HOMESCHOOL GLUE || Real-Life Simple Systems + Rhythms for Overwhelmed Homeschool Moms

012 || How I Prep for Fall Without Letting It Take Over My Summer

• Sarah @ Homeschool Glue

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Most of us have things we save for the slower months: projects that are easier when the pace is lighter, prep work that makes the next school year feel manageable, or things we’ve just been putting off. In this episode Sarah shares exactly what she’s doing this summer to set up for a great fall, and the intentional way she’s fitting it all in without letting it swallow the season.

From memory keeping and deep cleaning the homeschool space to building her weekly rhythm and creating free read book bins for each of her girls, this one is practical, honest, and full of ideas worth borrowing. She also shares the most important piece: how she’s managing the list without stress, and why having daily systems already in place is what makes all of it possible.


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Every homeschool family does summer a little differently, and some do it different from year to year. Some of us are year-round homeschoolers who take little breaks here and there, and you might already be into your next term. Some of us take a short break and then start back up in July or August. Some of us, which is what I typically do, will take the whole summer off of traditional homeschooling. And some of us don't even think about school again until September. All of that is completely fine. Do what works best for your family. But a lot of us, if not most of us, regardless of how we structure our year, have different things that we have put off or saved or need to do over these warmer months or these slower seasons that have to happen, whether we like it or not. So some of that may be projects that are easier to do when the pace is slower, or things you have to complete when it's actually warm out or during this season. And then there's things like prep work you need to do for the next school year or the next term, depending on how you're homeschooling. Today I'm going to be sharing the different things that we are doing and I am doing for the summer months that are things that need to happen that I would like to fit in that I've been putting off or just things that I absolutely have to do for the next school year, and how I'm fitting that in without letting it take over all of the reasons we look forward to summer because it's a break, because it's slower, because we get to go do fun things. We don't have all of the extra to-dos in general over the summer. So I don't want to lose that, but I still need to get all of this done. So I'm going to be sharing what we're doing to prepare for the fall and how I am not letting that take over our summer. Glue. It's messy, it's sticky, it gets everywhere. But without it, nothing holds. Homeschool life can feel messy too. We have the loud days, the mental overload, so many moving parts. But we don't need is more curriculum or more pressure to do it all. We need something that holds. Simple systems, steady rhythms, the kind of structure that makes homeschooling easier instead of heavier. Hi, I'm Sarah, a homeschool mom of four, and this is the Homeschool Glue Podcast. Each week we have an honest conversation about real homeschool life and the simple systems that help overwhelmed homeschool moms clear the mental clutter, build rhythms that actually stick, and create the peaceful lives we are all craving. If you're tired of carrying everything and getting nowhere, you are in the right place. Grab that load of laundry and let's get started. It is officially summer in our house, and I am so excited. I have been looking forward to summer for a very long time. It was a very busy, amazing year, but by April I am like looking at that summer on the horizon, and I cannot wait for it. Especially being in Minnesota, our winters are so long and dreary. Um, I have talked a lot online openly that I'm not a huge fan of winter, so it's funny that I live in such a cold place, but all of our friends and family are here. I grew up here, so I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon, but I definitely look forward to the warmer months. So we have spent the last few weeks wrapping up our school year, getting outside as much as possible. And I have been thinking a lot about what I want this summer to look like, both for our family and just all the fun things we want to do, but also all of the practical things that we actually need to do that I've been putting off over the school year when we've been really busy with all of the things or the things that we need to do to get ready for the fall so that I can go into the next school year not being already behind when we first get started. So today I want to share the things I am doing this summer to set us up for a really good school year. And I want to be upfront about something before I get into the list. This sounds like a lot when I read it all back, and I am fully aware of that. But I want to explain at the end how I am thinking about this because the way I have approached this is very intentional and it's not stressing me out, which is the whole point. So I will share more about that at the end of this