7 Tips for Christian Homeschool Moms Overwhelmed in Planning Mode (FREE Homeschool Planner) | Homeschool Planning & Encouragement

These 7 tips for Christian homeschool moms can help you fight overwhelm when you’re in homeschool planning mode. Whether you are planning your first homeschool year, or your last, these homeschool planning tips can help you reset and re-focus for a firm foundation so that you can plan your best, most abundant homeschool year yet!

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If you are preparing for this year’s homeschool season and you are feeling overwhelmed you are not alone. This is a super common time of year for us homeschooling parents to be preparing for the homeschool year, and many of us face feelings of anxiety, stress, and overwhelm.

Following Jesus does not mean that we never have these feelings. But, it does mean that despite these human feelings, we put our faith, hope, and trust in Jesus. HE is our firm foundation. How do we do that tangibly with our homeschool planning?

Hi, I’m Priscilla!

Before I was a homesteading, homeschooling mom I was a professional musician and music teacher. I carried over my teaching experience into homeschooling my children, but I learned it was much different teaching your own children. And, when I started homesteading, I started with NO experience. It was something I never imagined doing. I had to do a lot of researching and learning each season. So, I know how hard it is to start homeschooling and homesteading with no experience! 

After 2020

After the events of 2020, we saw the vital need to learn to grow and raise real God-given food in abundance, and continue homeschooling all of our children. We felt God had a new call and season for us. So in 2021, we left everything behind, and moved from northwest Indiana to southern Georgia. And we just got started!

How we can help you?

Now, I’ve homeschooled for 11 years and have 6 children of homeschool age with 1 more in waiting. And, we established our homestead in 2021 with lots of research and no experience. We even stewarded a small farmstead by selling fresh eggs and healthy chickens to many happy customers! We started taking and completing several homesteading courses, and we continue our education every year. And, I’m always looking for ways to make things more time efficient by making them simpler to do and sustainable. When things are simpler, they are more sustainable in our already full lives.

Therefore, we want to help others do the same, no matter what their skill set is and no matter where they live. Building up all things home will allow us to sustain our families no matter what the future holds!

We are still learning on this adventure every day. But, we knew if we could do it, others could do it too! So, we started this blog to encourage other families to start homesteading and homeschooling, with Christ at the center, for a more abundant life no matter where they live; NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! We offer simple solutions, resources, and encouragement for your Christ-centered beginner homesteading, homeschooling journey.

7 Tips for Christian Homeschool Moms Overwhelmed in Planning Mode:

1. Trust God as your firm foundation

Well, we know that God is sovereign and knows everything for all time. We trust Him and that He knows what is best for our today and our future. Because of this, we can take a breath, sit and rest in His presence, and simply ask for His guidance trusting He will always steer us right and never let us down.

2. Dedicate your homeschool to God

This is a simple, yet vital step. Dedicate your homeschool to God. If you are a believer, then chances are you have dedicated your children to God. But, have you ever thought of dedicating your homeschool to God?

Dedicate the work of your hands, the planning, the ideas, and the fruit of your labor all to God. Dedicating your homeschool to God, and continuing to include Him in all of it, is the very thing that will make it abundant and thriving.

It’s not to say that things still won’t go wrong sometimes, or that you won’t have bad days. We all have bad days or moments. But, with dedicating your homeschool to God, you are inviting Him to be in charge and lead you in your planning and decisions. And God is faithful, so be ready for Him to speak to you and lead you in His will for your homeschool.

3. Pray and ask God to reveal to you the vision that HE has for your homeschool

One of my favorite tips for Christian homeschool moms is to pray and ask God to reveal to you the vision that He has for your homeschool. This directly goes with number 2; dedicating your homeschool to God. You have dedicated your children and your homeschool to God, so now it is time to let Him lead in the vision.

Dedicate a quiet, set aside time to sit in His presence and give Him a chance to speak to you about what He desires for your homeschool and your children. Ask him about the atmosphere He wants you to steward. Is a slow paced, quiet atmosphere what God knows will help your family thrive? Or, will you and your children thrive in an atmosphere that is energetic, lively, and creative?

Ask God to give you words and phrases to describe the atmosphere, education, values, priorities, etc that He wills for your family. Ask Him anything you want, but be ready to sit still and listen, and write it down! Put it all together in a vision statement for your homeschool. It may change from year to year or stay the same. But, write it down and use it to filter decisions for your homeschool.

4. Reflect on what aligns with the vision God gave you.

After God has given you the vision for your homeschool with atmosphere, education, priorities, and values in mind it is time to reflect on what skills and subjects align with that vision. You can brainstorm a list of skills and subjects that you and your children want to, or by state law have to, learn. Then, eliminate anything that does not align with the vision. Or, add anything that may align better! But, keep it as simple as possible.

The vision helps you narrow down your priorities, values, and subjects. And then, you can set goals using these. After you have some goals in mind, it is time to start deciding the subjects you will focus on for the year, and begin finding curriculum for those subjects unless you already have a curriculum that you stick to for that subject.

