 Hey everybody, welcome to Wallach Way. I'm Jessica, and today's video is part of the homeschool show and tell series. The homeschool show and tell series is hosted by Abby from Rooted in Rest and Myself, and it is an open collaboration where we invite homeschoolers from around the world to join us and share their take on a specific topic each and every month. The past two months, we have had over 30 homeschoolers join us to share their planning and organization tips, to share how they do morning baskets, and this month we're all coming together to give our tips for how to have a successful homeschool day. I am so excited to see what everybody else has for their tips because I can always use some tips from my homeschool, and I hope that you guys will check out the playlist that will be in the description box down below to see all of those tips. Here are my five tips for a successful homeschool day. Tip number one is to start the night before. By starting the night before, it helps to set our day up for success in the next morning. So starting the night before for me means being planned and prepped, and planning and prepping is not like this big extravagant thing because I'm not that kind of planner and prepper. It is literally me screwing something and that can just be like a game or a kit or a box or Legos. Something that's going to entertain her long enough for me to be able to wake up peacefully because I'm not a morning person. It is prepping anything that I want to do for the next day, and I don't mean like I said not extravagant, but literally printing a worksheet if I need a worksheet, or making sure that I have all of the ingredients if I'm planning for us to bake something for a tea time, or you know all of the things that I need for a science experiment. It also means making sure that we're going to bed and that in a manner we don't necessarily have us at bedtime, but going to bed at a time that's going to make sure we get enough sleep. I promise you there is nothing that will ruin a homeschool day more than a mama or a baby who have not had enough sleep. Like that is hands down the easiest and quickest way at least in our homeschool to ruin a homeschool day. So that is my tip number one is to start the night before kind of set yourself up for success for the following day. Tip number two is to have a routine not a schedule. We do not do a schedule because we may wake up at 9 a.m. today. We may wake up at 11 a.m. tomorrow. I do not have a schedule. I don't think they work, at least not for our family, but I do like to have a certain rhythm or routine to our day so that I know kind of what we're doing next and Emily knows kind of what we're doing next. Like she knows that we wake up and we do morning basket and then we move to the table and then you know she might have an online class and we tell her the night before if she's going to be having one and you know where that fits into our day. But we have kind of the same rhythm or routine to our day and that makes it very easy to just do the next thing and know what the next thing is without having to like have this big giant plan or without having to you know like oh it's 10 a.m. we need to be doing this. It just is so much easier to just kind of have a flow to your day like just kind of have these big chunks like for us it's morning basket and it's table time and it's lunch and it's afternoon activities and then you know bedtime basket happens and we just kind of have these chunks in our day that happen in a specific order at no certain time and it makes it much more peaceful to not feel like you're falling behind and to also know what to expect and make sure that everything kind of has a place like I know where everything's going to fit like if it's writing it's going to be during our table time if it's you know like meditation or something like that that's going to be in our bedtime basket or like it's kind of nice to know that there's chunks that place that you know places in our day that things can fit into and that just brings me peace of knowing I don't have to over plan and I don't have to stress and it brings Emily peace of knowing what's coming next and what to expect in her day. Tip number three is to be flexible and go with the flow. Now I just told you guys about a flow to the day but be flexible and go with the flow as something more like understanding that it's okay if you get to number 10 on your math lesson and you're just not feeling it or your child hasn't mastered like it's okay to be flexible and say you know what you don't have to do the next five problems you've already done 30 of them and you obviously have you know demonstrated mastery. For us it means knowing when to close a workbook or walk away from something or bring something to life in a different manner and so we do a lot of game schooling and being flexible means at least in our home school like swapping a game out for an actual like written lesson or knowing when we can move forward and knowing when we need to kind of dwell on a certain topic and it's knowing that she's not ready for the next thing and that that's okay even though I had planned to do that and that we need to play a game or do a hands-on something to reinforce this you know skill or whatever it is so it's being flexible enough to say we did language arts today it just didn't look like what I had planned that it was going to be or we did you know geography today because we you know I don't I don't know looked at a map and talked about the different countries even though that wasn't the lesson I had planned I promise you the more flexible you can be in your home school the more successful you will feel and the happier you are all going to be at the end of the day and and you're going to feel like it was a more successful day because you were flexible enough and went with the flow enough to follow your child's lead and go down those rabbit holes and those are always so so worth it like in the moment you might be thinking no we really need to get this lesson done or no we really need to do what was on my plan but I promise you you will never ever regret one of those just like really awesome rabbit holes you fell down like there is never a time that I have regretted falling down one so it won't happen be flexible and go with the flow and eventually at the end of the day you'll be like man I was a successful home school day tip number four is to make learning fun let's be honest nobody is going to have a successful learning time or day if you are bored to tears yourself as the teacher and your child as a student like how is that going to be successful if you are bored to tears or you're not having fun doing it and there are tons of different ways you can make it fun um knowing your child and what appeals most to them is probably very helpful here but there are ways you can make it fun for yourself and there are ways you can make it fun for your child um for me Emily is an auditory learner most of you guys know that and I am visual so when we first started the math curriculum that appealed to me the most was things like um horizons because it's colorful and it's spiral and it just was pretty and when I flipped through it it made me happy but that didn't work for Emily because there was no auditory proponent in that for her she loved life of red and not saying anything against it but to look at it for me as a visual learner that was boring it's just black and white so one of the simple things that I did to make it a little bit more fun for me is like colored in the pictures that were there in black and white um or highlighted the chapter titles just to bring color to it to make it pop to make me happy and that was something simple Emily didn't need that she was already having fun because she loves life of red but it made it more fun for me and that is totally okay learning and homeschool is like this entire family journey and I think everybody needs to be having a little bit of fun along the way so if you need to break out your color coding highlighters and color code something do it if you need to have music on and have dance parties every five minutes to get you through a lesson do it do whatever it takes how brownies with math or um put chocolate chips at the end of reading fluency worksheets I used to do that for Emily all the time to get her to practice reading do whatever it takes to infuse just a little bit of enchantment into your days because the learning should be fun tip number five is more about um how to have a successful homeschool career versus a successful day and it is knowing when to call it quits as a homeschool mom we have all myself included had those days where we pushed a little too far or we went a little too far um and we wish we would have called it quits sooner so I feel like that is something that needs to be said is knowing when to call it quits I am a huge proponent of it should have been five minutes before the tier started um anytime tier start the textbook is closed whatever we're doing is closed um I just that's not something I want I don't want that associated with learning or homeschooling and that's just not what we want but knowing when to call it quits knowing when to try something to turn it around knowing how to turn around a bad homeschool day those are all things that I think help make for a successful day or a successful homeschool career is knowing your child well enough knowing how to stop while you're ahead knowing how to you know do something to turn it around and I actually have five tips for turning around a bad homeschool day so I will link that up here for you guys um obviously my number one tip is games if you you know are having frustrations that are pushing too far pull out a game on the same topic and that is always a huge one for us in our house it may not be for you in your house but know your child know a way that you can turn around a bad homeschool day so that you can turn it into a successful homeschool day um and also just know when to call it quits like it is okay to just totally call it quits and that can actually be a success in itself because you saved a homeschool day from becoming bad by calling it quits so while that may not be the kind of day you want to write down in your journal like a man this is a homeschool when that is still a successful homeschool day because you quit while you're ahead and you didn't make things worse um and you didn't do something that you're going to regret in the long run don't forget to check out that playlist in the description box where you can find even more tips for a successful homeschool day and I would love to hear your tips as well so please leave your tips for how you have a successful homeschool day in the comments down below