You know what I realized this morning, as I was coming to write to you?
I love hoodies.
Right now in Arizona, we’re powering through triple digits, yet here I sit, writing to you in a light pink hoodie. There’s something about having a hoodie or a sweatshirt on in the morning, and a hot cup of coffee in front of me, that helps me wake up slowly.
As I was pulling this hoodie on this morning, I realized something — my quest to start a line of homeschool family merchandise is purely to fill this personal desire, isn’t it?
Hoodies.
T-shirts.
Coffee cups.
Sweat pants.
I want them all, so I’m guessing you might too. Either way, it’s coming, and I’m so excited for you to check it out. Stay tuned!
Planning for next year has snuck up on me. I’ve honestly never planned a homeschool year from scratch, so this year has been a trial-and-error process. I’ve decided to approach our homeschool planning like I approach my business planning because homeschooling and entrepreneurship are so aligned.
First, I marked my calendar with all of our known FUN days. Things like vacations, non-school-related experiences, birthdays, and holidays received a pink sticky note on the day. Nothing will be planned for that day.
I also know I want to take all of December off from regular schooling and do a special Christmas-themed study, so that gets marked off in pink.
Then, I started to count backward. I know that the core curriculum we’re choosing has 120 lessons in it, and we do best with only one lesson a day, so I am marking off 120 days that we need to make that work a priority over the next year.
Then I added the extracurricular layer to our plan.
Our homeschool co-op met last week to talk through the plan for the co-op itself and it got me fired up for our school year!
Side note: If you'd like to hear from our co-op coordinator, Brittany Stewart, on how she’s running our co-op, be sure to tune in to her talk during the How to Educate With Purpose Summer Series.
One of the things we decided on during that call was to run a co-op day during the week. This layer added more predictability to our homeschool lives, which I appreciated! Yes, sometimes too much freedom can confuse our routine and make things more complicated. Having this set day helps my brain tremendously!
I also added our homeschool classes, which include activities like jiu-jitsu, swim, and music.
There! That felt complete to me, and it was relatively easy to manage.
How do you approach planning?
Has anyone else felt the need to constantly entertain their kids this summer? And with the heat, our usual “GET OUTSIDE” isn’t as accessible. Here are a few of the excursions I’ve been taking my kids on:
The skate rink (which was also driver of the theme for this community and newsletter, if you couldn’t tell!)
Movies (our local theatre has $2 movies over the summer that have been our tradition for YEARS)
Rock climbing
Hiking on our local mountain
The trampoline park (praying for no injuries)
Day trips out
Organizing our house (still behind on this)
Board games
Early morning trips to the pick-your-own farm
But the big hit this week was… AIR DRY CLAY!*
While I worked out in the front yard, the boys brought out their clay buckets and watched a video on how to do the basics. They came up with some really fun things, and were going strong after my workout ended, so I got to join in too! We made houses, vases, trinket dishes, and coil pots. Highly recommend!
*Affiliate Link
My friend sent a picture of her green chiles yesterday and this recipe. I cannot wait to try it out!
I sent this picture of a mobile bookshop to my friend the other day. Isn’t it gorgeous?!
She’s a children’s book author who hosts an annual book block party here in Vail, Arizona, so I knew she’d appreciate it. I think you will too!
What a cool idea this would be for a homeschooling family who LOVES to read?! School during the week and book events on the weekend! Or, host special events for fellow homeschoolers during the week! So many possibilities.
This week, I decided to make my personal Instagram account (which is the account I was posting to) private.
I’m now sharing my homeschooling ideas, and ideas from other homeschoolers in my stories on this Instagram account.
Will you give it a follow and share with others, too? Starting from scratch on social media can be challenging, so I’d love your help in getting back up and running.
That’s it for this week! Unless… you’re a member! Upgrade to paid and let’s keep these important conversations going.
~ Kimberly
P.S. Do you manage a co-op, formal or informal? If you bring in 5 moms, you all get a 50% discount inside the Homeschool Flow.