Have you every thought about adding an orientation packet to your homeschool? What is a orientation packet and why should you include one in your homeschool? An Orientation packet is basic information or training that is given to people starting a new job, school, or course. I think it is a very creative way to add something special to your homeschool. It lets your homeschoolers know what to expect for the new school year. I believe your homeschoolers would love it! I know mines did.

One day I was reading a post on Instagram from @sparklearning5, she is a homeschooling momma of 3 beautiful children. On her very first post, she shared her welcome letter that she wrote to her children. Just scroll down to her very first post and you would be greeted with the welcome letter she wrote for her students.

I thought this was so brilliant! Well, it got my creative juices flowing, that’s when I decided to treat my homeschool with intentionality and purpose. I mean, I did before, but this time it was different.

God began to download into my spirit what to include in my orientation packets for my homeschoolers. I will share it with you just in case you want to bring in a little fun, intentionally and purpose into your homeschool. Feel free to copy my model or be creative and create your own orientation packets.

10 Things To Put In Your Homeschooler’s Orientation Packet

1. A Welcome Letter/ Agenda: Here is an example of my welcome letter.

WELCOME TO BEAUTIFUL MINDS ACADEMY

Hello Geniuses, welcome to Beautiful Minds Academy,

I am your homeschool teacher/mom Mrs. Genius and this is your principle/dad Mr. Genius.

This homeschool year will be different than any other year. The first thing I did different was to give our homeschool an official name and a logo.

The second thing I did different was to include an orientation welcome packet. This year we are going to have a blast! So put your excited caps on and learn about the fun we are going to have in our homeschool year!

Today will get to know each other all over again by playing ice breaker games, eating snacks, looking at our schedules, and setting expectations for Beautiful Minds Academy 2021-2022 Homeschool Year.  

Agenda: Including a agenda lets your homschoolers know what’s coming next and keep you organized when presenting them with all the important information you want them to know for your new homeschool year. Here is an example of my agenda.

AGENDA FOR BEAUTIFUL MINDS ACADEMY

• Welcome letter/ agenda
• Ice breaker: play games 
• Honors reward system
• School name, logo, mission statement for homeschool and family
• Supplies/ Backpacks
• Homeschool schedules and completed date of homeschool
• Daily schedule
• Look at curriculum/ subjects 
• Learn our classroom rules
• Chores

2. Ice breaker games: Ice breakers games are a fun way to bring everyone together and create some fun into your day. It also keeps the day light. Inside of my orientation packets I included my homeschoolers chores and rules for our homeschool. I know those topics can be a little serious, so to break up the tension I played a quick icebreaker game before we got started. I got my games from homeschoolhideout.com, she offer free downloadable ice breaker games for homeschool.

3. Honors reward system: I like to give my students an incentive for neat work, good attitude, school work completed, acts of kindness and chores completed. It gets them excited and it motivates them to work hard.

My kids really take their reward bucks serious. I love watching my kids strive for their set goals. At a garages sale last year I brought a lot of play money from a retired school teacher. This is what I use for my honors bucks. Here is an example of my Honors Reward System.

BEAUTIFUL MINDS ACADEMY HONORS REWARDS SYSTEM

This year I wanted to include a rewards system for good behavior, work completed, chores completed and acts of kindness. I will be giving out HONORS BUCKS at he end of the homeschool day, if I see you doing any 1 of the 4 things I listed above.

With your HONORS BUCKS you can buy honors treasures or you can save your HONORS BUCKS and exchange it for real money. For every 100 HONORS BUCK, you can exchange it for 10 dollars. This is a comlimentary reward to you for striving to be your best self.

4. School name, logo, mission statement for family and homeschool: I believe you should have a mission statement for anything your are of part of, and you should know your why because when things get challenging, you can look back over your mission and it can encourage you to keep going.

What is a mission statement: A formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual.

I go in details about this in a blog post I wrote titled Why Having A Mission Statement Is Important! Here is an example of my mission statement and logo for my homeschool and family. My logo is located right above number 4.

BEAUTIFUL MINDS ACADEMY HOMESCHOOL MISSION STATEMENT

Our homeschool day starts with honoring God and learning about our purpose on earth, we are life long learners who enjoys rich literature, stimulating conversations, questioning, having fun while learning, and having educational  cultural experiences. We love learning through traveling and exploring the world around us. 