episode. But let me get into what are the things that we're actually fitting in that I want to get done this summer because I think this is just helpful to hear what other people do to prepare for the school year or what things did they not get to during the school year that they need to fit in during the summer, because I often will just save things for the summer because it is hard to fit in when every morning is taking up by homeschool, and then I've got my business and all the other things, and then we've got the extracurriculars and all of that. We're just a lot busier in that way during the school year, and we really protect the summer to make it a lot slower. So the first thing that we are fitting in that I will be doing very soon is our memory keeping system. I have shared about this on my blog, I will leave the link to that in the description. Um, it is so, I'm just so proud of this. We've done it for quite a few years now. Don't feel like if you haven't done this and your kid is like 16, that it's too late. It is never too late to do something like this. And so I just want to share briefly what I mean by memory keeping. So at the end of every school year, I spend about two hours doing what I'm calling our school memory keeping routine. It's a system that I look forward to, and I know one day we're going to have so much fun looking back at the things that I do during this routine. Because at the end of it, my kids will have something really beautiful to show for all of their years of school. And the reason I started this system, and this is not to knock my parents at all, because this just wasn't really a thing, I don't think, when they were kids. Like paper was probably not used quite as extensively as it was in my childhood. Um, and so my parents still to this day, and this I guess I'm guilty of not doing my part, but I got to the end of my school years and my parents had quite a few just, you know, storage bins full of projects and papers and all of these things from my, you know, kindergarten through 12th grade years of school, and now they're still in my parents' basement because it's overwhelming to me if I'm being quite honest. Like I don't want to go through now and have to decide which things are important, and I know one day I'm gonna have to do that, and I'll probably end up just getting rid of most of it if I'm being honest, um, because it's very overwhelming to go through that many bins of paper that you feel like is sentimental, but I honestly haven't missed it all these years that I've been out of school, but it just feels very weighty to have to go through it and make a decision about every single thing that we kept over all of those years. And so I didn't want that for my kids. First of all, I have four kids. I don't want three to four bins for each kid just full of stuff. Like, where would I keep all of that? First of all, second of all, I don't want my kids to have to worry about that when they become adults. I want to have created something to just hand them, they can take it, be on their merry way, and all of the decisions have already been made for them. Now it's just like a really beautiful sentimental thing to look back on. And so that is something I put into place when my oldest was in preschool. Somebody was actually creating these bins. They're hanging file bins that you can do hanging file folders in, and each folder has like a label on it that says preschool year one, or it says like age one, age two, age three, and then there's preschool year one, year two, and kindergarten all the way up through twelfth grade. There may even be ones for college. I bought those for my two oldest because that's all I had in my house at the time. And then as we've added two more children, I'm just adding a pretty standard file bin, and I'll just write on it. I don't really care if it's like pretty and perfect. I'm sure you can buy them online. The person who created mine wasn't doing it anymore for them, and I just I don't have a cricket to like put the nice label on the outside, so it's okay. It's okay if it's not as pretty, but all you need is a file hanging file folder bin with folders that hang, and then you need enough for basically all the years from birth to 18. Um, maybe if you want to add in college or young adult or something, you could do that too. And so every year I have a routine. It takes me about two hours, and I have a a bin in our kitchen. Like it's in a cabinet, an upper cabinet, and I anytime my kids do art that I don't immediately get rid of, like if it's just something that they just kind of whip together, they don't really care about it. Sometimes I'll recycle it right away, but if it's something I think they'll want to work on or look at again, or it's really special, I put it in this bin. And then when the bin reaches the top, or if all the papers and things in the bin reach the top or like the bottom of the shelf above it. So if it gets to the max capacity of what it can hold before the end of the school year, I will go through it mid-year, which I usually do probably around Christmas time. It reaches that point with four kids and very artistic kids. And then um I'll recycle a bunch of it then, and then I'll let it continue accruing all year, and then at the end of the year, I