Welcome to our special Summer Learning series and giveaway! There is no time like the present to prepare for the next school year, especially if, like us, you tend to homeschool year round.

How to Have a Successful Homeschool Day

Responsibility is a desirable quality in any leader. In our homeschool we are training young people to be responsible adults and leaders. The way we train them to be responsible adults is by training them be responsible as children and young adults. Practice makes perfect after all.

You've heard of the four R's I'm sure, but perhaps not as I'll be describing them. Each of our school age children must complete 4 R's (responsibilities) daily in order for us to consider the homeschool day a success for that child.

The 4 R's (Responsibilities) are:

1. Math – each one must complete the assigned lesson.

2. Phonics/English/Handwriting/Copywriting – each one must complete the assigned lesson.

3. Reading – each one must read either to someone else (for the littles) or independently for an assigned time or page amount depending on the child and reading level.

4. Chores – each one must finished their assigned chore(s) of the day.

The Way it Works:

The children know what is required. We have an assignment book with it layed out, though in most cases it is just a matter of the next lesson or a certain number of pages per day.

Certain children tend to be more responsible with a checklist to physically check off, so we print one each week for that child and hang it on the refrigerator or in the school area.

Depending on the season of life, we do our work together after breakfast through lunch time, or after lunch until done. They can choose to work ahead in their independent work to have a lighter load on a certain day, and some of our biggers prefer to do the math that they don't need help with before bed at night, but whatever is not finished is to be completed the next morning.

And that's it. If they get that done, responsibly and with a good attitude, we consider the day a success.

What about the rest?

What about the other subjects you might be asking?

We do other things together, such as Bible, read-aloud history, science, missionary stories, etc. But each of those subjects have their own day or days and times in the schedule, and because we do it together it is one of Mommy or Daddy's responsibilities, rather than one of theirs. And music lessons, art and other extra curricular activities also factor in depending on the child and semester.

Each year in May we take stock of where we are and what we want to add for the next season of homeschool. Our kids get to voice opinions on the options available, which makes it fun for them.

Here are some homeschool publishers and authors that we enjoy using: