[SPEAKER_00]: Christian Parenting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, hello there, homeschool mom, friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have popped in here first with a little bit of an announcement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to kind of lay out, maybe a game plan, I'll say, that I have here for the podcast for a little bit into the summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to do something for the first time after a little over four years of podcasting where getting close to four and a half years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never done this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have seen many podcasts do it, and it just never quite fit right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've just always had so much material and so much that I wanted to share.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm finding myself in the season right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just need a little bit of margin.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got a graduation party here in a couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got some indoor projects, outdoor projects, some trips that I have to plan, and then obviously I get to go and take.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is probably something that business coaches would tell me not to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd say, steer clear of doing this, but I kind of operate this more as a ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not in it, this is not a get-rich scheme or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is more of just a gift of giving back to those that are coming behind me in the homeschool season and it's just a blessing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to take a little bit of time off in the podcast from recording new episodes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't mean that there will not be episodes still every Monday and every Thursday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back into the vault of the 400 plus episodes
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple for each week, and we're going to do what I'm going to call a best of series.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these are going to be really tailored for this time of the year in very specific for right now in the homeschool year, where you're finding yourself closing down one homeschool year, going into the summer, and then thinking ahead to next homeschool year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm just going to throw in some favorite, so I've seen people have enjoyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go back in the statistics and just see some of the popular ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're new here and you just are like, I don't want to scroll all the way back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just there's so much to listen to each week.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to pull out some that maybe you haven't heard, but maybe you've been around for a while and you've listened to most of all episodes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that the episodes that I pull out here from the vault and put in as some best of that they are a blessing for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you re-listen, you'll hear some little bit of new nuggets of information and encouragement for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I hope that you enjoy the episodes that are coming up and would appreciate your continued support of little by little homeschool.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are interested in attending the in-person conference, like we are talking a lot about last week, that link is in the show notes for you, if you want to tick it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested in your homeschool blueprint, the tidy home, the meal plan guide, or the mentorship program, those are still going to be available at this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just going to be the podcast just taking a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: of a step back from recording any new episodes and reclaiming a couple of hours a week just to be able to focus right now on my, you know, in real life and my family and all that we have going on right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thank you for that and enjoy this episode, make sure you come back and at least listen to the announcements that I might have in some information at the episodes, but I really hope that
[SPEAKER_00]: they are all maybe strategically placed and you just feel encouraged by them even though they're not brand new.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully they're still.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean I stick by everything that I have ever said.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're still going to be good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just hope that they're still an encouragement for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But thank you for listening to today's episode and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_00]: homeschooling overall contains a lot of feelings for the moms that are in charge of the home education of their children.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just all the feels for it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The beginning of the home school year and the ending of the home school year, there are a lot of highs and lows to those points.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, there's highs and lows in between, but when you're talking about the beginning, there's this high of starting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then maybe there's a low in the beginning that you feel because things didn't quite go as you had been planning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you had a great couple of first days planned out and not everybody was cooperative and receptive to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the end of the homeschool year can have some highs of going into the summer and just, yeah, look at what we did.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there's lows as we sometimes think about, oh, well, I didn't do that part and do this part.
[SPEAKER_00]: But honestly, how are you feeling about the ending of this homeschool here because maybe, well, maybe you've already ended or you're bending now, you're ending soon, it's just, it all kind of tends to happen around this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are close to being almost done, how are you feeling?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you feeling a little relieved about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you have regrets?
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm going to share with you five tips to pull you up.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're feeling like you failed this homeschool year, but also if you're on the other side of that, and you're feeling pretty good about how this year went.
[SPEAKER_00]: These tips are going to just help you to end really strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be honest, most years, I was really looking forward to the ending of the home school year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's only been in the past couple of years as I have had less and less kids to home school because they've graduated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find it the year flies by and I'm holding on and trying not to let the home school year end and I've got teens who are like, yeah, we got to end this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready to jump into working over the summer and just all the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But by the end of most homeschool years, especially when my kids were younger, just like yours are, I felt relieved and mostly felt like that because it felt like I had gone and run and taken part in a marathon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that sound familiar to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like that too?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're getting to the end and you like I am at the end of a marathon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm exhausted and tired and ready just to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think this has a certainly a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there are seasons for four things, so I think to the high of starting the homeschool year, and you'll get that high again, don't worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're at the end of this year, but before the beginning of the next year, you'll hit that high of just feeling so good and excited about your homeschool year, but I don't think it's a bad thing to feel a little bit of relief and a sense of...