then take it out, I get rid of anything that I know they're not gonna want to look back on, and then I will keep the most sentimental things or the things that best represent their art style or their talent or whatever at that age, development, that kind of thing. And I will put those in their hanging file folder bin. I also, since we homeschool, like it's kind of hard because when kids are in school outside of the home, they come home with only so much. But when you're homeschooling, you literally have every workbook, every notebook, every textbook, every, you know, everything. And so you have to make these decisions. So for our state, we don't have to really keep anything. I I guess I don't know that if that's true, but we have to test every year, and then we have to, you know, if they came knocking, we should be able to provide like a representative sample of their work. And so what I do, I keep like if they have a notebook that we've done, like their nature journals. Um, my oldest has a notebook where she does all of her dictations for spelling in that, and then she does all of her written narrations in that. So I'm just keeping the whole notebook for that. Um, when we do notebooking pages and things like that, if we have a full notebook, I'll keep it. If we just have like, you know, part of a notebook, I'll just rip the pages out. Um, and then I go through like their grammar, phonics, math, anything they have like a workbook for, their handwriting. And I will, if there's assessments in there, I will rip those out and put those in their file folders. And then if they have like um any other pages that are just a good representation of their work, I will rip those out and keep them, and then everything else I get rid of. Um if it's like a disposable thing. So that's what I do. I put those in the file folders, and then I bought these really beautiful um memory keeping books. I will that's all in the the blog post that I mentioned. So it's got a it's like a keepsake book. You have pages to write about them. There's pages to glue in like their first day of school picture, their last day of school picture, their favorite animal, favorite song, favorite movie, all those kinds of things from the start of the year to the end of the year, who their friends are. And then there's pages to just add photos. And so I'll go through my phone and I will open up Canva and then just drag and drop a bunch of photos the same size and print those out on either like photo paper or I have the um presentation paper mat, whatever. Um, it's really high quality printing paper. I will print on those and then I will cut them out and glue them in. I usually use a tape runner to tape them in. Um, I love those things. And then that is it. And so they have this keepsake book and they have their file bins full of just the most special things that the file bins also keep like um their uh hospital bracelet from when they were born and their ultrasound pictures and things like that. So that way when they grow up, they get a book, they get a hanging file folder thing. I don't know if it'll all fit in one. We may end up having to have two as they're writing papers and things because you know, kids do make a lot of things and it's hard to get rid of all of it, but still two bins that are completely curated compared to like four bins that are probably bigger than the file bins and just completely full of stuff is still way better to me. And they could always pare it down more if they want, but it's already already it's already all um divided out by year and just very well organized. So this takes me, this whole process for four kids takes me about two hours. It also allows me to get rid of all of the extra stuff at the end of the year and just hold on to anything we're gonna reuse, or I can sell curriculum and stuff if we don't need it. But I I love this system. I would highly recommend wherever you're at in your homeschooling journey that you implement some kind of system like this at the end of the school year. Um, I never kept up with a baby book. That was really hard for me, but this I have kept up with because it's so much more than just writing about your baby. It's like keeping the stuff that they accumulate and having a system for it instead of just shoving it into bins or hoping one day you'll have time to go through everything. Um, or just getting rid of all of it, which I don't think is a great plan either. So I really love this system, highly recommend it, and that's something I do at the end of every school year. Another thing um I want to do this summer. This isn't something I do every summer, but something I have uh put off for quite a few years, and this is me just being really honest and vulnerable. I am going to be getting all of our paperwork in order. So I have had a loose system for this, and I did set up a whole system. We have the Freedom Filer system, which if you aren't familiar, it's a really awesome. Um, I don't even know what you'd call it, but it's a basically a way to set up all your files in your house, and they're all pre-labeled and they have like a whole system for how you move things around and get rid of things over time, depending on what type it is, and it's color-coded. I just honestly, I set this up when we had one