homeschool schedulingThere are a certain number of instructional days per year required of you legally in each state when you homeschool your children. What is important for a homeschooling parent to remember is that there is no restriction on when these instructional days should take place. Unlike regular school, you do not have to work weekdays and take a break on weekends. So work through Sundays if you want! You can take three weeks of schools non stop and then skip the next two weeks and take off on a short holiday. You can school in the evening rather than in the morning. There is no end to setting up the schedule to suit the individual needs of your homeschool students and your family’s schedule. The flexibility accorded to you is tremendous.

Focus on Quality not on Quantity in the Homeschool Class

Use the time in the homeschool classroom wisely. Remember the success of learning does not lie in sitting for hours together over the same topic, but in understanding what is being taught and utilizing it. As soon as your homeschool students have received their ‘AHA!’ moment with the topic you are teaching, you can move on to the next topic. Some topics take longer than others to master, that is also normal. You can not expect them to pick up all topics at the same pace. Just remember to focus on teaching them what they need to learn.

Identify the Strengths and Work on the Weaknesses

Just because you are scheduled to do a certain subject on a certain day is no reason to continue with it once the homeschooling student has it mastered. Instead you can switch topics to work on something else with which the student may be struggling. For instance, if you read a story book and finish that faster than you thought, you can always go ahead and revise multiplication tables in the time left over during the school day. It could be different with each homeschooling student and you know best what the strengths and weaknesses are. Just make sure that you cover what you set out to in the beginning of the year goals and the schedule will take care of itself.