[SPEAKER_00]: accomplishment and we did it and you're ready for the summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always being ready for the summer and just a different type of memory making with the kids and having maybe a little bit more margin, a little bit more freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you do things you're around, I find there a lot of families who do more year-round, take some time off of the summer and maybe their academics aren't as rigorous during the days and the weeks and the months during the summer that they actually
[SPEAKER_00]: Participate in doing any type of academics.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's usually a little bit less than maybe the rest of the year, but I get I don't think it's actually a bad thing I don't look back and my years of feeling a little bit of a sense of relief and a little bit of just Okay, ready for the summer because this year was either hard or it was really good, but we're ready to move on kind of thing So how can you end this homeschool year feeling really good about the progress that you have made over the year?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's tip number one
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't focus on the pages that are left in the book, whether that's math or history, science or whatever subject it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Focus on what you did accomplish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't say we are only at less than 120, and there are 180 lessons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Focus on doing 120 lessons and doing them well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there was times, let's give an example of math.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there was times during the year and you had to just slow down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You found that introducing a new concept every single day or every other day, however your program is laid out was too much for your child and so you'd introduce a new concept and then they would work just on that for a couple of days and then introduce the next one and they were ready for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Focus on those 120 lessons that you just made so much progress, maybe telling 60 lessons, because you had to really slow it down, but they really got it, and the tier's lesson, and there was a sense of accomplishment, and just feeling proud of just how they had done, and you're feeling really good about it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't focus on the pages that are left, focus on what you did accomplish, and
[SPEAKER_00]: Just know, I mean, if there's a lot of pages that are left, if you want to, you can do some over the summer, but really, I want to encourage you to be realistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found myself many at times, I, oh, we didn't get all the way through the science.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll just slowly read it through the summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: That did not happen because the summer happened instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just jumped into things.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I did have them do some math and some reading every single day, and it wasn't
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you don't really want to do with a summer, you have some plans or you just don't quite get to it, that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can continue that same curriculum, that same program, that same resource, the next homeschool year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody says you have to start with less than one of the next grade level.
[SPEAKER_00]: or you can just move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if it's something like math and you only got, I'm saying only in quotes, okay, you got to lesson 60 and there were 180 lessons in that math.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing that the first handful of lessons and the last handful of lessons,
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't so the first typically in a lot of them the first handful of lessons are all review from the year before and at the end I found at least with the programs that we did They would introduce new concepts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We really wouldn't get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just kind of a brief introduction to it So that when you started up the program for the next grade level there was review and they had already had a little bit of an introduction to those concepts, so it wasn't completely brand new.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just note that in the beginning and the end of a lot of things like math
[SPEAKER_00]: and some in language arts too, it's an overlap and that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So know that you can move on, but if you got to lessons say 60 and there's 180, you're probably best off just pulling that book back out in the next home school year and working through that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then nobody says that you can't move on to the next book halfway through the home school year.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you feel like you can't, that's because the school mindset is just in your mind and you're like, we have to get brand new books and we have to start them in August or September and then we have to be done with them by May and June and then we move on from those and have to get new ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you can continue to just get new books and get new resources as they finish up the one before that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So tip one number one is don't focus on the pages left, focus on what you did accomplish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tip number two is to go back and look at the art projects, the science experiments, look at the lessons covered that you did do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, focusing on the progress, focusing on what you did accomplish, focusing on what you actually did do.
[SPEAKER_00]: As moms, we tend to think, even on a smaller scale like on a day-to-day scale, we'll climb into bed at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Start lift
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, how about we change the narrative in our mind and we focus on what we did get to?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am very guilty of this even now and I will unsaturated age right at a list because I love to write out a list.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know some people don't like this, but I like to cope with the list on Saturdays.
[SPEAKER_00]: This season of my life finds me at home most Saturdays, maybe driving a child to work and it's often just maybe a day that maybe nobody has to work and we are just kind of working and doing some stuff around the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get a lot of chores done, and I enjoy running analyst, but I will start to look at it Saturday evening and be like, oh look all these things I didn't get to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I should tell myself look at what you actually did accomplish today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to do the same thing with your homeschool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is to look at what did you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the art that's maybe hanging up on your wall, look at the little clay sculptures that you made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about the science experience and maybe the volcano that you made and with the baking soda and the vinegar and how fun that was and look at the lessons that you did cover with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: A great way to try to remember a lot of these things is I can almost guarantee you probably have a lot of photos and videos on your phone from this year You can maybe even put together a slideshow and watch through and just see how far you've come That way you're like, oh, okay We did do a lot of things because I can guarantee you have done a lot more than you think you did and When you focus on what you have done, you'll feel really good about the home school year
[SPEAKER_00]: Tip number three is to take a look at what you are doing if you are quite done with the and take a look at the curriculum resources that you are using for your formal or informal academics and drop the things that feel heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it is that science or that writing curriculum
[SPEAKER_00]: that you have just been pushing through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's excited about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not even excited about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like a drudgery.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're having a hard time staying motivated to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been a forced thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay to set it aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a heavy thing right now and it is
[SPEAKER_00]: hard at the end of the year to stay motivated to finish really strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you do push through that writing curriculum, but maybe nobody gets as much out of it as they would if you were to put it aside and then pull it out again when you start with the next homeschool year in August or September and everybody's fresh and feeling good about things.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about finishing strong on the subjects and the topics that are important to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What if you ditch that science that has way too many experiments or that art program that just has too many art and craft projects and you're not an artsy craftsy kind of mom?
