So you are back to school and just keeping your head above water. Days’ are busy and sometimes you feel like you cannot fit everything in.

Limit outside activities

There is no need to book your children’s afternoons full of activities. Learning to be on your own and enjoy your own company is a skill many children have lots due to the frenetic pace that the 21st century demands.

I am also not one to swing the pendulum to the opposite site to far and say no activity is the best either, but I do advise moms to carefully choose what extra lessons and sport they enrol their children in.

Playdates with friends, church activities, sports, arts, music and just normal family get togethers can eventually have parents running from morning til night 7 days a week.

All this creates is activity dependent children and tired moms.

Choose activities that:

Do not burden the family due to later times

Will enhance and develop a passion or skill your child has

Are something you cannot offer at home

Will not cripple your budget

Waking early

This is one of my best homeschooling survival tips for all homeschool moms. Try to wake earlier than your children, even if it is just 15 minutes before them. Try to build this up to half an hour.

Use this time for anything that you would like, but try to get your shower/bath in as well as layout the breakfast for the morning.

I started practising this habit more than 6 years ago and it pays off each day. I don’t feel like I am playing catch up as I am ready to greet my children in the morning and then we can get on with our day.

The further benefit is that I am available to them right from the start of their day for tough chores instead of lying in bed or still being busy with morning personal hygiene.

Other things I like to do in my early morning are:

Time with the Lord

Checking email

Getting a load of washing on

Making yummy breakfasts instead of grabbing a cereal box

In summer when the sun is up early I go for a bike ride

When the day promises to be hot I get the garden watering done early

This is just one of my homeschooling survival tips which you are obviously free to take or leave, but do at least give it a try.

Like to sleep late? In our house that is what Saturdays and Sundays are for – nice long lie-ins!

Notebooks for lists

Get into the habit of carrying a small spiral bound notebook and pen around with you. You can keep it out at home to jot down things you need to discuss with your husband or children, write down shopping and to do list or when out write down things you have promised to friends or outings that you hear of.

Do what you can online to save time

We pay all our bills online which saves time and money instead of writing out checks and posting them off.

When we had newborns we also did our grocery shopping on line for a season.

Email instead of phone – phone calls always last longer and they cost you.

Computer

Use your computer for organization but leave it off in the morning unless you need it for school work.

Have some basic templates so that you can modify them as your year evolves and changes. We have used the same basic templates for annual reports, vision planning, household chores, shopping lists and many more for years. They just need to be modified each year and this saves a whole lot of time each year before we start a new school year.

Feeling like you are not getting to everything

If you feel like you are not getting to things like science experiments, mapwork, timeline work or even just your house cleaning, take one day a week so that you can spend your time on them.

Let your children know the night before that you will only be doing read alouds on the next day and spend the day catching up on your timelines or maps or even just get your children

If you need help with planning consider my Ultimate homeschool Mom’s Planner and sign up for my Planning Essentials Ecourse

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