How our homeschool is organized.

 

I live in a smaller house and we do not have the luxury of having a dedicated school room.  Here is how we have organized for this year.

Each child has a container for their books and work.  This is where any book they are using on a regular basis goes.  Next to it is our library basket.

Most schoolwork is either done at our kitchen table.

Our counter, or on the couch.

We have one main bookshelf downstairs and each of the kids has one or more bookshelves in their room.  I also have a large closet with our curriculum books. I have this small bookshelf next to our big one which is really a catch all, so my counters don’t get cluttered.

Around the corner from that is a 9 cubby shelf.  I have it organized from left to right, top to bottom; mail, random mom books and a pen caddy, my purse, books the older kids share for curriculum, crayons etc., our out the door basket (it has things like a lint roller, a hairbrush, sunscreen, bug spray, kids sunglasses, etc.), nothing, curriculum that we are using but not daily, our science kits from Physics Quest.

On top of the shelf I have my household binder. and some random things that need to be put away.  I have a family calendar hanging on the wall as well as the library calendar and a community even calendar on a clipboard.  The dry erase board I use for lists of all kinds.

Living in a small house and homeschooling so many proves to be challenging at times. So I have resorted to using our hallway to teach All About Spelling.  Sometimes we use the hallway to teach other things as well.

What can I say we learn everywhere! 

Simple tricks to get little ones to help you with laundry.

Laundry is not my favorite activity. 
I just had to find a way to pawn it off on my kids. 
No, I am only joking. (sort of)

Here is how I taught my 8 year old to do laundry.  Really, if I would have thought of this sooner I could have taught her sooner.  Stay tuned below to see some laundry tips from me.

I used a Sharpie marker to show the line where she should fill the laundry soap up to.

I used the same Sharpie to mark a star on the washer where she would put it for regular loads.









She is able to turn the water on this way.  She is not aloud to wash from the Whites/Specials bin or from Daddy’s Work Clothes bin.  I can’t tell you how much having her simply switch the laundry helps me out each day.

I have came up with a few tips that will get your little ones helping with the laundry. 

Let’s start with the wearing of the clothes.

• I make them wear their pajamas two nights in a row. (unless of course some catastrophic event causes otherwise)
• I do not over buy clothes.  My children have about 7 everyday outfits each.  The more clothes your family has the more the laundry can pile up.
• I do not let them change clothes unless required – like to dirty to go somewhere or to clean to do something.
• We have dirty clothes hampers throughout the house.  One in each bathroom (except the guest) and one in each of the kids rooms. 

Okay how I wash the clothes.

• I do a batch or two a day.  I do not have my older kids wash just their own clothes.  They are all required to help switch the laundry when it needs it. 
• I set a morning alarm to start the laundry. I set an alarm in the afternoon to switch it over.  I set a final alarm in the early evening to do the final switch to the dryer.  If the alarm goes off and I am not home, I text someone who is to switch it. 
• I taught even my 8 year old how to do the laundry. (My older kids too!)
• We have simple laundry sorters.  Darks, Lights, Towels and Sheets, Daddy’s Work Clothes, and Whites/ Special
• If something needs special washing you are required to put it in the Whites/Special bin yourself. 
• Every day I assign someone to be in charge of laundry. They have to collect the dirty clothes, sort them and start the first batch. As well as switching out subsequent batches. I am the only one who can do the whites/specials. We do a rotation for laundry and dishes jobs.

The hardest part.  How we take care of laundry.

• I have a “clean clothes area” in my bedroom.  That is where the designated laundry person must take the clothes to after they are dry.
• Every 2 or sometimes 3 days we all get together in my room and someone sorts the clothes into piles of who’s they are. Someone folds towels. Someone helps Tyler (3 years old) with his clothes. Everyone is responsible for taking care of their own clothes.
• Doing it this way only takes about 10 minutes every night and we all just work quickly and usually listen to some music while working.

Do you have any more laundry tips?

Once A Month Grocery Shopping.

I have a friend that goes down to the city and grocery shops once a month.  I decided to give it a try. I am no professional.  This was my very first time. I am sure I still have quite a bit to learn.

Here are the steps I took:

1. Inventory the pantry, fridge and freezer.  Clean them all out. Make a list of any meals you have most of the ingredients for. Make a list of any meals you have all the ingredients for, or any freezer meals you have stocked up.  I also made a tally sheet of how many servings of each type of meat I had in the freezer.

2. I made a list of about 30 dinners total.  there are approximately 5 that repeat.  I then listed out 15 lunches and each of them will repeat once for 30 days worth of lunches.

