When you stop to consider the phrase, it’s odd. There really is never any such thing  as “time out.” We can’t take ourselves out of time, just drop out. Still, the summer is a great break from school, which is what I mean by time out. It is time not to have to hit the lessons every day.

But, as you all very well know, mothers never have “time out,” from our responsibility as mothers. We may not be teaching school right now, but we really can’t afford not to use this time well. Though the pace may not feel all that much slower than the school year—days at the lake, swim lessons, golf lessons, summer camp, picnics, camping, ball games, pool parties, garden work . . . we do have to make time to prepare for the next school year. Before the alarm clock starts regularly waking us to face another day of spreading the feast, we could take some hours here and there right now, during our “time out” to make ready. That schooling will come again, as surely as the clock hands never stop, the seasons never cease. We can’t pretend it won’t. We can, however, make its beginning less daunting.

Is there anything more panicky than entering into a school year unprepared? Many of us—maybe most of us—have had a time or two and would prefer to avoid that slap-dash mess again. We can prevent this by taking some afternoons or mornings in June, or July, to do some valuable preparatory work. Probably two-thirds of the moms I speak to in consults this time of year had unexpected, sometimes horrific, circumstances arise this past year that they were unprepared for. We never prepare for illnesses, deaths, accidents, and other life interruptions that throw school off the rails. Being prepared cannot forestall the unknowns ahead of us in the coming year, but it sure can make the trip through the next year smoother, even when those unexpected and unwanted difficulties come unannounced. When it comes to spreading an abundant feast, an appetizing feast, a delightful feast, preparation is both wise and necessary.  Here are some things to do:

1.  Take a deep breath, and before you even think about what to prepare or plan first, clear the decks. Get the schoolroom, shelves, cabinets, desks emptied out. Make four piles: sell, give away, throw away, put away. Forget all those lovely expensive items you still do intend to use some day. If you haven’t looked at it in a year, pitch it. If you tried it once and found out it was a mistake, pitch it. If you think it’s wonderful—or all your friends use it—but you can’t figure it out, pitch it. If your children have outgrown it, pitch it. Choose the best math manipulatives, the ones that you actually use most, and get rid of the rest.

2. Make a list of things that would improve that school center—new paint, new bookcase, bookends, new pictures, paint on the walls? Cross off the things you can’t tackle physically or financially, and do what you can to make things more cheerful and more usable. Give that marker board a good scrubbing.

3.  Get out the scheduling cards for the forms your children will be in this next year. If you have a form II student, use them to design your base schedule. Add the other children’s particular times to that. Leave it and return to it another day for one last fresh look, then put it into your spreadsheet or your favorite planner and be thankful that that big job is over. This is the most important preparation you can make for next year’s success.

4. Subject by subject, decide on the books to be used. Order them. When they arrive, make sure they are the correct ones before putting them on the shelves.

5. Start a page in your notebook of the supplies you will need. As you work your way through the subjects, jot down any items you will need, special notebooks, science supplies, writing implements, atlases, paints, batteries for the timer . . .

6.  Start with the top subject and, one by one, review:

A. Why your child needs this subject. Get understanding of the purpose.

B. What is to be learned in that subject. Get understanding of the content.

C. How you are to teach it. Understand the way to implement those lessons.

This is where your trusty podcasting friends and Miss Mason’s books come in to help you understand the why, what and how of each lesson. Remember all those days last year you bemoaned your inability to understand Sloyd, Swedish drill, or brush drawing? Now is your chance to spend an hour some lazy summer afternoon actually figuring it out.

7.   As you examine each subject, ask yourself what you could do now to get ready for this subject. There is always room to make general forecasts to pace the lessons so you don’t get ahead or behind or forget to read that book altogether. Look each subject over and prepare. For example:

• You may not think through each Bible lesson, but do you have the Teacher Help planner or know the chapters to cover?
• Don’t know how to use map questions? Try out a lesson and see how it goes with just yourself as the student.
• Choose your three composers and pick out 11 pieces for each, make a playlist for each.
• Cut out your new reader’s vocabulary cards and put them in envelopes or storage bags labeled with the name of the story they accompany.
• Make a playlist for the composer of each of your three terms—11 pieces each.
• Find the recitation passages for each child for all three terms. Print them off. Collate each child’s pieces and label them term 1, 2, and 3.
• If this is empowering, go at the foreign language. Choose the poems, songs, make vocabulary lists and think of some basic conversational sentences you could manage.
• Pick out some of the books your older kids may read on their own and read or skim through them so they are not foreign territory.
• Learn a couple of new steps in your handicraft pursuits and test them out.
• Call the dentist and doctor and schedule your appointments for your term breaks.
• Make a list of simple menus to use during school weeks. Which ones can you teach your children to make this summer? Assign them days to make lunch or breakfast or dinner and get them in the habit now while there is time to do it.

Your children are growing up, so teach them the chores they can move up to next.

Really, there are many things you could prepare now that will smooth the next year’s lesson weeks no matter what eventualities arise. You can probably think of many things I haven’t included, but this is just to get your wheels turning. Don’t try to tackle all these things in a day, or one week, but do some bit of it every day, or every other day. You can choose the time now, but when the relentless pace begins again, you will again not have time to do these things.

I hope you all have a lot of fun this summer. Even school preparation can be fun when you don’t have to perform the very next day. There will be plenty of planning and problem solving days during the year, but a little preparation now will make that far less burdensome if you take time out to think ahead.