5. Pray about homeschool decisions and choices.

This is another area to surrender to God and pray for His leading. Then, trust that He will lead. When choosing curriculum and materials pray and ask for God’s input. Always pray about decisions and choices for your homeschool and family. This may seem obvious, but have you ever thought about asking God which curriculum you should use for Science to stay yGod-honoring? Or, which History curriculum will uphold God’s truths? Have you ever thought about asking God what type of field trips to plan?

Along with the homeschool dream, and social media influence, can come many ideas of how or what we “should” teach. But, there are many things to consider like style of teaching, lifestyle, amount of space, amount of time, resources, etc. The great thing is that God knows all! So, He has all of the answers already and we can go to Him and trust that He will guide us to make the choices and decisions that are best for our family. He also can lead you to the resources and research you need to help you make a good decision.

6. Plan your homeschool schedules according to God’s vision, values, and priorities.

Take a deep breath and trust that God is leading you in your planning. Once God has given you His vision for your homeschool, and you have decided on subjects, skills, and curriculum and materials, then it is time to start planning. Plan your homeschool schedules according to all that God has led you to include. This is not a post on how to plan, this is just one of our tips for Christian homeschool moms to remember to keep God involved in every step of planning. When we keep God involved in each and every step it doesn’t feel so overwhelming because we are trusting in His leading.

7. Keep planning as simple as possible.

You do not have to include every subject:

except those that are required by your state laws. But, remember that anything extra is just that; extra. Some extras may directly serve the vision that God has for you and your family, but maybe some of them don’t. Those are the ones to eliminate and re-consider another time.

Consider planning a family weekly flow instead of an hourly schedule for each child:

Homeschool planning can already feel overwhelming, especially when we are trying to plan multiple schedules. Is it possible for you to simplify even when you are homeschooling multiple children? Yes! I simplify scheduling for my 6 children with two ways. I use what I call a weekly flow for our whole family instead of an hourly schedule for each child, and I use what I call rotational scheduling.

First, a weekly flow is a more flexible version of time blocks. It is basically writing the order of subjects your children will do on which days. It is important to keep in mind if a subject is longer or shorter, so you also know how many subjects to do per day. Instead of saying this hour is language and the next hour is math, it is saying we will all complete language and then math. We start with family subjects, such as Bible, History, Music, etc, and end our days with our individual subjects like Language and Math. You do not have to schedule or set a certain timeframe. This allows you to enjoy your family subjects and for each child to work at their own pace on individual subjects. Here’s an example from our Homeschool Planner:

Get your free version of our Homeschool Planner here.

Use rotational scheduling:

Another way I simplify homeschool planning is by using rotational scheduling. In the above chart where you see the shorter electives, like Habit Training, Music, Life Skills, etc, I designate some of those spots to be rotated electives. In other words, sometimes I take out all those music electives and create a spot that just says Music. But, you can do this with any elective.

So, where you see Music Theory, I would swap it out for another music elective the next week like composer study, hymn study, etc. So, instead of fitting in all of these electives similar to how you see in the chart, you could just have Music two days a week and then rotate which music elective you are teaching. You can put this on a 2 week, 3 week, or even 4 week/monthly rotation. For example, the music electives we cover are:

• Music Theory
• Hymn Study
• Composer Study
• Instrument Recognition/Active Listening
• Piano
• Choir
• Music lessons in individual’s instruments (guitar, bass, drums, violins)

Below is an example where you can see the third block of each day just says Music. You can create a separate list of electives and go down the line, or plan it however you want. I find that less planning works for me because as a professional Musician, who also taught several Music classes and lessons, I can pick up whichever elective and teach without a detailed plan. You may be rotating an elective that may need a little more planning, so do what works for you.

Another way to schedule even simpler is to to create just one or two elective blocks every day and just rotate all your electives every day! This will depend on how many electives you want to cover in your year. Or, you can cover some electives one semester and swap out the electives the second semester. There are endless ways to schedule homeschool plans and find a way that works for you and your family.

What if I feel overwhelmed again while homeschool planning?

If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed again at any point, just stop and pray again. Maybe taking some minutes to worship will bring you back to level ground. Give it all to Him again and again, as many times as you need to. Ask for comfort from His Holy Spirit, and keep trusting in His lead. You can dedicate your homeschool and planning to Him again, and remind yourself that if it belongs to Him, He will take care of it just like He will take care of you.

Prayer

Lord, we pray for all of the homeschool parents that are feeling overwhelmed today. We pray that you would relieve them of feelings of stress and anxiety by comforting them by your Holy Spirit. We pray that you would reveal Your will to each parent for their homeschool and their children, and we pray that you would give these parents clarity in all of their planning this season. Bless these parents, their children, their homeschools, and the generations to come because of the sacrificial servitude of these parents.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

How can we help?

We will continue to offer encouragement and blog posts, but we also offer simple solutions with free printables in our printable library for homeschooling and goal setting. It is an expanding library where we hope to serve you and your family even more. You can also follow us on Instagram and Pinterest @theabundantlivingfarm, and sign up for our newsletter to hear about new blog posts and printables available just for you! Get your free homeschool planner pack here:

For more Homeschool Planning Tips, check out our post 4 Things to Do for a Good Start to Your Homeschool Year and other posts under the Homeschooling tab. We continue to pray over this blog, our readers, and the resources we offer. We hope this helped you today, and we pray you live abundantly!