a top homeschool goal. And yes, if dancing makes the top 5 list, then plan your homeschool week around dancing and the other 4 items. It’s a priority.

One of my top priorities is to ensure my children have friends. Kids need friends. They need a balance between academics and social activities.

So we attend a weekly park day. The kids run. They play. And they have made lifelong friends as a result. My oldest kids still stay in touch with their old homeschool playmates.

Sticking to your homeschool priorities is hard, but it can be done.

So make your list of 25 goals for your homeschool and then circle your top 5 priorities on the list. {plan your days, weeks, and years around those top 5 items. And fit everything else around them.

How do you prioritize and focus your homeschool?

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