You have heard before that if you fail to plan that
you plan to fail. This is especially
true in home schooling.
Organization is not always something we are born
with, sometimes it is just survival.
When you home school, and have littles running around, organization is
the difference between getting your goals accomplished and pulling out your
hair!
I am sharing with you about two things I have
implemented to get and stay organized, even though I use way more than
these.
One thing that has helped our home school day
tremendously is Sue Patrick’s Work Box system.
I have pictures on my blog that show how we have made this work for all
five children that are doing school.
Next year we will add another at school age, and that will leave just
one baby to manage whilst doing school.
In a nutshell, the workbox system is simply a $12
shoe rack from Target or Wal-Mart, with 12 clear plastic Sterlite shoe boxes
without the lids at about $2 each. For about $40 including tax, this gives you
twelve places to store their school things. You use one for each task or
subject that you would like them to accomplish.
They are numbered, and you include any items needed to accomplish what
you set them, so there would be a pencil in every box that contains
worksheets.
The idea is to get them to function as independently
as possible. If you have multiple kiddos
to teach or occupy this becomes absolutely invaluable. At least until evolution catches up with our
need for eight arms.
Your upper grammar aged children (around 8 to around
age 12) should be able to do a great deal of work on their own, with you
possibly giving instructions or a short lesson and then setting them on
task. This takes a great deal of training,
especially if you have accomplished school in another manner up till now, but
it is really worth the investment! The
author says she trained hers at 18 mos to use these; I have not started that
young, but definitely by age two & ½ or three. These tasks are more like coloring or a quiet
activity they can do with little help.
Again, the training is time intensive at first, but you really reap
great rewards!
You can mix up the boxes with self directed tasks
and tasks that require mom intervention.
Since I work with more than one student, I try to put a few independents
in a row, and then a mom’s help is needed here box, then at least another
independent box.
This system works well with any age and any
curriculum. But what if you have a
student that is dyslexic or an older student that this is too juvenile
for?
For my older students, I bought Sterilite 6 drawer
craft carts on wheels, and didn’t install the wheels. These have attached lids, and are 12x12, so
larger books and projects fit nicely.
For my highschooler, I stacked one on top of another to give her enough
drawers. For my two fifth graders they
each have one set.
These are pricey, at about $40 each, but well worth
it. When the baby comes by and pulls out
a drawer, the lid is on it and clicked closed so it is very unlikely that
anything falls out.
The benefit of the workbox system is twofold; one,
it keeps your student on track, and they can see how much they have
accomplished that day and how much more they have to do, and two, it forces you
to decide what you want them to do each day.
Keeping your home tidy enough to do school in is
just as important as planning out your school day. This has derailed us many more days than I
would like to admit. It is hard to do
school when you have jelly or syrup on the table and dishes stacked to the
ceiling. And who can snuggle up with all
those great Sonlight readers when every couch and chair in the living room is
covered in laundry?
The best book on chores that I have found is Managers of Their Chores. This has been
an invaluable tool in our home, and despite my fears that the Maxwell’s would
be way stricter than I could ever maintain, this system has worked well for us
for the past three years. When I got
this book, I dove into it like a desperate woman pregnant with baby #6.
Essentially, every kiddo has a “chore pack” that
they carry around with them while doing chores.
In the pack are the paper cards that tell them which chore to do. They look at the card, do the chore, and
then move the card to the back of the pack. When they are done, they move on to
the next one, repeating till they are done with all their assigned chores.
The beauty of the system is that there is no longer
a need to nag them to do the next thing.
You spend a goodly amount of time instructing them on the way you expect
the chore to be done, let them practice till they are confident they can do it
alone, and then turn them loose! Of course there are consequences for not
getting the chores done.
Also, Mrs. Maxwell tells you to only keep your house as clean as your husband expects! This was so freeing to me! Perfection goes out the window, and reality
comes to shatter the all or nothing attitude that keeps most of us frozen and
walking around in chaos. She also lays
out safety tips, and what you can reasonably expect out of children at certain
ages.
What this looks like at our house: every morning the
kids get up and come downstairs to get their chore packs. They do roughly 13 chores each before we
start school at nine (hopefully)! They look like this for my nine year old:
#1 make your bed
#2 get dressed
#3 put away your pj’s
#4 brush your teeth
#5 brush your hair
#6 wash your face
#7 bring down your dirty clothes
#8 get breakfast and help your buddy get breakfast
#9 unload dishwasher
#10 mop kitchen
#11 tidy upstairs bathroom
#12 feed chickens
#13 be ready to start school by 9am!
Then they have afternoon chores to get done before
dinner time. This keeps our house livable. Not spotless, not really company ready, just livable!
And my husband doesn’t wonder what we did all day.
A few extra things that I use to keep myself
organized:
- I keep a mom notebook with general stuff that I use nearly every day, so that I don’t have to hunt it down all the time.
- I keep a teacher’s notebook for our curriculum, things like answer keys to the maps and quizzes, teacher’s notes, etc.
- I keep a clipboard with me at all times, with my to do lists, grocery lists, menu for the week and even what clothes I need to buy for each child. You would think I could remember, but with seven, I can’t. This clipboard is my external hard drive. Yes, it is a scary time when I lose it. I even take it to bed – it lives on my nightstand!
- I also keep a yearly planning binder, with the broad picture outlined for the year. Mostly this is high school stuff, with credits, course descriptions, semester plans, a master calendar, etc.
Lastly, always have a backup plan! When your day
goes south for whatever reason, make sure you have things to help you make the
most of whatever mess you find yourself in.
These would include: Bill Nye the science Guy DVD’s from the library,
books on tape, geography puzzles, arts and craft supplies, and educational
videos.
Free planning sheets and lots of other printables at
www.donnayoung.org
Posts