child, and I just have not stayed on top of it. Um, that's just me being totally honest. And so I do go through all of our paperwork and stuff that I've kept at the end of every year for taxes and stuff like that, but I also haven't done a great job of like having a good system for storing those in file boxes and stuff. They're kind of stored in different ways. Um, and so something I want to do is just take a couple hours and you know, purge those files, get them back in order, and create like a time when I'm gonna consistently maintain it because if you don't, then it just piles up again. And so that is something I need to do this summer. It's honestly gonna probably take me two to three hours. So it's not like this huge, it's not gonna be as huge of a project as it was when I actually put the Freedom Filer system together, but it does take time, and honestly, the reason I haven't done it is just because I don't want to. I just kind of hate doing stuff like that with paperwork, and so I put it off, but I really want to attack that this summer. So I'll be making time for that. Another thing that I do every summer leading up to a new school year is take some time to really deep clean, organize, and declutter our homeschool space, which is our dining room. This room, and I'm recording this podcast in here right now, this room gets a lot of use. We eat in here, we do all of our science experiments in here, we do all our crafts in here, we do snacks and read stories in here, we do most of our homeschooling in here, like we play card games in here, like it is the heart of our home. If you've been on my Instagram, you've seen our brick wall in our fireplace, like of our fireplace in our dining room. Like, we're in here all the time. I do my work in here, I pay bills in here on the computer. Like, we live a lot of our life in here. And so that also means, especially with a toddler who loves to just pour. I haven't like baby proofed a lot of it in here because I'm like, he's only gonna be a toddler for so long, and we've made it this far. He's our last baby. Like, I don't feel the need to go through because I have this beautiful dresser that I redid quite a few years ago now, but I love it, and I don't want to install locks and stuff on it, and none of it's gonna hurt him. It's just like play-doh tools and stuff like that. But he loves to go through and just dump everything out of the drawers, and so that happens. And so there's stuff under furniture that I really need to clean, and I need to go through all the drawers. Like, we've got puzzles in here, we've got uh coloring books, craft stuff, play-doh. I mean, so much because it's all of our school stuff and all of our craft stuff and all of like stuff they do at the table. It's so much stuff. Fit into a decent sized room, but still not like a gigantic room. And so I need to go through, take everything out of every um drawer and cabinet and whatever, pull them out, clean, um, and do all of that. I like to do that, and I need to deep clean our table and our chairs and our curriculum cart because they get so well used over the year. I do this randomly throughout the year, but never fully all at once. And so it will take me a couple hours for sure to do this, but it feels so good to get it done, and then I can go into the new school year, like, okay, the room is cleaned. If it does not get deep cleaned again until the next summer, well, at least it's happening. We'll see here. And I mean a lot of it does get like we mop all the time and stuff like that, but I just mean like behind things in the drawers, all that kind of thing. So that's something I'm going to be doing. And then another thing that I am going to for sure be doing is ordering any last books and supplies. I've purchased pretty much everything for the new school year, but I am just finalizing things as I, you know, work on some other parts that I'll talk about in this episode as I'm working through those things in preparation for the la for the new school year. I will sometimes remember things like nature journals and things like that that we need to buy. So I'll be doing that um in preparation for the new school year. Um, I like to have everything on hand by August just so that we can really spend that last month like fully enjoying our summer. I'm kind of the opposite of a procrastinator. When I procrastinate on things or wait, not even procrastinate, like just wait till when it's more needed. I worry about it because then it's something that is looming over me. And so I like to do things as early as possible so I can enjoy my time and not have to have anything looming over me, but that's just me. Um, so I like to have all this done, like the ordering and stuff done as soon as possible, so that, you know, I could just look forward to the new school year without anything pressing that I need to do. Um, another thing that I do over the summer, which is crucial to me not burning out and just makes our school year so run so much more smoothly, and that is figuring out our weekly rhythm and building our planners. So this is huge. I've talked about this in other episodes. I have a whole podcast episode about the weekly rhythm and why I do this and how I do it. So I will uh navigate you to that episode if you want to learn