Organization, Flexibility, Discipline

If I were asked to name 3 keys to success in our homeschool (other than reliance on Christ), I would say organization, flexibility, and discipline.

Organization

By being organized, I can spend less time gathering our materials and more time designing (and finding) fun materials to use during our school day. Organization allows us to have a better flow to our school day. We don’t have to worry about not being able to locate school supplies, books, or other needed items. If I am under the weather, Munchkin knows where everything is located, so she is able to do most things on her own.

I wish I could say that everything is completely organized from our recent move, but that’s not the case. All of the items that we use on a regular basis are organized, but there are still many books and extra materials that need to find a permanent home. (Piles of books along the wall is not a good system of organization. lol!)

Flexibility

I am a planner by nature. When we first started homeschooling, I had everything planned out for several months in advance. I quickly learned that there was always something that would throw off that plan. Planning it all out caused me to put undue pressure on Munchkin because I wanted to stay on track. I had lost focus on what was really important – training, learning.

I slowly learned that it’s okay to plan things out, but I needed to build more flexibility into that plan. Instead of having things scheduled for a specific day well in advance, I had a general plan of what I wanted to cover/accomplish for the school year. If things didn’t happen that day, I could just move them to another day.

This year on the Homeschool Crew is teaching me how to be more flexible in what items we use for our homeschool. I believe that the Lord is teaching me how to really trust in Him to provide for our homeschooling needs.

Discipline

I have to be careful that we don’t allow too much flexibility into our school year. Munchkin will not learn if I don’t teach her how to be disciplined and focus on her school work. It’s fun to be able to do things when we want, but it’s that flexibility that can cause us to really lose focus and fail as homeschoolers.

That is not to say that there aren’t times that all formal schooling needs to be set aside due to life, but we need to make sure that there is still learning taking place within the home. Too much free time is not a good thing. Kids require chores and discipline in order to succeed in life. They are part of the family, so they should help take care of the family. This type of learning is just as important as formal studies.

We need to show discipline by turning down outside learning opportunities and activities and focusing on our actual studies. I know that it would be very easy for us to be gone every day of the week doing some sort of cool learning activity, but down time at home is critical to our homeschooling success.

The final way that we need to show discipline is by making sure that we keep our focus on Christ. If we lose that focus, we are pretty much guaranteed to fail.

It’s funny we start this homeschooling journey so we can better educate our children, but we end up learning so much along the way. Not only do we learn about the topics that are children are studying, but also we learn about ourselves.