Most of us are wrapping up our school years right about now. The sun’s been shining, the weather’s warming up, and the kids are playing outside! It’s the most wonderful time of the year, isn’t it?
You may be anxious to shove all your curriculum into an out-of-the-way place and forget about it. But before you do, I highly recommend taking a few days to assess yourself and how the home school year went for you. I’d suggest adding your assessment to your planner so that when you begin working on next year’s school plan you can see your notes and thoughts and use it to work out what you want next year’s plan to look like.
Self-assessment isn’t easy. It means being brutally honest with yourself about your flaws and weaknesses. There have been years where things were so busy I didn’t bother to stop and assess how things went. But there have also been a few years when I was so unhappy with how things were going that I didn’t stop to assess things because I would have had to face my mistakes and admit my wrongs and I was not prepared to do that. But then what happens? The same mistakes repeat the next year! It’s a vicious cycle. I finally came up with a plan for how to assess myself at the end of each home school year. Here it is. I recommend actually answering these questions in writing so you can look back on it!
- Start by recording your overall feelings about this school year. From your perspective, how did it seem to go? What did you love? What did you hate? What areas do you feel you rocked completely? Where do you think you failed, or at least didn’t reach the expectations you had for yourself? Ask yourself why you let yourself down–did you take on more than you could honestly handle? Did you get lazy when the sun stopped shining in the winter (I’m sooo guilty of this)? Did you have a rough year outside of school that impacted things? What WORKED for you? What didn’t work at all?
- Continue by answering questions about your kids progress. You might also choose to have them take a standardized test to identify their strengths and weaknesses. I just look over their school work and see how things have gone all year. Questions to ask for each child:
Did they progress as much as I thought they would this year? If not, is there an underlying cause (family emergency, learning disability, etc)?
Are there any obvious weaknesses/areas that they are not improving? For example, I realized my ten year old’s handwriting is atrocious and if anything, appears to be getting worse. Is the curriculum being used for weak subjects helping or hindering your child? Make a list of areas that you really need to spend more time on with each child next year. And then use that list as a guide to what should be your priority to focus on next year.
What subjects did they excel in this year? What subjects do they enjoy?
Did they get to the end of their curriculum in each subject? If not, are you ok with that? Is it something that they can pick up in the fall? Do you prefer they work through the summer to finish up?
Did your organization system work? Why or why not? Was it about the discipline to use it, or was it just not a good system?
- Next assess your curriculum. Ask yourself:
Which curriculum did we enjoy reading this year?
Were than any subjects that we just hated doing? Why? Was it because it was hard and we were being lazy? Or was the curriculum just not that great?
What subjects did we LOVE doing this year?
Is your math curriculum working for you all? What isn’t working about it? I was struggling to keep up with grading my two older kids work in math so I ended up switching them to Teaching Textbooks because it’s self-grading and all I have to do is open the website and see their grades! Score! My little guy was struggling to learn to count and I decided we needed a more hands-on approach so we switched to Math U See because it feels more like playing than doing school. Repeat these questions for each subject and each child.
- Now it’s time to go through all your stockpiles of curriculum. You know you have them. I have a closet full. You might have a bookcase. Or a home school classroom. Or a storage unit across town. 😉 Wherever it is, it’s time to pull it all out–whether you used it this year or not. And now you’ve got to go through a bit of an emotional journey. Are you ready?
- Pick up each piece of curriculum individually. Every DVD. Every audiobook. Every learning game. Every art supply. Every unit study. Every planner. Every math book. Every. Single. Thing.
- Hold each item in your hands, one at a time. Look at it and be brutally honest with yourself about everything you think and feel.
- Did you use this item that you bought with such good intentions? Did you enjoy it? GOOD! Keep a note that you enjoyed it in case anyone ever asks you for a recommendation. If you don’t need it anymore, pass it on to another home school momma!
- Pick up an item you bought with such good intentions but never used. It happens, we are all guilty, I promise! But now you have to really look deep inside yourself and be as honest as you’ve ever been.
- Why didn’t you use this item? Were you lazy? Did it fall to the back of the closet and you forgot about it? Did you try it once and then decide it wasn’t a good fit? Why wasn’t it a good fit? Was it because it didn’t suit the learning styles of your children? Was it because setting it up was too much effort? Was it inconvenient to use?
- Now, be even more honest. How do you feel about the fact that you never used it? Are you sad because it looked really cool? Are you fine with it because you realized it just doesn’t suit your family? Are you wracked with guilt because you had SUCH GOOD INTENTIONS and you failed your children completely? (I’m just saying, I’ve been there. Is it just me?!?) If you are fine with the fact that you never used it, be like Elsa, and let it go. I got rid of our piano the day I realized that I am just not a mom who cares if my kids take piano lessons! No guilt. I just realized it didn’t matter to me! Send it on to another home school family that just might have use for it.
- But if you have a giant ball of guilt gnawing at your insides because you really, really meant to teach your kids to use that microscope you scored at the homeschool resale and you forgot you bought it, well, you need to make a new pile. I call it my Momma’s Guilty Conscience Pile. You can call it whatever works for you. Start a physical list of all the things in this pile that you feel strongly about using next year.
- Now it’s time to assess all those digital files you downloaded all year. Get on your computer and open up your downloads folder. If you are more organized than me and you actually have a folder to keep all those downloads in one place, well, go you! Look through your downloads for the whole year. How many times did you download a really cool worksheet, or unit study, or (if you are in Classical Conversations) something neat from CC Connected, or an art project. You may even want to look at all those pins on your “Rock Star Home School Mom!” board on Pinterest. You know what I’m talking about. All those good intentions you had.
- OK, so now what do you do with these files and pins? Are you ready? PRINT THEM OUT NOW or delete them. Right now. Go buy paper. Go buy ink (I really recommend Amazon for ink, it’s so much cheaper, but anyway…). Unpin anything you know you aren’t going to do. Heck, delete that entire board you called “Epic Kitchen Science Experiments” because you know you hate cleaning the whole kitchen just to mess it up again. BE HONEST about who you are and if you are really going to do these things!
- Take a look at all the digital files you printed and make a list of them. Add the names of these items to that physical list you started with your pile of things you meant to use this year. Otherwise, you’ll forget again. I suggest adding them to your morning basket and doing one or two pages each morning.
A Morning Basket is a great solution to Lazy Mom Syndrome. - Create a new Pinterest board and call it “I Swear, This Year We’re Going to Do These Things”. Re-pin all your pins that you honestly believe you can commit to doing. And then add them to that physical list you are making so you don’t forget about doing them!
- Now take some time to come up with solutions for the areas you weren’t happy with this year. For example, I really regretted that we hadn’t focused on doing the activity book for Story of the World this year and I was also bummed that we had given no time to art and music. I admitted that this happened because when it’s winter and the weather is crappy, I don’t want to get out of bed. So I set up a morning basket and loop schedule system that meant we can stay in bed and still get things done. If you feel l like your kids NEED a science lab but you know you don’t have it in you to dissect owl pellets at your kitchen table, do some research and find a home school co-op that offers it. Be creative, be honest about what you can and can’t handle, and balance what your child NEEDS and what would be nice in a perfect world–and admit to yourself that it’s not a perfect world.
- Take your physical list of things that you really want to get done this year–all those learning games, workbooks, reading books, digital files (that you’ve now printed), and Pinterest pins–and put it somewhere safe. Keep it with all the questions you answered in your self-assessment. When it’s time to begin planning your next school year, you will be armed with a good solid list to help you shape your next year!
OK that’s it. Go enjoy your summer!