We took this summer off. I was reluctant to do so. I thought the girls would get bored and be at each other's throats. I thought I would be bored. I thought there was probably more stuff I should have covered.
Not at all.
It was AWESOME! I deep cleaned. I got organized for the coming year. I am pumped and inspired in a way that I have not been since we first started homeschooling. I think I needed the break to relax and STOP just going through the motions.
I have always been a pretty organized person. I like to be organized. I know that it doesn't work for everyone, but it's pretty much the only thing that works for me. Without a plan, I would just lay in bed and read all day. No joke. I would probably tidy up the house, grocery shop and feed my family, but that is about it. Nothing gets done without a plan around here.
I got too busy to organize the past couple of years, and especially last year, I felt like we were just going through the motions. But having the summer off gave me time to think about what is important, to come up with a plan and to implement it. I love that we get chances to try again, to learn from our mistakes!
Here is my organization plan:
Household Chore Chart
The girls are pretty much responsible for keeping the house clean and Jason and I do the deep cleaning periodically: washing windows and curtains, cleaning out closets and cupboards, organizing the attic and garage, etc. I generally do the laundry and we all change and wash our own sheets. We have used a chore chart for years, but it needed updating since the playroom no longer exists and Wednesdays we are out of the house all day so it is unreasonable to expect any chores to get done.
Grocery shopping
I have been trying to do this during the week and it frustrates me and takes away from our homeschool. SO~ I have decided to meal plan for at least two weeks at a time and grocery shop in the evening every couple of weeks. I can hit up the local farmers market until the weather gets cooler and they close for the season and then Costco is very close for fresh organic produce and dairy at great prices during the colder months.
Binders
I bought a 3 inch thick binder for each girl. In the past we kept these as portfolios. This year, we are keeping ALL OF OUR WORK in there. The print outs I made of my notes and ideas for Film Study are in there, the graphic organizers and things for history are printed out in there, Piper's science is in there, I photocopied the workbook we are using for Vocab and that is in there; I photocopied Mind Benders, Think Analogies and Balance Math and that is all in there. In one place. There is looseleaf for reports on CNN, Reading Detective and Writing Strands assignments. If we decide to add more resources to any course of study, we can open the binder and add the pages. At the end of the year, the girls will have a well-organized portfolio of their work. No more trying to find a notebook or piece of looseleaf paper. No more not having what we need printed or photocopied.
Math
I worked backwards from the day in June 2015 that we want to be our last day of school. I considered birthdays, vacations, holidays and activities each week and came up with Math Goals. I created a spreadsheet and each girl has it in her binder. Periodically we can look at it and make sure we are on target. I do understand that at times we may need to take more time with something they are learning and I did build in time for that.
Google Calendar
Perhaps my favorite thing that I did to organize us this year is to enter the first few weeks of assignments, goals, activities into a Google Calendar that I created for Homeschool. The girls and I will get emails every day or week (I am still trying to figure out which would be best) to keep us on track. I am very fortunate to work in a creative environment with a lot of young, very tech savvy people and one of them was able to show me how to sync my Google calendar with my phone and all of my and the girls' devices! So now we will get Morning Itineraries as well as Push Notifications on our phones, ipads and ipods to keep us on track. For some all those notifications may be annoying, but for us, we need them to keep us on track!
I am hoping this all works. I am determined to keep this chi and this calm that I feel. I am setting an intention to continue to practice yoga every morning and walk every evening with one of my girls. I am setting an intention to stay organized, for I know that if I am organized, I will be more calm and if I am more calm, I can think more clearly and if I think more clearly, I will be better able to convey my thoughts and ideas and if I can convey my thoughts and ideas clearly, we will go further and if we go further that will be AWESOME!
