 Hey everybody, welcome to The Wallach Way. I'm Jessica. In today's video is our homeschool show and tell. The homeschool show and tell is a collaboration hosted by Abby from Rooted and Rest and Myself. Our goal with this collaboration was to invite homeschoolers from around the world to join together and share their tips, encouragement, their advice, how they do things so that we can all just gain wisdom and knowledge from it. And this month, we are all coming together to share our tips to avoid homeschool burnout. Now, we all know that we are in the middle of January with February right on the horizon. And if you are new to homeschool and you're feeling kind of like you're standing on the edge of a cliff, you're not alone. Even the most seasoned homeschool mama will tell you that there is such a thing as homeschool burnout and it is a very common that it happens in the winter, kind of around January to February. You're about halfway through your year and you're just kind of dragon. It's just not the same as it was when you first started, you know, all of the newness and the excitement has wore off and you're just kind of like, you can't see the finish line. And so it is very, very easy to land yourself right in the middle of burnout. So today, I'm going to band together in this collaboration with all of the wonderful ladies who join us and we're going to share some tips to avoid homeschool burnout. Something that we started in our homeschool about four years ago is what we call a book and a game a day. And I know for us personally, because it happened over and over and over, that right after the holidays, we had a huge slump. There is nothing in my opinion that is more difficult than coming back from the high of the holidays and diving right back into homeschool. For me as the mom and the teacher and for Emily as the student, and it's just hard. It's not as fine, it's not, you know, as exciting, you're not getting presents. I mean, all of those things that happen around the holidays and then it's kind of like, you're just thrust back into it. So we started, I believe when she was in kindergarten, every January when we come back to school for our new homeschool year, what we call a book and a game a day challenge. And I'm going to share this challenge with you guys and give you my tips for avoiding homeschool burnout based off of why this challenge kind of manifested itself in our homeschool. Now, this is a challenge that I have made public because it's something that has helped us so much throughout our homeschool so far. So I'm gonna leave a link in the description box down below for this challenge because it's not too late to join us if it's something that you think would be beneficial to your homeschool. The first reason that we started this challenge was because it set our homeschool up for success. I don't know if you're anything like me, but I am a box checker. And it makes me so happy to be able to check off boxes. And I needed a way to set our homeschool up for success so that we could easily achieve whatever I wanted us to do. And it's super easy to just check book and game. That's two boxes. And if we check those, we have had a successful homeschool day. Maybe for you, you're a planner. So maybe you need to take a few days before you start back to school or when you're starting to fill burnout and just plan everything meticulously. Maybe that is how you set yourself up for homeschool success. Maybe you need to read a few chapters ahead so you're prepared so you kind of know what to expect. So you have all the materials on hand. So you are completely ready. So you have all of the potential questions your kids can ask ready for answers. Maybe that's how you set your homeschool up for success. Maybe you need to have all of the worksheets printed and prepped and ready to go. However, you can set yourself up for success is going to help you from burning out, whatever that is. The second reason that this challenge has been super helpful in our homeschool to avoid burnout is because it hits my must-dos. Now, your homeschool must-dos might be a little bit different than mine but my homeschool must-dos are as simple. Read something and play. If we've read a book and we've played a game then as far as I'm concerned, we've done my must-dos because I can find a book and a game on just about any topic or concept or subject. So I can cover everything I need to or want to cover by reading and playing. And we're also connecting and cultivating our relationship which is very important to me. That's like my priority in our homeschool. So those are my homeschool must-dos. So by doing this challenge every January, I know that I'm setting myself up for success and I'm getting to my homeschool must-dos. Like I said, your homeschool must-dos might be different than mine and that's okay because we all have whatever we think must get done in our homeschool. So write down your top one to three. Don't make it more than three, one to three must-dos. Maybe it's a math lesson and getting outside of nature. Maybe it's reading a book and doing an experiment. Whatever your must-dos are, write them down. One, two, maybe three must-dos and focus on just doing those each day because that will help you avoid burnout. The third reason that this challenge is perfect for us and for avoiding burnout every January is because it is a change of pace. So we're not just jumping back into our regular, normal day way things were beforehand. I'm not expecting to dive back in and everything just go back to normal. It's different. It's a change of pace. It's exciting. I'm changing it up and switching things around and something to look forward to. So maybe you can change it up and still get your must-dos done. Maybe