3. Make the grocery list.  It needs to include all ingredients you need, perishable and non perishable, breakfast items, snacks, and drinks. 

4. Sort the grocery list (this can be combined with step 3.  List it out by canned food, baking supplies, meat, produce, frozen, breads, etc.  (base it on your stores aisles.) I also put the produce on the back.

5. Plan for it financially.  I went with my total monthly grocery budget.  I only spent 1/3 of it!  I decided not to buy all my produce, milk or bread.  (see below)

6. Go shopping.  Eat before you go.  Make it a fun date with your husband, it’s a lot of work.  I was grateful for the help and time I got to spend with mine.  Get a babysitter. DO NOT TAKE THE KIDS! I repeat, DO NOT TAKE THE KIDS!

7. Come home.  Sort and take care of the food.  Any meat you buy put into meal portion size containers (precook some if you want, I didn’t do this since shopping and the 3 hour drive was enough for me.)

8. Menu plan out by week.  Write down any produce you will need for the first week.  Buy that.  

Repeat step 8 each week.

Do not wander around the grocery store you are getting your produce at.  Go in, get what’s on the list and get out.  NOTHING EXTRA. 

I have saved more than 1/2 on my grocery budget by doing this just for one month. I will update each month. 

I made a list of all the lunches and dinners for the month and hung a dry erase board inside my pantry door for quick and easy planning!

Do you have questions for me about this?

I’d love to hear them!

Teaching a distractible child in a distracting home.

Learning happens in all places at our house.
It has to.  With a small house and 4 children learning it can be hard to pay attention to what you are supposed to be doing.  I have found my own little tricks and ways of making school fun and being able to get it done. 

Here Katey is doing a math page in a fort.
 
I even made her a little office one day when she was having a hard time staying focused because of her brother.


Sometimes we do school just at the kitchen table too.

Here Tyler is building a tower with blocks.

After Katey’s schoolwork is done she joins him on the floor.

How to make a jewelry holder on the cheap.

First you get any old frame (no glass or any insides needed).
You paint it any color you want.  We had left over paint in the garage from painting our chicken coop so naturally, I chose that color.

You use some screen fabric, you could use tulle or lace, even just regular fabric you poke holes in.

We tried stapling in with a staple gun and the screen wouldn’t stay flat.  I opted to hot glue it in to place.
You get those teeny tiny hooks and have someone else screw them in.  It is easier if you drill a guide hole first.

Then you hang it on your wall.  I used three Command Strips so I knew it would hold all my jewelry.

TA-DA!!!!

Oh yes, I purposely did it crooked so it would hold more necklaces, since that is the bulk of my jewelry collection.


This is linked to Works For Me Wednesday over at We are THAT Family.


This has been part of the Blog Cruise.  Check it out to learn How To do lots of other things! 

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Busy Bag-A-Thon ~Week 4~

 

Here we are in our 4th and final week.  Thank you for joining me each Sunday with our Busy Bag-A-Thon.  In case you missed Week 1, Week 2, or Week 3 check them out!

 

1. Simple coloring book page puzzles.  Color and cut out a simple coloring book page and turn it into a puzzle.
2. Bucket of animals into an egg carton.  Have your child use a spoon or tongs to transfer objects to an egg carton.
3. Shape sewing.  Thread yard through a simple shape.  Use a hole punch around a theme picture.  Have child thread yarn through each hole.
4. Magnetic letters.  Spell words or practice letter or sound recognition.
5. Put the fire out.  Color a fire on a small sheet of paper and write a number on it.  Your child needs to use that many toy plastic firemen to put the fire out.  (Firemen are available at the dollar store.  Other ideas here could be how many Indians fit in the Tee Pee, how many soldiers fit in the tank, etc.
6. Simple children’s board games like Topple, or Jenga.  Then child can play these games alone.  Think about what fun quality time this would be to spend with your child.
7. Homemade number flashcards
8. Melting beads.  Even if you don’t melt the beads every time, or if your child doesn’t finish the project, think of the hand dexterity used for this activity.

Thanks so much for joining me this past month.  I hope you gained great insight as to activities that will keep your toddler/preschoolers entertained and more!

Don’t forget to follow Family Style School.

This is linked to:

We are that Family / Works for me Wednesday

Busy Bag-A-Thon Week 3

 

Welcome to week 3 of our Busy Bag-A-Thon.

If you missed week one and week two check them out!

This week has some ideas for older kids as well. 

