This year on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Mid-Year Recalibration for Homeschool High School.

Mid-Year Recalibration for Homeschool High School

We can remember starting every homeschool year with fresh curriculum and ideas, just knowing it was going to be awesome! By Christmas break, we often found out that some curriculum just was not working. That’s why we always took the new calendar year mark as a spot for recalibrating.

How about you? Got any curriculum that is not working? That’s okay. We homeschool to do what is best for our kids, so we can change things up whenever we need to!

January is a good time to toss the curriculum and things that aren’t working

This is a good time to evaluate:

Are there any changes to this year’s goals and priorities?
What is working?
Is the curriculum a good match for your homeschoolers’ needs?

Beware the “just gotta get to the finish line” mentality

Sabrina tells about the mindset that she used to hold about curriculum and plans: “Whatever the circumstances, I just gotta get to the finish line.” She thought she had to push through and finish the year with their curriculum, even if it was a poor fit.

Take January to recalibrate instead

We found that it was a good idea to recalibrate as a homeschooling parent within yourself. We learned to break recalibration into three areas:

academics
family
our own personal identity

Let’s start with academics

If you want to have fun with curriculum change, you can start with Vicki’s 50 Ways to Scrap Your Schoolbook, where you’ll find out how she and her homeschool high schoolers handled ditching what needed to be ditched. Some of the ways they handled it included:

Donating unwanted curriculum to the umbrella school library
If the book was bad enough, they recycled it after the teens enjoyed drawing mustaches on the photos (not even kidding)

Kym shared that one of her homeschool high schoolers needed to try seven or eight Geometry textbooks before they found a good fit. Fortunately, she had homeschooling friends and an umbrella school library as resources!

So remember:

Instead of ending up with a bloody forehead from banging against the wall all the time, try something different.

Beware the shoulds

It’s easy to fall into shoulds. We should push through and get this yucky curriculum done. Maybe it is time to recalibrate and try something new.

Although sometimes you should

Just to be clear, friends, sometimes you should push through. Sometimes teens need to learn to persevere, to learn that they can do hard things. So, how to know when to scrap your schoolbook and when to persevere?

The answer comes out of your prayer life. It comes out of your time with the Lord.
It comes out of your conversations with your spouse.
Also, it comes out of your conversations with your kids.
It also comes with chatting with homeschool friends.

Remember: There’s not one right way to homeschool high school!

We cannot give everybody a formula and say, “This is how you have to handle your teens.”

That is because every teen is different, and our families are in different seasons of life. So take our advice and do some talking and listening, then recalibrate the rest of the school year together!

Let’s talk about recalibrating family

Homeschooling is a whole lifestyle, not just an educational choice. It impacts all sorts of other things:

finances
scheduling
literal physical space within our houses

The midyear point of the academic year is a great time to look at how family things are faring:

meal prep and grocery shopping
housework and chores

Mid-year is a great time to have a family meeting. Sit down and chat with the family about what is working and not working. Sabrina’s did “yucks and yahoos”. It is a fun way to find out what needs to be recalibrated.

What’s a Yahoo? (What’s, what’s feeling good right now?)
What are the yucks? And then let’s not leave them.

Let’s talk about recalibrating your self-care

Mid-year is a good time to see if you’re taking care of yourself. (Because if you crumble, it’s not going to make it easier for your homeschool!)

Not only that, but our own self-care is also modeling good life skills for your students. If it is difficult to find time or energy for your own self-care, our Cousin Teresa Wiedrick’s Harmonius Homeschool shares practical tips.

It is important to do these periodic points of recalibration for your family academically. Then you will all have a happier homeschool new year!

Join Vicki, Sabrina, and Kym for tips on mid-year recalibration! Thanks to Seth Tillman for editing.

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