more about it. Um, because I'm not gonna go into it all right now. But basically, once I have finalized our curriculum, I've purchased everything, um, I will sit down and I will map out our weekly rhythm. So if you're interested in what we're using for next year, I also have a whole episode about that. I'll I'll include in the show notes, but I will sit down with everything. And I think it's really important you actually sit down with the stuff you're using so you can look at it. I blend Amblesight Online and Simply Charlotte Mason. And so I do follow the AO uh schedule for some of the readings, but also I sometimes move them around, or sometimes I'll look at the books and go, wow, those are really long. Like maybe they're having them read three chapters, and that just seems like a lot. I might spread it out. I might, if it's shorter chapters, I might um do more per week than what they say. And so I like to have everything to actually physically look at so that I can make decisions um about how our our family actually works and not just what a schedule says that we're supposed to do. Because um, if I can't actually implement what they say, then it's not worth following their schedule. I'll do my own schedule. So I'll sit down and I plan out exactly what we're doing every single week, and then I make our planners. I Do a teacher planner for myself and I do um student planners for my kids. I did this last year and it works really well. I can put in what our composer, our hymn, our folk song, all of our readings for the week. And we stuck to that. Like there were some weeks so we moved things around. Um, but for the most part, we were able to follow it and it worked really, really well. I have those in my shop. If you guys are interested, I will link those in the show notes as well. But doing this saves me so much time during the school year. Literally planning for me on a weekly basis takes five minutes. I just have to see if there's anything I need to move to different days than what we typically do it, like if we have a doctor's appointment or something like that, or if a kid was sick the week before and we had to move something. That's all I have to do. But I already have a plan for when what day we're doing which subjects. Um, and then I have a I've already planned out what readings and what lessons we're doing every single week, um, or which subjects like math, where we literally just turn the page and we don't necessarily assign certain lesson numbers per week. We just continue on where we're at. But I already have that all planned out at the start of the year because I take some time over the summer to plan it all out. So a few hours in the summer saves me so many more hours and lots of my sanity in the school year. So I highly recommend doing that. Um, and I just love it. I think it's fun to dream about the new school year and it kind of like romanticizes it because you're really spending time looking at everything and getting excited about it. And then another thing I do is I take some time to print and bind everything that needs to be printed and bound for the year. So I um do print my own stuff like any of my resources that we use, like our morning menus, the planners, when I've done um I we have our daily riches that I created that I do. I just print those myself. I do work with Humble Heart Press. So if you do buy anything from me and you want it printed, you can get it done that way, or you can print it yourself, of course, or take it somewhere else. Um, but we I print those myself um just on our Epson Eco Tank, and I've had a much less expensive printer in the past that I've used as well. And so I print and bind. I can leave a link to our printer and our binder as well if you guys are interested. Um, I just like doing at home. It saves me money and time and I can get it done quickly. Um, and so I print all of that stuff. I print um our handwriting books. I I buy the ebook from The Good and the Beautiful, and then I can print it out for all of my kids. I just buy it once and then I can print it out. And then this year I purchased Simply Charlotte Mason's um old geography program. They just switched everything to a new program, but I bought their visits to the Middle East that we'll be using for geography. I just bought the ebooks for that as well, and so I'll be printing and binding those in preparation for the new school year. Another thing I'm doing this year that I'm excited about um that I haven't done before is create uh free read book bins for each of my kids. So, or each of my older kids anyway. So we do silent reading every day. We started that at the beginning of this last school year, and we do after I lay our toddler down for his nap, we read for about 20 minutes and we just sit on the couch and we cuddle up and we read. My two older girls read independently, my five-year-old does not yet, but I have a feeling pretty soon by the end of next school year, she probably will be reading a lot more on her own as we are really diving into phonics. And so she mainly just will look at books around us, but very soon she will be reading. She could read Bob books or frog and toad and things like that as she's starting to learn to read. And then once she's off to the races, I have a whole slew of books that