you play a game instead of doing a worksheet or maybe you take your school outside and you do school outside today. Maybe you do school in pajamas. Just something that changes things for you. Whatever that is, make it just a little bit different. Something to look forward to. Something that just changes things up. Shake it up a bit. The fourth reason that this works so well for us is because it is fun. Now, if you need ideas to add fun to your homeschool, I have a video where I talk about my five top tips for adding fun to your homeschool. So I will link that right here for you guys. But reading a book and playing a game are two of our favorite things to do in our family. So it is, for us, so fun. We look forward to it. It's exciting and we're ready to sit down and we trade off who gets to pick the book and who gets to pick the game and we kind of like challenge each other to come up with the best combinations and it's just fun. So if you can find a way to make it fun, not just for your kids, but for you too, that will help avoid homeschool burnout. And the fifth reason that this challenge works so well for us is simply because it's a challenge. And I don't know about you, but there is something about challenging yourself to meet a goal. Can we play 31 games in 31 days? Can we read 31 books in 31 days? Can we, maybe your goal is to get 20 math lessons done in however many days. Make a little chart. Let your kids put stickers on it. Let them color them in. Make a goal at the end of it. Like, hey, if we meet this challenge, then we'll do X, Y, and Z. For us, it's we go to Barnes and Noble and we buy a new book and a new game. I know that seems so crazy because we've just played 31 games and read 31 books, but that is what we do when we've completed our book and a game of day challenge. Do whatever feels right for your family. Challenge your kids, challenge yourself. Just make it attainable so that you can, if I can just get here, if I can just get here, it's a short goal, something that just kind of gets you over the hump. So the book and the game of day challenge for us personally helps set our homeschool up for success, helps me get our must do's done in our homeschool, helps us change it up, have fun, and reach a goal or a challenge that we've set for us. So those are the things that I look forward to the most. Those are the things that help me push through January, which I have found over the years is the hardest homeschool month to get through, at least for us and our family. It's just so hard to come back after the holidays. So January always kinds of needs to be a easier month for us. I found I used to think of January as a, oh, it's a clean slate and I compile all the things on cause it's a new year and it would explode in my face. Like it never failed, it was horrible. So this has been the perfect way for the past four and this will be our fifth year doing it of just easing back in, finding a great way to just kind of ease back in, enjoy that time together, not find burnout, and then come February we're ready to kind of ramp it up a little bit. This is going to be a bonus tip for you though. If you are at the point that you are dangling off that cliff, that you have hit homeschool burnout, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a full stop. Just stop, stop everything you're doing. Take a break even if you feel like I can't take a break. I just came off of this huge holiday break. If you and your kids are hanging off that cliff or you're about to hit burnout and you just feel like you can't go on anymore or you're clawing your eyeballs out and pulling hair, just stop. You're probably not accomplishing anything you wanna accomplish anyway and you're just pulling teeth to do it. So stop what you're doing. Take a break. If it's just you who needs the break then use technology to your advantage. There's so many things. There's educational online classes, podcasts you can use for learning, documentaries, and there's absolutely no reason you should feel bad about using those if it will prevent you from burning out. And I will list in the description box down below a ton of different blog links that I have for our favorite online classes, our favorite podcasts for learning, our favorite educational apps, our favorite documentaries that we've watched and enjoyed so that you can have a place to go and get some ideas if you are at the point that you're hanging on by just a thread and you need something to just get through. So there will be plenty of ideas there for you. But seriously, if you are at the point of burnout just stop, just full stop. There is absolutely no shame in doing that. I've done it before. I've taken many just because days because we just needed them because it was going to impact our relationship if we didn't. And for us, like I've said before, our relationship is my top priority. So I feel no shame. I mean, I do, but I try not to feel any shame and just full stopping if this is just not productive and there is nothing getting done, we're just gonna stop and take a break. So if that's where you're at, totally take that break if that's what you need. Even if you feel like I can't, I'm gonna be behind, I just came off of a break, it's okay. You'll still end up wherever you're meant to be by the time the school year is over. I promise, just take the break. I hope you found these tips to avoid homeschool burnout helpful. I'm also going to leave in the description box down below the playlist where you can see all of the videos and all of the other moms collaborating and see their tips to avoid homeschool burnout. I'm excited to go watch them and get some extra inspiration and encouragement for our homeschool and I hope you'll check them out as well.