Start Crushing Home School: 20 Tips for How to Be Better at Homeschooling

You Can Get Better at Homeschooling Regardless of Where You Are in Your Journey

If you’re reading this, that means you are thinking about ways to improve your children’s home school experience. So, congratulations—that means you are already off to a good start. Regardless of where you are in your homeschooling journey and what you think about your abilities as a parent-educator, it’s natural to wonder how you can get better at homeschooling. There is always room for improvement, and there is always more you can be doing both for yourself and your children.

This is critical to keep in mind.

When we talk about getting better at homeschooling, we are not talking about pursuing perfection. There’s no such thing. Instead, what we are talking about is finding ways that you can elevate your abilities and your children’s experience based on your individual circumstances.

20 Steps You Can Start Taking Today to Get Better At Homeschooling

Given that there isn’t a perfect way to homeschool (or even a single “right” way to homeschool), what can you do to make measurable and impactful changes? This guide provides an introduction to 20 steps you can start taking today to get better at homeschooling. We encourage you to think about how you can adapt each of these steps to your personal home school experience. By taking an informed and structured (or, at least semi-structured) approach to improving, you will improve—and you and your children will notice the difference.

With all of this in mind, here are some of our recommendations for how to get better at homeschooling:

1. Think About Where You Need to Improve (and Where You Don’t)

Start by thinking about where you need to improve. Do you struggle with organization? Do you struggle with starting your home school days on time? Do you struggle with knowing what to teach your children? Do you struggle with finding the motivation to home school? Be honest with yourself (but not overly punishing), and make a list.

Then, make a list of where you don’t need to improve. What are your strengths as a parent-educator or home school guide? Compare these lists, and think about how you can leverage your strengths as you work on your areas for improvement.

2. Adopt a Positive Mindset

When thinking about the need for self-improvement, it can be easy to get down on yourself. But, it is important to adopt a positive mindset. Force yourself if necessary. As we said above, you are doing the right thing by taking steps to improve—and, even if you have room to improve, that doesn’t mean that you are “bad” at homeschooling. Even parent-educators who are already very good at homeschooling can still get better.

3. Commit Yourself to Getting Better at Homeschooling

Taking the necessary steps to improve is hard. With this in mind, you should commit yourself to getting better at homeschooling. Write it down. Say it out loud. Put it on your fridge. Do whatever you need to do to hold yourself accountable in the weeks ahead.

4. Start with a Plan (and a Planner)

After you write down the areas where you want to improve, think about the steps you need to take to start improving. Having a plan is important. If you have a home school planner, add these steps into your plan. If you don’t have a home school planner, now is the time to create one.

5. Get in the Habit of Writing Things Down

This brings us to our next tip: Get in the habit of writing things down. From your yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily plans to the materials you need to buy (or make) for your children’s upcoming lessons, if you write things down, this will help you stay organized and avoid forgetting things that matter.

6. Revisit (or Create) Your Yearly Plan

When homeschooling, it’s important to have a yearly plan. This plan should be centered around your chosen curriculum, and it should be focused on ensuring that you can cover everything that you want to cover before the school year ends. If you’re struggling with scheduling or knowing what lessons to provide, or if you feel like you’re stuck in too much of a routine, then revisiting your yearly plan (or creating a yearly plan) will be a good next step.

7. Plan Your Children’s Homeschool Experience Month-By-Month

Once you have a plan for the year, then you can start putting your plan into practice by creating monthly calendars. Think about the order in which you’ll need to cover different subjects and provide different lessons, and think about seasonal activities or events you might want to include.

8. Plan Your Children’s Homeschool Experience Week-By-Week

Once you have an overall plan for each month, then go one step further and start planning week-by-week. While you can do this all at once, you can also go a month or two at a time. This is a more granular level of planning, so it can make sense to wait until you get closer before choosing the specific lessons, activities, and events you want to schedule.

9. Create a Daily Home School Schedule

Creating a daily home school schedule serves several purposes. While this can seem relatively simple, if you want to get better at home schooling, it’s worth thinking about what you are doing on a day-to-day basis. When creating a daily schedule, don’t overdo it, but don’t miss opportunities to seize the day, either. Be sure to leave 5-15 minutes at the end of the day for your child’s daily log.

10. Make Sure Everyone Sticks to Your Schedule Most of the Time

Once you have a daily schedule, you should make sure everyone sticks to it—at least most of the time. This includes you. Remember, you’re in charge; and, while you should be helping your children become self-guided and self-sufficient, you ultimately need to make sure they do everything they need to do before the school day ends.

When is it okay to deviate from your daily schedule? The short answer is: When you have a plan. If you have planned a field trip or a special project that requires a full day, this is a time when it’s okay to deviate from your routine.

11. Make Sure You Have the Materials You’ll Need in Advance

Home school days can start to feel chaotic (and start to get unproductive) if you don’t have the materials your children need ready to go. With this in mind, you should make sure you have these materials ready in advance. If you need to buy (or make) any materials, make a note of when you need to order (or make) them in your planner so that you’ll have them when the day arrives.

12. Set Aside Time for Planning and Preparation Each Day (or At Least Most Days)

If you make planning a habit, this will almost certainly help you get better at homeschooling. As you get better at planning, you will find yourself planning more lessons, activities, and events—and this will improve and enrich your children’s home school experience. Even setting aside five minutes at the end of each day to gather (and write down) your thoughts can make a big difference.

