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Traditional School Practices That We Choose to Follow in Our Homeschool

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First, let me say that it is not my desire to simply “do school at home” in homeschooling. However, I find it is nice to implement some of the typical school things that happen at a brick and mortar school. Since I have shared many of the more unique things we do in our homeschool and shared how the calendar and school day typically looks, I wanted to share the things we do that are more typical school practices.

While we still homeschool a couple of days a week during the summer, things are certainly more relaxed during the summer season. We all appreciate this, and I use it as a time to reflect back on what has been working well this past year and what needs to be adjusted or done away with. A more relaxed schedule during the summer also allows me to more clearly see the value in a tighter structure.

Every year is not always the same for varying reasons. As things come and go, I pull from these various school practices that we follow, implementing some each year.

These are the traditional school practices we typically use most every year.

 

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1. Recess

This is one of the things that I cut out when things get tight with scheduling. I may as well shoot myself in the foot. Actually, I think it would be less painful. Although I have to relearn it’s value at least once a year, having a few minutes to blow off some steam or to just step back from learning is worth its weight in gold. Recess is such a necessary thing in our home.

2. Snow days

Although we call them sun days. I wrote more about those when we had a sun day earlier, but since we live in Michigan snow days happen at least a few times a year. We don’t take the snow days off, but we save the same number of days that the local kids get as a snow day to take on the first beautiful summery type days in the spring. Snow days, sun days, or just “no school days” for no reason are such a good thing.

3. Typical school breaks

We follow the same basic school calendar that the local schools follow throughout the year regarding Christmas and spring break. If there are other breaks such as what is called “mid-winter break” around here or even just a day off for something like Martin Luther King day, we tend to not pay attention to those days. Just as I spoke of in my post about homeschooling year-round, we like saving days off for days we want to take them off for whatever reason.

4. Standardized testing

In Michigan homeschoolers don’t have to meet any guidelines, but in some states, standardized tests are required. I have my kids take standardized tests every couple of years. It is always a nice boost to see where they are when compared to their peers, but that isn’t even the best part. The best part for me, is that I FINALLY, just a couple of months ago, decided that since I can prove where my kids are in school because of these tests, I could throw away EVERY. SINGLE school paper from those years. The amount of space that saved, was AMAZING.

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5. Report cards

Most of my kids want to get a report card. They can be pretty fun to pull out to read from years past, and although ours may not include every single subject in detailed form, the behavioral issues are really fun to fill out. My kids enjoy reading the good things I recognize in them. In this way, report cards are a great way to tell your kids how amazing they are in a fun way.

6. Back to school supply shopping

This is as much fun for my kids as it is for kids who go to school away from home. There is just something about a bunch of fresh new supplies that makes kids want to jump right in and hit the books. I am more than happy to get them a few new things to jumpstart that process!

7. First and last day of school pictures

Just as with kids who go to school, it is so fun to see how much they change in such a short amount of time.

8. Celebrations

If a child who was struggling finally understands something or we complete a huge unit or project, we might have a celebration dinner or ice cream sundae dessert bar or something. The student of the month tradition is also fun.

9. Grandparent’s day

This is something that I would love to implement if it was physically possible, which isn’t the case in our life. Distance and work schedules don’t allow us to have grandparent’s day, but if those were not obstacles, this would be so awesome to have as part or our school year.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you as parents get to make the rules. We truly enjoy many of the non-traditional things about our homeschool, but there are some things about traditional school that we enjoy following.

10. A school/desk type area

While these don’t always get used by our kids since most times they prefer to work in the dining room or in the living room, each kid does have a place that is their own “desk space” if they choose to use it.

Homeschooling is such a rewarding and challenging adventure all rolled in to one. There are many traditional school practices that are nice NOT to follow, it is also nice to follow a few of the typical ones we enjoy – both for the kids and for the parents.

If you homeschool, do you implement these or any other traditional school practices?

I have so many good homeschool info here including a couple of series like Homeschooling: A Series (5 days) and How to Balance Homemaking and Homeschooling (3 days).

If you are looking at if homeschooling might be a good fit for you, try So, You’re Thinking About Homeschooling, Now What? and To Homeschool or Not to Homeschool.

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6 Comments

  1. We do the back-to-school shopping too… I have raised a crew of school supply junkies… we also take breaks at the “normal” times to give them time with friends (except the last few years, we’ve had older kids at a local Bible college that takes 2 weeks for March Break to match up with New Brunswick and Maine, where most of the students come from, and Christmas Break lasts 4 weeks, so we’ve tried to match up a bit there, since we’re pretty involved with the school). Our kids are way more familiar with college life than public school life!

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