um I'll be reading with her. I actually made a reel of my favorite series for four to six-year-olds to read as read alouds, but also for them to use as their first chapter books. Um, I will link that in the show notes as well because I'm gonna be reading the first book of a lot of those series to her next year for school. And then as she's able to read, she'll have already read the first book of most of these series, and so hopefully it'll pique her interest and she'll want to keep reading the rest of the books of some of the series, and that will be her first chapter book. So I will be taking. Um, I have 20 different books that I decide on for my oldest and my second daughter. So we have an 11-year-old and an eight-year-old, they're going into year six and year three. So I have 20 different books that I print out in their student planners. That's part of the student planners that I offer. It's a Canva template, so there's a place to put 20 different books. And so I pulled some books off the shelves and then I ordered some books, and those will be the books that they get to pick from for silent reading. So that'll be free read time. And I plan to do it where when they read one of those books, then they can pick a book of their own. Um, but we'll see, because I want them to read a lot of the books that I picked. Not all. I mean, they won't probably read all 20, but read a lot of them. And I get those books um from the AO free reads list. Some of them are just AO books that we aren't gonna fit into our day, and some of them are from the Sibley Charlotte Mason list, and some are just books that I want them to read. And so I'm gonna have a book bin for each girl, and so that they have books to choose from for silent reading time. So I'll be putting those together this summer and figuring out where I'm gonna keep them. Another thing that I want to fit into the summer that is not necessarily in preparation for the school year, but it kind of is, and I'll explain why, is nature journaling. So we do nature journal over the school year, but like I said, we live in Minnesota. So um going outside and observing nature in the winter, there's just a lot less nature to observe. Everything's like hibernating, birds have flown south, there's like very little happening with the plants, you know, um, it's a lot of snow and not a lot else. And so, yes, there are still things to observe, but trying to find new things every year and whatnot is just hard. Um, and so I like to save most of our nature journaling for the summer when every time we go out, there's new things, there's new birds, we discover snapping turtles in our yard, which keeps happening. Side note, um, you know, we can observe the crab apple trees in the spring, and then a few weeks later, all of the petals are gone, but now they all have leaves, and then we can watch the colors change in the fall and all of those things. And so we like to nature journal every week in the in the summer, if not more often. And so that way over the school year, if they just if we go outside and we're like, I don't know, it all looks the same, like we're just not inspired by it. We have still done so much over the summer that I don't have to feel guilty about it. And so that is something we're fitting in this summer. We're planning to do it um consistently, probably on Thursdays. Thursdays are kind of like our slow, slow day. And so, um, and I put together like a little nature journal caddy that we'll be using, which I also have a reel of that I'll put in the show notes. I'm not trying to plug a bazillion things in the show notes, but if you're listening to this and you want a visual for some of these things or to check more information about the things I've mentioned, I will throw the links down in the show notes for you guys. So that's something we're fitting in this summer. Another thing that I've put off, um, I mean, I do this over the school year too, but there's a few spaces in our home that really could use some love that I haven't had the time or the energy to tackle over the school year, and so I'm fitting that into the summer. Some of them I absolutely have to do, and then I also have a list of just some that if I get to it, great. But if I if it's stressing me out and I don't have the time, it's okay. It's not the end of the world if I don't get to it. So for most of them, one thing that I definitely need to tackle is our craft cabinet that gets kind of out of control every year, just as you know, all the kids have birthdays basically over the school year, and so with girls, they get a lot of craft kits and things like that, or we buy things for different art projects. We do the classy artist box that sends us amazing things every month, and so I need a place to store like the paints and the clay and the stuff that they get that we didn't fully use, and so I'm gonna go through, pull everything out, declutter, clean, and then put it all back. So that's something I need to do this summer. Um, just makes me feel a lot better having that done before the school year starts. But then there's just some areas like our linen closet upstairs that it's uh it's our kids' linen closet, and it's got like bows and toothpaste and nail polish and all the random things. It doesn't even have linens in