Planning a New School Year

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Have you started seeing “Back-to-School” signs everywhere? It’s not fair. But if we already have “Christmas in July” signs, might as well accept that school is around the corner.

Four Seasons Paintings

Four Seasons – paintings in a doctor’s office in Knoxville

Mentally, I am not ready to start a school year, in all honesty. I was going to start the week before we start going to co-op, but then I got to thinking… Why? Why make it complicated? It is hard to have the number of school weeks be one off compared to the number of co-op weeks. Continue reading »


Five More Years

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I hinted in my post about 2022 in review that we have five more years with the kids before they both go to college. Actually, it is five years with the youngest. The oldest is in ninth grade, which means we only have three more years with him at home. I am not counting the next semester.

Christmas tree with gifts

Our 2022 Christmas tree with some of the gifts for the kids

When our oldest was eight years old, I wrote a post about having him at home for 10 more years. I re-read it recently and smiled. He is 15 now. Where have the last seven years gone? Continue reading »


Planning and Executing

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Many homeschooling wars are lost because of the way we plan and execute the plan. Every homeschool mom is different. Some are more organized and others are free spirits. It works well as long as you keep at it.

LEGO Calendar

For me, I need a plan. Then, I need to execute the plan. Last but not least, I need to relax when things don’t go according to plan. Continue reading »


Registering for the New School Year

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In Tennessee, one must register to homeschool either with an umbrella school or with the local public school system. Umbrella schools typically cost around $50-$110, while the Superintendent’s Office is free. Some umbrella schools will ask you to test with them once a year. The public school will only make you test in 5th, 7th, and 9th grades.

Painting Clocks

The kids painted seven wooden clocks for newly remodeled rooms at Zoder’s Inn and Suites.

Our umbrella school is Berean Christian School in Knoxville. We can register by mail because we have been with them for at least three years and do not have a rising Kindergarten student. Continue reading »


Back to Homeschool, 1 of 3

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For the next three weeks, I will be blogging about going back to homeschool. Research indicates that writing goals down dramatically increases your chance of reaching them, so all of us need to spend some time planning for success.  If you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants, you go right ahead. We will not judge. However, the rest of us must organize our chaos at least a little bit.

Color-coded schedules help moms.

You are a professional. Plan accordingly. Color code your planner if you prefer.

In this first post, we will focus on looking back at this past year. First, what has worked for you? Secondly, what has not worked? Thirdly, how could you improve? Above all, did you experience burnout? Do you know how that happened? We all know our strengths and growth areas. If we do not, this is the time to sit down and spend five minutes writing down what comes to mind, under two columns called Strengths and Growth Areas. Continue reading »