Hooray! It’s the end of the homeschool year!
While you and your kids definitely deserve a celebration at the end of the homeschool year, it’s also a great idea to do these important tasks too.
Getting them done now, instead of waiting until summer when things are less busy, will be well worth it!
Why?
Because having a sense of completion is a great feeling.
In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, our brains are hard-wired to seek this sense of completion because it brings a sense of pleasure and accomplishment.
That’s part of the reason why your kids love to finish the school year!
As a homeschool mom, you deserve to feel that same sense of accomplishment too!
What to do at the end of the homeschool year
Here’s a quick look at the top 9 tasks we recommend that you think about at the end of the homeschool year:
- Complete any required testing
- Take care of record-keeping
- Review main ideas
- Compile homeschool portfolios
- Sell or trade your old curriculum
- Have a parent-child interview
- Decide what you’ll do for summer learning
- Schedule a time to plan for the next school year
- Have an end of the year homeschool party
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1. Complete any required testing
Depending on the state where you live, your kids may have some required testing to complete.
You probably already have an idea regarding state-required testing, but if you want to check, simply Google “homeschool testing requirements” followed by the state where you live.
Some homeschool moms like to give an end-of-the-year homeschool test, even if it is not required by your state law.
The California Achievement Test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills are two of the more popular standardized tests that homeschoolers take.
For more information on these tests, click on the links below:
If testing is not required in your state, and you don’t feel a need to do it, you can cross this item off your list right away!
2. Take care of record-keeping
Although it may not be the most fun end of the homeschool year tasks, record-keeping is super important.
Taking the time to do it now will be so helpful!
Here are some of the things you may want to keep records for:
- attendance record
- curriculum completed
- list of books read
- field trips taken
- co-ops or classes attended
- goals achieved
- letter grades by subject
To make your end-of-the-year record-keeping easier, check out the Free Resource Library here at The Reluctant Homeschool Mama! You’ll find book and reading list forms, field trip review forms, curriculum trackers, goal sheets, and more.
Get access by clicking right here or on the image below!
There have been years that I haven’t done our record-keeping at the end of the homeschool year, thinking I’d remember what we did when the fall came around.
Haha! Not so much.
Learn from my mistake and remember: taking the time to do this now will be a big time-saver later!
3. Review main ideas
You may want to have a big review session with your kids for each of their main subjects.
For science, we take a look at the science unit studies we’ve completed and make a list of our top five favorite demonstrations or experiments.
(You can check out some of our best unit studies right here!)
Many math curriculums provide a cumulative review or course completion test.
For history, we go over the work we’ve done in our Story of the World notebooks and each kid chooses their three favorite chapters to share with the others.
4. Compile homeschool portfolios
Depending on where you live, you may need to submit a portfolio of your kids’ schoolwork to the school district.
If that is the case, the school district should provide all the detailed information you need for putting together an acceptable portfolio.
Even if you’re not required to submit a formal portfolio, it’s still a good idea to compile a homeschool portfolio of your kids’ best work.
Simply go through their schoolwork and pull out the best five to ten times per subject that they completed during the school year.
We have this exact giant hanging file folder bin where I keep all of our kids’ work throughout the years.
Not only is it great for record-keeping, but it is also a lot of fun to go back and measure their progress!
5. Sell or trade your old curriculum
If you know that you’ve finished a particular curriculum, consider selling or trading it now while it’s fresh on your mind!
Maybe your youngest child has completed their reading curriculum (hallelujah!), or you know you’ll be switching to a different science curriculum for the next school year.
Selling or trading curriculum now will also help your schoolroom to be less cluttered and will put extra money in your pocket for when you buy next year’s curriculum!
6. Have a parent-child interview
One of my absolute favorite things to do at the end of the homeschool year is holding a parent-child interview.
Kids love to sit down individually and share their thoughts about their homeschool experience.
Plus, I’ve found that it helps them to feel more invested in their schooling when they know their opinions and ideas have been heard.
There’s a great Parent-Child Interview form available for free in the Reluctant Homeschool Mama’s Resource Library, which you can get access to right here if you haven’t already!
7. Decide what learning you’ll do over the summer
You may be a year-round homeschooling family, in which case, you’ll already have your summer learning plan in place.
But if you do take a summer vacation from homeschool, it’s still a very good idea to have some type of summer learning plan.
Summer learning loss is a real phenomenon. Studies as recent as 2020 have shown that more than half of kids lose up to 39% of what they learned during the school year over the summer break.
This is why it’s so important to have a summer learning plan in place: as a homeschool mom, you don’t want all of your hard work to go to waste, right?!
Summer learning can be as simple as continuing to read aloud to your kids, doing Khan Academy online, or having them complete a fun summer workbook.
(We love the BrainQuest Summer workbook series!)
For some fantastic ideas on how to prevent summer learning loss, check out this article here!
8. Schedule a time to plan for next year
Scheduling a time to plan for next school year doesn’t mean that you need to actually do the planning for next year!
Just choose a general time when you’ll start prepping for next year and pencil that into your calendar now.
9. Have an end of the year homeschool party
Finally, take some time to celebrate the end of the homeschool year with your kids!
Completing another school year together IS a big accomplishment – for your kids AND for you, too.
Final thoughts about the end of the homeschool year
Taking the time to get some of these tasks done now will be a huge factor in helping you feel a sense of completion about the school year.
And when you feel a sense of completion, you’ll be better able to relax and rejuvenate over the summer months before the next homeschool year begins!
Related articles about homeschooling:
How to Create an Amazing and Personalized Homeschool Calendar
9 Traditions to Make Your First Day of Homeschooling Amazing
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Which of these end of the homeschool year tasks do you most need to do?