it, um, but it's just got all that random stuff. And so, especially since it's the one the kids use, it gets messy and you know, you find random anytime kids are involved, you find the most random things, and so I need to go through it. Um, if I get to it this summer, great. If I don't, that's okay. Like if we have a rainy day, I probably will just go tackle it. It's not gonna take me a lot of time. I just like to save some of those problem areas that you try to stay on top of, but they just kind of get out of control. Um, I like to save those for the summer or you know, the dead of winter when we have like if it's a snow day and there's nothing to do, I'll do it then. But it's like the fall and the spring are usually very busy, and so it leaves. Um, I like leaving some of these things for the summer if I have the time. And so there's just some other random places in our house. Um, I want to go through all my clothes and declutter and reorganize them because I don't have a lot of storage space in our bedroom, and so it's getting a little out of control, and so just some of those things I like to tackle over the summer. Another thing I definitely want to fit in and have plans to fit in, and that is visiting friends and family. Um, this is definitely intentional and non-negotiable for us. Summer is when we make time to see the people that we don't get to see very often during the school year. I have friends who don't even live that far away, but they're super busy. We're super busy, our kids are the same ages, and so it's just hard to find time to get together. And so we make sure to get together over the summer. I have regular play dates with local friends. I have uh one of my best friends who has older kids. She's gonna see us a lot over the summer because she's like basically an aunt to my kids, which is beautiful, and so we have a lot more time over the summer to get together. So definitely fitting that in because relationships matter more than any checklist. And this is something that if we don't fit in before the new school year, it's a lot harder to fit in. And so it's definitely high up on the list of things that we make sure we fit in over the summer. And then lastly, the number one thing I'm aiming to do this summer is just to have a wonderful time with my family. Um, and that really should be number one, but that I set up my whole summer with that in mind. And I have a whole podcast episode about that as well of how I set up my summer to be slow and intentional, but still do a lot of fun things. And so I'll link to that in the show notes as well. So the whole point of everything on this list is to help clear the mental clutter and get the logistics handled so that when it's time to just be with my kids, I'm actually present for that. I'm not half distracted by all the things I should be doing. I'm not carrying around a background hum of anxiety about whether we'll be ready for the fall. I'm just there with them. I know everything's getting handled. I have it planned out of when. And then I've also decided just some of the things that aren't going to happen. Um, and that's okay. And I'm just choosing to release those or I'll put them on a list of rainy day activities, like I mentioned with the organizing. I'm not gonna get to every single thing and like fully check off my to-do list that's always going all the time as an adult. Like I'll never fully get to the end of that to-do list till I'm not here anymore. Um, and that's okay. But having a plan for all the things that I for sure want to fit in really helps protect my peace. So the big question is how am I actually managing all of this? So I know this sounds like a lot that we're doing, and I want to address that because I'm not sharing any of this to stress you out. I actually, that's the opposite of the goal of this episode. Um, and I don't want you to feel like you should be doing any of these things at all. Like if you're just trying to enjoy the summer and not fit anything else in, that is okay. Go for it. As long as you have a plan for what you want to do and you set out and you work to achieve that, great. Um, but if you are looking at the fall thinking, oh my gosh, there's so much I need to do, um, let this be an encouragement to you to decide what you're actually gonna do, decide what you're gonna say no to, and then make a plan. So this is how I'm approaching it. I have sat down um a few times. This wasn't just like a one and done thing. I've sat down a few times and I've assigned each of these things that I'm doing to a specific week of the summer based on what else we have going on. So some weeks we have swimming lessons or VBS or family visits or just a lot of appointments and things. And so I look at those weeks and think, hmm, that may not be a good time. Or when they have VBS and I just have my toddler, that may be a great time to get things done. It really just depends. So some weeks are quieter, some weeks are really busy, and so I plan all of these projects around our weeks. So I looked at the whole summer and I've kind of mapped it out. And then I took a realistic look at what I wanted to get done because my list was a lot longer of all the things that I was like, oh, I can't wait till the summer to tackle that. I would love to paint the kitchen