There are many ideas out there about what a homeschool “should” look like. There are many things the homeschool community portrays as things that “should” be included in your homeschool for your homeschool to be successful. But the truth is that there is no “correct” way to homeschool. Every homeschool is going to look different. What works for one family isn’t going to work for another. I think it is safe to say that there are no two homeschools that look exactly alike!
So here is a list of 10 things that are commonly talked about in the homeschool community that we simply DON'T do in our homeschool. You can also find a video about this topic at the end of this post.
1) Follow a Schedule
That’s right. No perfectly laminated posters with a timed out day on our walls. We don’t even wake up at the same time every day. Which means that we don’t start school at the same time every day. Somedays we wake up and get right to it and some days we choose to spend our mornings hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. We do have a general flow to our day for the most part. A general idea about what we need to accomplish each day. But that does not happen the same each and every day. We are much more “go with the flow” kind of people around here.
2) Start Early
Along the same line as number one, we don’t start school first thing in the morning. We just are not morning people around here. We typically school after lunch until around the time that Dad gets home. It’s when my kiddos are ready to do there learning (and when Mom is fully awake if we are being honest. LOL). It just works for us.
3) Get Dressed Each Day
You guys… pajamas rock! And if my kiddos want to spend their day in their p.j.s, that is cool with me. I want them to be comfortable in their home. I want them to be comfortable while we do school. So if they are most comfortable in their jammies, then jammies it is. There are many days were we don’t get dressed until 5:00 to head out activities outside the home. Isn’t homeschool awesome!
4) Morning Basket
Since we don’t homeschool in the morning, we don’t have a morning basket. But I also do not have a themed basket of materials that I change out each month or with the season. That just doesn’t work for us. I do sometimes choose activities that align with current events or season, but it is not something I do on a regular basis. We also do not do Poetry Tea Time on a regular basis. We love it when we do it, but doing it every week isn’t a reasonable expectation for us. So we just don’t.
5) Follow the Public School Schedule
We don’t follow the actually calendar that the school follows. We do not school from August to May and then take off all the summer months. We actually homeschool year round. We travel often and like the freedom of being able to take off from school anytime we want or need to. So when we are home, we are schooling and when we are traveling or have something going on we are not. It keeps us from feeling like we can’t do things because we need to make sure we are getting enough school in. And it keeps us from feeling burnt out. We take breaks when we need them mentally.
6) Stay on Grade Level
We do not pay much attention to keeping our children in the same place as their public school counterparts. Kids develop at different rates, both physically and mentally. It just isn’t realistic to have the same standards for all when we are humans who value individuality. Children should have the freedom to learn, discover, and develop at the rate that is best suited to them. So while we do look at what our children “should” know or be able to do for their age, we do not panic of they are not “on grade level”. They will get there! But the reality is that when we allow our children to move at their own pace, that actually mostly end up ahead of where they “should” be more often then not. When children are learning about what they want to learn about, they are more engaged and learning so much more then when they are being forced to learn something. It is one of the greatest things I have discovered about homeschooling. Watching your child be excited and dive deep into a subject they find fascinating is magical to watch.
7) Grades (Record Keeping)
We do not grade work in our home. We do review work and check for understanding, but we do not assign and number or letter grades to anything we do in our home. There is just no need for us. We do not live in a state that requires it. So we don’t do it.
That being said, our children are not high school age yet. We will start keeping grades for them when they enter high school so that they do have a transcript if they do decide to go on to high education institutions.
8) Follow Curriculum Strictly
I’ve said it before and I will continue to say it, “Curriculum is a tool, not a rule book!” We do not do everything a curriculum tells us too. And sometimes we don’t do things the way the curriculum tells us to. We use curriculum as a guide to help us along our journey of learning. We take pieces from one curriculum and combine it with pieces of another to make the perfect fit for us. We also don’t panic if we don’t finish a curriculum. And we are not afraid to quit a curriculum. It’s a tool, not the rules!
9) Stick to One Homeschooling Method
There are many, many homeschooling methods out there. And we don’t stick to a single one of them. The best way to describe our homeschool is “Eclectic”. We love learning through literature, but we are not Charlotte Mason. We like give our kids some choice in what they learn about, but we are not Un-schoolers. We like to pull the pieces that work from us for several different styles and mash them together to make a style that works for our family. What is important is that we are enjoying what we are doing.
10) Pre-Plan
I mean this on many levels. First, we don’t plan out what weeks we will be homeschooling in advance. We typically start a new year sometime in early August (our portfolios are due in August). But I do not sit down with a calendar say we will school these weeks and take of these weeks. That doesn’t work for us. Our plans stay pretty flexible and spontaneous, so that would just be a recipe for anxiety and stress that we were missing too much school time.
I also don’t sit down with a planner and write out what we are going to do each day. We tried that and all it did for us was cause anxiety and stress because we were not checking off all our boxes and had to erase and move things. It didn’t make for a pleasant homeschool experience. What I do do is sit down at the beginning of each week and write out a list of things we would like to accomplish on an erasable surface. We mark things off as we complete them and then record the in our planner after we complete them. Then things that don’t get done can stay on the list and we can fill in new items. We are not worrying about having to keep up with what we would get accomplished in an ideal world… because let’s face we, we do not live in an ideal world!
I hope you found any of these helpful. I hope it helps you to realize that you don’t have to do all the things to have a successful homeschool. If your family is happy and learning, then you are doing things exactly right! Try not to get into the comparing trap. It does no one any good!
I’d love to hear about some of the things you DON’T do in your homeschool down in the comments. Do you have some of the same ones as us?
If you would like to hear more about these 10 things we don’t do in our homeschool, you can check out our YouTube video below.
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