Reflecting On Our Homeschool Year | What Went Well + What We'll Focus On Next Year

We have turned the final page on our school year and we are fully in summer break mode. We've started to think more about our flowers and the garden. And we also get some animals this time of year that we raise for meat. But I took some time this week to reflect on things that went well in our homeschool year and things that I want to focus on next [Music] year. We had a wonderful last day of school. My husband was able to take off for it and we've had a tradition of taking the kids out for breakfast every year and that has been so fun for us. Afterwards, we went to a local bike trail and went for a family bike ride. And this just finished our year on a positive note. It feels really good to be done and to just be able to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather with the kids. We've had some birthdays that we've celebrated and I'm just appreciating the change in seasons. One thing I do at the end of every year as I'm putting together my kids portfolios is to jot down a few things that I want to work on next year. And I'll jot these down in August and September in my calendar because that's when I'll be thinking about it again. as I'm going through their portfolios, I'm able to see maybe some gaps that we had or some things that I didn't do a great job of checking and it's just the perfect time for me to write down a note to myself to remember that these are the things I want to focus on for next year. And I put that a couple months ahead so I don't have to think about it now when I'm ready to be done, but it'll be there for me when we're ready to start back again. If you're visiting my channel for the first time, my name is Sherry. I'm a Christian homeschooling mom married to my high school sweetheart Nelson. We have 10 children, and I love encouraging other moms. I know what it's like to be in the thick of it with dishes, diapers, dirty laundry, homeschooling day after day. and I want to encourage other moms behind me in the way that moms who are ahead of me have encouraged me along the way. In addition to writing down some things that I want to focus on next year, I also try to take some time to reflect on what went well for us this year. One thing I think we did really well was keeping up with our household chores. Our routine of daily chores seems to be improving. Maybe some of that is because the kids are getting older. I do remember a time when it just was very difficult for me to get everything together. And it just seems like it's not as difficult to get our house put together in a short amount of time as it used to be. One lesson I've learned over the years, in fact, it's a lesson I'm still learning, is that if I'm overwhelmed, if I'm making dinner, for example, and I have all these things on my mind that I have to get done before we can make dinner, and my kids are sitting around waiting for me so they can eat their dinner, then they can do more. They can help more. If I'm overwhelmed, delegation is the key. [Music] Since we finished school, I've enjoyed having more free time to do some of the things I love. I do take time during the school year for my hobbies and interests. Um, but it's just nice to have a little extra time. The more free time I have, the more inspired I get. I don't know about you, but it just rest refuels me. Another thing that went really well this year was the kids just did a great job of doing their work independently. And a lot of this is also in part to having older kids. They got out their checklist. They got started. And I think once they can read and write, delegating as much of their schoolwork to them is so important. When they take ownership of it, it has so much more meaning to them. So, if you are a mom with young kids, like I was for so long, this should encourage you to know that it gets easier as your kids get older. But it also should challenge you to move your kids toward independence. When their work is their own, they become so much more motivated to get it done and they learn so much more from it as well. Another thing that went really well is our readaloud time. And honestly, this is something that is kind of hard to fail at unless you just don't do it. But we consistently read a little bit every day. We read in the morning, at morning time, we read again after lunch, after our little ones are napping, we read in the afternoon. And I think consistently reading to your kids is so beneficial for them and for you as a mom. It fills in any gaps of things that you might be missing in their education. All educations have gaps, but reading aloud is your margin for error. Not only that, reading to your kids every day is just one more time other than a meal time when you're sitting down together, maybe snuggled on the sofa, looking at each other, looking at pictures, and it's just a time of bonding and building family relationships. When my kids grow up and leave the house, I hope that the times that we spend reading together will hold a special place in their hearts. [Music] [Music] Hey, here we go. [Music] [Music] Now, there are also a few things I want to work on for next year. One of them is I would like to somehow do better at audio books. Um, so I welcome any suggestions that some of you might have. When my older kids were younger, everyone went to bed at the same time. So, they were in bed between 8 and 8:30. And then we would turn on an audiobook in the hallway, leave everyone's bedrooms, bedroom doors open, and it was the perfect time for them to fall asleep to their favorite story. Now that our kids, we have a wider age span, so we have older kids and younger kids. I think my younger kids are missing out on this and um I just want to find a way to do more audio books with them. Now, on the one hand, they do have older siblings who are often reading to them more, which my older kids didn't have, and that's really nice. Um, but I just would like to find a way to fit this in. I've tried doing it in the car, but they always ask for music. So, I don't know if I just need to just say no to the music, we're going to listen to an audio book, or maybe it's one of those things where they just have to do it a couple of times to develop an appetite for it. But I welcome your suggestions. One exciting thing that happened this week was our piglets came. We raised four pigs, two for ourselves and two for some friends in exchange for beef. And this is really fun. They're only here for about six months, but we get to enjoy them as little piglets and watch them grow. And it was really fun for Ben to see the pigs here again. Another thing that I jotted down was that I want to work better with my eight and sevenyear-old on checking their work. I was looking through Julia's work and I realized I had started teaching her cursive at the beginning of the year because she was really interested in it and then she lost interest and I forgot about it. So I looked and I was like, "Hey, we what happened to cursive? We started it." And she's like, "Yeah, we just stopped doing it." So I totally dropped the ball on that one. And you know, it's okay. When I was a younger homeschool mom, little things like this I would worry about. But now I realize how much time we have as homeschoolers. We have their whole childhood. So when you have a year that doesn't go well or you have a family emergency or if you miss something, we have all of their childhood and there's plenty of time to catch up on things if you miss something or if there's something that you need to improve. So, it's not something to stress over. I also want to bump William up a little bit to start doing more. He's going to start doing history along with the older kids next year. I want to work on having Julia and Will narrate to me more. That's again our seven and 8-year-old. Um, some of the oral narrations got left by the wayside as well. So, that's something I'm always kind of having to work on a little bit more. Having my younger kids do oral narrations is something that we can kind of go in and out of in phases. So, I have to constantly kind of prod myself to work on that. These are some of the things that went well for us this year and some things that we're going to focus on for next year. I'd love to hear from you. What will you be changing next year? Thanks for watching. I do one video a week on homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I'll see you next week.