that I haven't done for 11 years, and I would love to do this and do that and do the other thing. And then I went and said, hmm, okay, which of these are actually essential for my sanity and for our next school year and for our happiness and our peace? And which ones can wait? And so all the ones that could for sure wait, that I'm like, this absolutely does not have to happen this summer. I just took them completely off my list. And then the ones that I was like, okay, this would make me feel better, but if I can't get it done till the fall, that's okay. Like it's not gonna take me a long time. Um, or it's not super pressing, those are the things that I put on my rainy day list, or maybe we'll get to. So as I'm planning for the week, if I find any pockets of time that I could fit these in, great, but I'm not stressing about it. Um, because you know, if it starts stressing you out, that that's probably a sign that that is something you should fit in. If it's something that you're like, okay, just writing it down on a rainy day list takes away the stress because I know it's written down and I'm gonna refer back to it. Um, if that can take away the stress, then you're like, okay, this can wait. I just needed to put it somewhere so that my body can release it and my brain can release it. Then that's kind of a good sign of which things are more pressing and which you can kind of let go for a while. So then I will figure that out and I plan it out. I let things go, um, and I make my rainy day list. Um, and here's the thing that really makes this all possible, though. I already have systems in place for the day-to-day. So these are all extra things. I am not even including meal planning or laundry or cleaning. We already have systems for those. I already know exactly when they fit into our week. I honestly just don't really think about them a lot because they're handled. They're just routine. Um, to me, it's kind of like when you're driving a car to a destination and you somehow arrive there and you weren't really fully paying attention, but you got there safely. That's what my systems do for my life. I can be present with my kids, I can do extra things, organizing projects, work outside the home, work within the home, like do these things. And I'm not stressed about the cleaning or the cooking or any of that because that's just stuff that I've already made a plan for. So my brain doesn't have to actively think about it on a regular basis. Um, that is something I really want for homeschool moms, is for the things that we need to do to still happen, but not to control our peace or not to overtake our life. And so if that's something you need help with, I definitely want to help you with that. I have a whole systems PDF, it's called my starter glueprint, and that helps homeschool moms create some of these starting routines and systems that help them take all of these, you know, everyday things that we have to do and all of the chatter in our heads, and it gets it down out of our heads and into a system that over time, as we implement it consistently, it just becomes second nature and it's not something that we even need to really think about a whole lot. They just happen, like brushing your teeth or whatever, you know, making the bed if that's something you do regularly. You probably don't have to think about it a lot because just part of your routine. That's something I would love to help homeschool moms with. So I created my starter glueprint to really help you get started and know where to begin and how to begin. And so if you are interested in that, it's free. You can go to homeschoolglue.com/slash start to download it and you can start implementing it right away. It talks about some of the things I've mentioned in this episode, um, mostly the weekly rhythm. There's a whole guide to that, plus a place to actually write it all down and figure it out, and an example of mine as well. Um so you can have that as a reference. So I definitely don't want to just share all of this and leave you hanging. I want to help you actually start implementing. So if this something, if that's something you would like to do, just go to homeschoolglue.com slash start. Um, but I hope you are enjoying the beginning of the warmer months of the year. And I hope this episode gave you some ideas and just encouraged you that you can fit some extra stuff in the summer, but it doesn't have to completely overtake the peace and the freedom and the fun that you have, you can make it work for you, and then it's okay to let stuff go as well and make it work for you. So thank you so much for listening. As always, happy homeschooling and happy summer. I'll talk to you soon. I pray this episode blessed you and gave you something useful that will make homeschooling easier or more fulfilling. If this episode made you feel seen or gave you one thing to change this week, would you please share it and leave a review? That's how more homeschool moms who are struggling with overwhelm can find something that actually helps. You can always find me on Instagram at homeschoolglue where we talk simple systems, rich learning, and the real version of homeschool life. You don't need to do it all, you just need systems that stick. I'll see you next week. Happy homeschooling.