1. File Folder games!  Many can be found at File folder Fun!
2. Coloring book and crayons
3. Stacking cups
4. Felt Cupcakes.  Cut out cupcake part shapes and have child assemble them
5. Math games.  This one is from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
6. Play dough and play dough mats.  Put sheets of paper inside sheet protector for playdough fun!
7. Simple puzzles from the dollar store
8. Shape tracing- cut shapes out of foam.  Have child trace onto paper
9. Mad libs.  You can read and write for younger kids.  These are always great to keep in your purse for older kids.
10. Sound matching games.  This one is from Kidssoup.com
11. Sticker sheets and blank paper.  - This is great for those free sticker sheets they send you in the mail.
12. Kid Song CD’s.  This one is from Maestro Classics.
13. Small plastic container and lid matching.  This one is for numbers, but can be used for many things, letters, colors, shapes, etc.  These are from the dollar store.
14. Animal Sorting game.  From Homeschool Creations.
15. Electronic Flashcards… However, you can make your own version of this by using regular flashcards and playing games with them.

Is planning for the spontaneous?

“To fail to plan is a plan to fail” 
That’s what they say anyways.
I find that to be somewhat true in my life. 
You see, I am spontaneous. To the point that I eloped with my husband, to the point that we picked up and move our entire family to a small town where we didn’t know anyone or anything about it.  So spontaneous in fact, that one day we just pulled our kids out of public school and began homeschooling.  Yep!

Well I am proud to say that I have been HAPPILY married for 9 years, we love our little town, and our homeschooling is going strong!

You see, none of those things were planned for.  However they are all successful due to planning.

My marriage: We made a plan to always communicate.  ALWAYS! 
My town:  We made a plan to try and find happiness.  ALWAYS!
My homeschool:  Let us go into a little more detail with that one.
First of all we have created a homeschool schedule.
My next best friend has been simple flexible (remember, I’m spontaneous) planners.
I have 2 main planners. One is specific to my Five in a Row plans,  since that is quite a teacher intensive curriculum, it gets it’s own binder. The next one in my main planner.
Let’s start with the FIAR planner.  In here I have sheets for planning which I downloaded a while ago from a blog that is no longer.  I see that Proverbial Homemaker has a very similar one.  On  the bottom is where I write a few themes of the book as well as any additional things I may need, such as food, or other items I still need to purchase.








Behind each book specific sheet I have some worksheet type activities. For this book she will be notebooking and some ordinal number pages. 

I also have a file for FIAR activities. In these folders are pieces or activities that don’t fit well in the binder. 
This includes things like lapbook pieces, our geography disks, any cut outs and anything I have laminated. 

The rest of the homeschool planning is all done in my Mom Main Planner.  I use mostly planner pages from Schoolhouse Teachers.  
In the very front I put any papers I may need quickly, kinda a misc spot.  In the front right now I have a sheet from 4H inviting me to leader training.  I have a few contact papers from items I am reviewing.

I also have my Mom Fun School pages in there.  These are 2 pages back to back that are in sheet  protectors.  I write on them with dry erase markers.  Obviously  Thursdays are our co-op day in the afternoons so I don’t plan fun school on that day.  That day is also my library check out/return day.  Our co-op classes are usually at the library. 

When I plan my Mom Fun School, if I am planning a unit study like this simple machines one we are working on right now. I usually type it up and print it.  The reason I type it, is I save it on my computer to be able to click on any links I have saved. 
Behind all that, I have tabs for each kid as well as a FIAR tab and a tab for Tommy’s math, (which is where the answers are). 
Behind Katey’s tab it has her weekly planning sheets, which I do type out.  I only print 2 weeks at a time, back to back, that makes it easier for me to move plans when we have a spontaneous day.
The next page is the current FIAR page we are working with.  Obviously in my planning we don’t fully follow the schedule.  So I just cross of what we have done and work on what we haven’t yet.  I plan out FIAR about 12 books at a time every 15 or so weeks, I need to leave room for….. whatever!  
Oh and at the back, behind that FIAR tab is where I keep my blank planning pages as well as a yearly schedule.  I also do much of my FIAR planning on my Pinterest Board. As you can see we have already had to move a few books around.

Emily’s plans look like this….

She is doing Prairie Primer so much of her work is in that book.  I just list the numbers she is to do.  I have plans to type hers up, since I think it looks so much nicer, but I have already written hers out so we will finish up with the written ones.  I will print hers out a book at a time.   I plan Prairie Primer out about a book or two at a time. 

Tommy’s plans come next.  His is very similar to Emily’s his are also written and I do plan on typing his up also, but only printing 2 weeks at a time.

Do you have any good planning tips for me?