[SPEAKER_00]: put those things aside, and what if you finished strong?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what you really wanted to finish strong on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that looks like just going back to the basics, and that looks like focusing on math and the language arts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe reading, I still highly suggest during morning time, maybe it even means to put aside all the independent subjects and studies,
[SPEAKER_00]: and just doing family studies together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay in the last couple of weeks, maybe last month, whatever your time period is, to drop the subjects and the resources that feel heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And finish strong on what's important to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tip number four is to plan a fun day to end the homeschool year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did an entire episode, you guess it was last year or the year before.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can go back to, listen to episode 149.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will link that in the show notes and I talked all about how to end the homeschool year well, like the last day, some fun things that you can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the focus was a bit on doing it in a budget friendly type of way.
[SPEAKER_00]: so you can just plan the end of the year and plan something fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kids would look forward to that, you would look forward to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe you're just like this was a long here, or I don't have the energy right now, or I don't have the enthusiasm or the time right now to plan anything fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay to just end your homeschool year and move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: There doesn't need to be a party for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to look at a calendar, I'm sure there's probably some calendar somewhere online that tells you every single day is national this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's national jeans day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there's a national donut stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: National glasses day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just thinking that because I'm wearing glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: National microphone day because I'm talking into a microphone.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is like a national something.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something for every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could come up with a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: for every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And side note, this is one of the things that I did not miss when we decided to home school and no longer go to public school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it felt like there was something, some type of special, something every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get the kids dressed in radio then suddenly remember, oh wait, it's pajama day.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could have just stayed in their pajama or a crazy wacky hair day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, do you know just getting her hair in a ponytail and getting his hair combed
[SPEAKER_00]: Having the toddler not run off and not cry at the bus stop, that is an accomplishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I need to do a wacky crazy hair day, so I don't miss that at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: That shows the side note, but not every day has to be a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the permission that I am giving to you if you are just feeling like I just want to end the the home school year on a day and just move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's okay to do too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't even mean that has to be a party.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may just end it with having a picnic outside or going to a park.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have to be anything big, a big kind of party day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're seeing things of parents doing big things when kids we get off the bus and all the neighborhood moms get together and have a big party.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just tired thinking about all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, let's just sometimes end the year and we did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we just ended the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, tomorrow's the last day of school or okay, today's last day of school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: The kids didn't really care.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just were glad that it was done and that we could move into summer with having a little bit more margin.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do want to suggest having a last day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will give you a goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give you something to look forward to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that right now it is midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe your last day of school is...
[SPEAKER_00]: Tomorrow, or it is this week, or it's in two weeks, or in four weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have a day, put it on the calendar, you can let the kids know if you want to, you don't have to let them know if you feel like it's better for them not to quite know yet, but have a last day, that way you have something that you are working towards.
[SPEAKER_00]: And tip number five.
[SPEAKER_00]: is highly, highly, highly suggest that you review this homeschool year before you get too far removed from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you take the time to review this homeschool year, it's going to help you plan for next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can write down notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can leave yourself, no, you can write a letter to yourself to remind yourself some things of what you need to think about and some things that maybe need to be focused on for the next home school year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did an entire episode about this in that is episode 253 so you can go back and listen to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will link it in the show notes that will help you really focus on.
[SPEAKER_00]: evaluating and reviewing is what I called it this homeschool year you're in so that you can really plan well for next homeschool year and do it now while things are fresh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are my five tips.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that I can encourage you because I really want you to end this homeschool year feeling like wow what what we did we made some major progress or maybe we made some minor
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they aren't even having to do with books and the curriculum.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're looking at the time together and the sibling relationships have gotten better, or everybody is better into a routine or you're seeing that chores are going more
[SPEAKER_00]: Compliantly, we'll say, everybody is working a little bit better and they're not as against it and you're not dealing with a riot every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just look at the progress that has been made in so many different areas because homeschooling is an entire lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not just the formal academics, it's not just a sitting down and filling out work sheets and reading books and doing science experiments and doing all those types of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is an entire lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't know, I do have a resource called your homeschool blueprint and it is what will help you not to dread what your homeschool year will look like at the end of the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're feeling right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of regrets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like how I handle things, how I set things up, how I planned out the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like the curriculum that we use.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just didn't go well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want you a year from now when you are closing out the 2024 to 2025 home school year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want you to have regrets and to feel like it wasn't a good year and feel like maybe you were a failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now is the time to craft your home school plan for next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: While things are super fresh in your mind, and maybe this is your first home school year, and you are going into and you're thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your homeschool blueprint is definitely for you as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a great time.
[SPEAKER_00]: While things are fresh in your mind and I want to encourage you to go check out your homeschool blueprint, you can work through the process within a couple of hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have your homeschool setup.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can even take time over the course of a week or two and to go through the process so that your next homeschool year
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you feeling a year from now really really good and not be questioning what you did and not feeling like a failure?
[SPEAKER_00]: But say wow look at the progress you made and yeah, I just I want that for you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can check out your homeschool blueprint at littlebylittlehomeschool.com backslash blueprint and as always I will drop that link in the show notes for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the meantime congratulations on getting to the end of this homeschool year.