13. Take the Time to Learn (and Be a Model and Inspiration for Your Children)

Just as you should set aside time for planning, you should also set aside time for learning. Whether you need to learn information before you teach it to your children or you learn as a way to expand your (and, by extension, your children’s) horizons, showing your children that you value learning will leave a lasting impression.

14. Plan Special Learning Activities and Experiences

As we discussed above, it is important to have a regular daily schedule. Having a daily schedule and making sure you are prepared for each day will make you good at homeschooling. But, if you want to be even better, you can plan special learning activities and experiences from time to time.

Here, you have plenty of freedom to be creative. You can focus on your children’s current interests or use special learning activities and experiences to expose them to new subjects, places, and ideas.

15. Plan Opportunities for Community Engagement

Planning opportunities for community engagement can improve and enrich your children’s home school experience as well. From attending meetups at your local library to volunteering for local nonprofit organizations, there are several ways to get involved and have a valuable learning experience at the same time.

16. Prioritize Your Personal Needs When Necessary (But Also Know When to Power Through)

When you are worn out or feeling overwhelmed, you aren’t at your best. As a result, to give your children the best home school experience, it is important to prioritize your personal needs when necessary. There are coping strategies available—including taking some time to yourself when you need it.

With that said, you also need to be willing to power through when it’s the right thing to do. If you need to get through the day, remind yourself that you’ll have time to decompress once the day is over, but right now it’s time to focus on what is best for your children.

17. Focus on the Process of Learning

In traditional school, the focus is almost always on the end result, whether that’s finishing an essay or taking a test. But, when you home school, you have the opportunity to help your children focus on the process of learning. When you focus on teaching your children how to learn instead of teaching them any one particular thing, you will be setting your children (and yourself) up for a more well-rounded and inspired learning experience in the future.

18. Think of Yourself As a Guide on Your Children’s Learning Journey

In this same vein, rather than thinking of yourself purely as a teacher, it can be helpful to think of yourself as a guide on your children’s learning journey. Yes, sometimes you will be teaching (and you will need to know the information you need to teach), but a lot of the time you will be giving your children the tools and insights they need to learn and grow on their own.

19. Make Thoughtful and Intentional Decisions About Your Home School Space

How much thought, time, and effort have you put into designing and organizing your home school space? If your answer is, “Not much,” this is an area where you may be able to find significant improvements as well. Likewise, if it’s been a while since you set up your home school space, it may be worth thinking about whether it is still inspiring and still meeting your family’s needs.

20. Make Thoughtful and Intentional Decisions About Your Children’s Home School Experience

Ultimately, one of the most effective ways to get better at homeschooling is to focus on making thoughtful and intentional decisions about your children’s home school experience. If you focus not only on what you need to do, but also why you need to do it, this can give you a deeper perspective and help you feel confident that you are giving home school the focus, time, and attention it deserves.

Print this list and keep a copy in your home school planner:

FAQs: Improving Your Skills As a Parent-Educator or Caregiver-Educator

What Can I Do If I Am Struggling with Homeschooling My Child?

If you are struggling with homeschooling your child, one of the first steps you should take is to think about why. Why are you struggling? Are you disorganized? Do you not have enough time in the day? Are you not enjoying it as much as you thought you would? These are all different (though, importantly, possibly related) situations that present different opportunities for making impactful changes.

After you identify why you are struggling, then you can focus on coming up with a plan to address your specific needs. Different parent-educators struggle for lots of different reasons—and it’s completely fine if you are struggling, too. The important thing is that you make changes. Once you have a plan that is focused on your individual circumstances, then you can get started on improving your family’s home school experience one day at a time.

How Can I Be Good At Homeschooling?

Being good at homeschooling means different things to different people. For some parent-educators, it’s all about meeting the basic requirements to help their children get a diploma. For others, it’s all about providing a fulfilling educational experience that maximizes their children’s opportunities in the future. Once you know what you want your children to get out of homeschooling, then you can start building a plan using the tips we provided above.

But, even if you have room for improvement, this doesn’t mean that you aren’t “good” already. Give yourself credit for all that you have been able to accomplish thus far, and think about how you can use your experience to guide your children’s experience going forward.

How Can I Be Successful At Homeschooling?

Being successful at homeschooling also means different things to different parent-educators. If you feel like you aren’t being successful—whatever that means to you—you should think about why you feel like your children’s home school experience isn’t enough. Could your days use more structure? Are you behind on lessons? Do you need resources or materials you don’t have? These are all issues that can be remedied with an approach informed by your family’s specific circumstances and needs.

What is the Most Successful Homeschool Method?

There isn’t a single homeschool method that is right for every family. That’s part of the reason why there are so many methods available. While many homeschooling parents and caregivers opt for the Montessori method, many others find that a more classical or traditional method works better for them. If you are just getting started, or if you feel like your current homeschool method isn’t working, it will be worth setting aside a few hours to do some research and think critically about what might be the best option for your family.

How Many Hours a Day Should I Be Homeschooling?

While meeting your state’s minimum requirements might only take an hour or two each day, we generally recommend a daily schedule similar to that used in traditional schools, which typically involves around six hours of educational activity per day—or 30 hours per week. Once you have a well-organized yearly plan, monthly and weekly schedules, and daily routine, you should find that this is a good amount of time to have a full day of engaging learning without your children feeling either bored or overwhelmed.

Get the Help You Need to Crush Home School

If you would like more advice on how you can provide your children with a fulfilling, engaging, and inspiring home school experience, consider becoming a Crush Home School member. Our members receive a monthly membership package via email that includes practical advice and insights, recommendations for lessons and activities, exclusive resources, and much more. Learn more about the Crush Home School membership.