We enjoy the freedom that comes with not being tied down to a traditional school life, as a result of it, we’ve being able to discover our beautiful genius mind and use our God given gifts, skills, talents and purposes to serve God, others and to create generational wealth for ourselves, lineage and the kingdom of God. We are building our family legacy through entrepreneurship, organization, Godly character building, self-love, integrity, honesty, forgiveness, confidence and trust in God, confidence and respect for ourselves and others.

FAMILY MISSION STATMENT

FAMILY MISSION STATMENT

With God first, we are life long learners who enjoys rich literature, stimulating next level conversations, luxurious environments and entrepreneurship.

We were created to have an intimate relationship with God and to tell others of his goodness. We each use our God given gifts, skills, talents and purposes to serve God, others and to create generational wealth for ourselves, lineage and the kingdom of God.

We are a family that loves to laugh, is unified, loving, beautiful, confident, healthy, wealthy and joyful!”

5. Backpack and supplies: This year to kick off my new orientation day, I brought them new back packs. This really made it fun! And of course all new school supplies and I filled their backpacks up with all things they need to make our homeschool day go smooth. I also included in their back packs yummy treats and little surprises. Like token gifts of things I knew each homeschooler would like. I allowed them to look at all the new and shiny things to get them excited about the new homeschool year.

6. Homeschool schedules and completed date of homeschool: I included our homeschool schedules and our end date. Here is an example our complete end date schedule and homeschool schedule

HOMESCHOOL SCHEDULE

We have to do 1000 homeschool hours in the state I live in. I plan on homeschooling for 6 hours a day and 6 days a week.

We are homeschooling on Saturday as well. Our Saturdays will only be filled with field trips and hands on projects, like art and science. Our 6 hours days includes gym and lunch. Our intended start time is at 8:00am and will end at 2:00pm.

I multiplied 6 hours per day × 6 days per week which = 36 hours of schooling per week.

How I came up with meeting my state requirements.

Since most months have 4 weeks. I then multiplied 36 hours per week × 4 weeks per month which equals 144 school hours per month. If a month have a 5th week. I will use that week as a break off of school week.

I then multiplied 144 hours per month × 7 months per year which equals 1008 hours per homeschool year. So we will get done with our homeschool year in 7 months.

We are starting our new school year June 2021 and will end our school year in January 2022. I will play with our free weeks and save them for special holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years.

7. Daily schedule: I included our daily schedule to help my homeschoolers get a fill for how our day will flow. I know everyday might not go exactly as plan but this is the goal I am striving but with flexibility.

BLOCK SCHEDULING and SUBJECTS

This is the first year I decided to homeschool school year around, if everything works out then my homeschoolers will complete 2 grade years in 1 school year, resulting in early high school graduation.

Morning block 7:30am breakfast. 8am -11:30am school work, that’s 3 1/2 hours of learning. Lunch 11:30 -11:55 Lunch.

I will read the Bible to everyone during breakfast at 7:30am. 8am – 11:30am we will start our math, reading, writing, grammar, spelling and have a snack.

Afternoon block 12:00pm – 12-45pm Gym. They also take swimming lessons after school hours 2 days a week, which counts as gym.

Early afternoon block 1pm-2pm history, science and a snack.

Saturday block 9am visual arts, music, make up work and field trips.

 8. Curriculum/ subjects: My kids love viewing all of their new curriculum for the year, it’s like Christmas morning. Here is an example of the curriculum I purchased for my 2nd, 4th, and 5th grader. I do have a 10th grader but she will get a seperate blog post.

CURRICULUM

My 2021-2022 Homeschool Curriculum Picks For My 2nd, 4th and 5th Graders

Math: IXL Learning

Reading: 180 Days of Reading for my 2nd, 4th and 5th graders.

We will be adding Abeka Handbook for reading phonics program and Basic phonics flash cards. 

Spelling: Spelling You See Jack and Jill level B for my 2nd and 4th grader.

American Spirit level E for my 5th grader.

Writing: Scholastic Writing grade 1 and grade 2 for my 2nd grader. 

Scholastic Writing grade 2 and grade 3 for my 4th grader.

Writing Fabulous Sentences and Paragraphs by Evan Moor for my 5th grader.

Handwriting: Cursive Letter Tracing 100 pratice pages for my 2nd grader. He also will be getting manuscript handwriting practice with Spelling You See. 

Daily Handwriting Pratice, Contemporary Cursive for my 4th and 5th grader. They also will be getting manuscript handwriting practice with Spelling You See.

Grammar: Scholastic Grammar grade 2 and Daily Language Review Grade 2 Evan Moor

Daily Language Review grade 4 and Scholastic Grammar grade 4

Daily Language Review grade 5 and Scholastic Grammar grade 5

Art, Literature, and Music from What your 2nd, 4th and 5th graders Needs To know books for their grade level.

Bible: The King James Bible and Story for Children Bible by Max Lucado, Karen Davis Hill, Randy Frazee.

Gym: For physical activities, all of my homeschoolers will be taking swimming lessons, outdoor play, walking, tramopline jumping, and bike riding.

9. CLASS RULES: Class rules sets the tone for what’s exceptable and what is not exceptable in your homeschool. It is important that everyone knows what is expected of them. When writing my rules I tried to write what I want to see being displayed amongst my children. Instead of saying no hitting, I wrote your hands are for helping and hugging. Here are my rules for my homeschoolers down below.

BEAUTIFUL MINDS ACADEMY RULES

1. We start each day with prayer.
2. When someone is speaking wait until they get done talking, then you can speak.
3. Raising your hands always show everyone in the room you have something important to say.
4. Our hands are for hugging and lending a helping hand. Use them for that purpose only.
5. Treat others as if Jesus was sitting in the room watching you.
6. Speak positive to everyone.
7. Show respect and kindness to everyone.
8. Honesty is the best policy so always tell the truth.
9. Making fun of others hurt their feelings, so keep comments positive.
10. Keep your area neat, clean and organized.
11. Only bring one subject to the table at a time.
12. Clean after yourself at snack, lunch and after school.
13. Respect others while they are still working and keep your voice down.
14. Be a team player and a good sport. Support each other and encourage each other to greatness.
15. Include everyone in your play, having empathy for someone is putting yourself in their shoes.

10. Chores: I give my kids chores and I list out in details how their chores should be done. They have a step by step list of what to do next. That eliminates asking me what to do.

I do give out chores according to their ages and what they can handle. I included it in my orientation packets packet because it teaches responsibility and I give out honors bucks if that task is completed. Here is an example of the chores I give to my kids according to their ages.

FAITH CHORES, age 15

Clean room: sweep floor, make up bed, clean out closet,  put shoes on the book shelves, put clothes in the dirty hamper, hang up clothes neatly on the hanger, spray room with perfumes spray. 

Wash Dishes: put up dishes in dish washer, Load dish washer and run it, clean out sinks, wipe down counter area around sink and faucet.

Laundry: put clothes in dirty hamper, check pockets for tissue and paper, load clothes in washer 32 minutes, transfer wash clothes in dryer, clean net for lent, fold and hang up clothes.

Clean tub after every use: Spray tub cleaner and wipe down tub throughly

VICTORIA CHORES, age 10

Clean room: sweep floor, make up bed, clean out closet,  put shoes on the book shelves, put clothes in the dirty hamper, hang up clothes neatly on the hanger, spray room with perfumes spray.

Clean Bath Room: Clean off counter top, wipe down cabinet, clean out closest, clean toilet with toilet cleaner, wipe down toilet, sweep the floor. 

BLESSING CHORES, age 8

Clean room: sweep floor, make up bed, clean out closet, put shoes on the book shelves, put clothes in the dirty hamper, hang up clothes neatly on the hanger, spray room with perfumes spray

Wipe down table and countertops

Water flowers

WISDOM CHORES, age 7

Clean room: sweep floor, make up bed, clean out closet, put shoes on the book shelves, put clothes in the dirty hamper, hang up clothes neatly on the hanger, spray room with perfumes spray.

Empty all trash in the bathrooms, 

Water flowers

That concludes 10 Things To Put In Your Homeschooler’s Orientation Packet. I hope this have inspired you to create your own homeschool orientation packets.

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Coach Angie!