Staying Organized - Schedules, Charts, Bins, & Books

In order to homeschool I think it's pretty vital to stay organized. But maybe that's because being organized is one of my passions ;)

PLANNING THE WEEK
Planning our homeschool week used to take a couple of hours. I would usually do it Sunday evening or Monday (while my kids were at the charter school). However, now there is minimal planning because in all my curriculums I just follow along in our different books. Lots of books. Lots of book marks. In the perfect world I would do prep work on Sunday nights and have our youtube videos or coloring pages printed out, but now I just find them and print them right when I need them.

My School Binder
I have a binder with divider tabs in it for each subject. When I print off coloring or map pages for History, I stick them in the History tab and know where to find them when I need them.

My Weekly School Chart
I no longer use this. But here it is just for reference sake. Basically, this is a chart of everything I wanted us to complete that week. It needed to be updated weekly and was useful when I was coming up with activities myself. However, now that I am just following along in our different curriculum books, I no longer need this.

Kid Weekly To-Do & School Chart
This is the main chart I use ALL THE TIME. I have tweaked it many times to fit each child's needs. It's divided into "jobs" (make your bed) and "school" tasks. And among all the tasks, the ones I have to help them with are bolded. That way, if I know I have 30 min to help child #3, we can hammer out the things he needs my help with. Then he can get everything else done on his own. Or if it's a day we're not doing school, he knows just to do the "jobs" portion. It does need to be printed weekly. Each child has their own chart and I cross off each task once its complete.

Weekly Schedule
I used to use a wall calendar and would write all our activities on it. This was useful when my kids were younger. Now the older ones have their own phones with a family calendar on it.


I'm Bored Chart
My kids have more free time than other kids. They have at least two hours of free time after lunch, plus whatever they had before breakfast. Over the years they've had a lot of practice coming up with activities to keep themselves busy without relying on me or on screens. This is definitely a skill to be learned and practiced. Sometimes they do need a little guidance from me, so I've typed up a list of all the different activities I could think of and have it displayed in our kitchen.
I updated this list during quarantine...

 

Screen Chart
I used to use this chart to keep track of their screen time. Now I keep track on their weekly school chart. We have tweaked their "screen rules" many times over the years. But here's a way to keep track of their weekly screen time if that's the method you're using.

ORGANIZING OUR STUFF
Keeping our books and supplies organized is also very important. It's very frustrating when I tell someone to "write a sentence in your history book" and their history book is nowhere to be found. So here's what we do with all of our "school stuff". 

School Room
Every house we've lived in since we began homeschooling has had a designated school room. In our last house it was the formal dining room that we converted into the school room. I had to purchase a storage cabinet for all of our school bins (and I used the coat closet too). In our current house we have a guest bedroom downstairs that has been converted into our school room. This room has a closet, which is very convenient for all of our supplies. In this room there is a school table (long and rectangular, it used to be our dining table),  our upright piano, a storage cabinet, a large wall map & timeline, and a large white board. I know some people do school in their kitchen, but I prefer having a separate room so we don't have to clear off the kitchen/school table every time we want to eat.

Bins
Every person, including myself, has a bin for their school books (notebooks, workbooks, teacher guides, etc.). When school starts we each just grab our bin and put it by our seat at the school table. (Yes, we do have assigned seats to prevent unnecessary quarreling). *Update - we now use backpacks instead of bins. That way we can take our work on-the-go easier.

Books
In their school bin, each child has a:

• History notebook - Any writing assignment we do that is mostly historical goes in here: biography based writing assignment, current events, history coloring pages or maps, etc.
• Writing notebook - Any other writing assignment goes in here: poetry, literature based writing assignments, spelling & vocab, etc.
• Math workbook
• Beast Academy workbook (Math supplement)
• Handwriting workbook
• Science notebook 

Supplies
The supplies we use all the time are left out on top of our storage cabinet in the school room. These include crayons, black pens, colored pens, colored pencils, markers, tape, glue & scissors. All other craft supplies are put away in a bin in the closet.

*Since this post, we moved again. We now have a designated school room that is actually supposed to be an office. It's complete with desks, cabinets, shelves, etc. We keep our backpacks in the cabinets and our supplies in the drawers and cabinets. A school room can be made out of any space you have on hand - kitchen, bedroom, dining room, or even car.

Subjects and Curriculum

Here is some info about the subjects we do, how we do them, and what curriculum I use for them.
For each child, we work on their toughest subject first. This way they're done with their hardest subject first which helps keep the frustration down in the latter part of the day.

Math
Each kid has their own Math workbook. I have used Oak Meadow for the last 11 years and will continue to do so. I've looked into other Math curriculum, but I've never liked any of them enough to switch. I like the order & sequence of Oak Meadow. I like how they use tangibles, every day activities (like cooking & measuring), physical activities (jump roping), and even some crafts. By 5th grade the child can read through the instructions himself and only receive minimal help from me.
Oak Meadow doesn't continue into the higher level maths. So once in Algebra, we switch to Larson (our math tutor helped us choose our new math book).
We also supplement with other materials (see below).

Curriculum we use:

• Larson Algebra
• Oak Meadow Math Workbooks
• Beast Academy - my math brain child uses this as a supplement. I don't understand some of it, but it's great for him to see math from different angles. 
• Pattern Press - I'm using this for my kindergartener in addition to Oak Meadow. They do a great job explaining math, numbers, patterns, etc. And they make it fun with lots of games and tangibles. Even my older kids have learned some new things by listening in.

Curriculum we've tried:

• Khan Academy - computer program. We enjoy this as a supplement, especially my boys. But I no longer require it in their school day.  I think my boys will still do it when I let them have computer time. 
• Life of Fred - stories of Fred and his adventures using math in the real world. My oldest read them all. I was reading them to my youngest, but when cutting things out to make our school day shorter, this is one of the things that had to go. 

Memorization

This is better for younger kids. They can memorize so easily. I pick one or two things a week for them to work on.

Curriculum we use:

• Scriptures, Proclamation quotes, Articles of Faith, Inspirational Quotes, Poetry, Tongue Twisters, Times Tables, Religious Songs, Nursery Rhymes, Church Themes. 

Religion
Everyone is reading their scriptures alone as well as a Friend or Conference talk. And every day one person shares with the rest of us something they learned from their reading.

Curriculum we use:

• LDS standard works (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants)
• Come Follow Me
• Church magazines
• Scripture Stories (for my younger kids)
• Bible videos (lds.org)

Curriculum we've tried:

• My Book of Mormon Study Guide by the Red Headed Hostess - this has potential but it's too advanced for most of my kids.

Reading & Literature
For Reading, my younger kids must read one chapter a day out of an approved book (not a graphic novel). My older kids must do more than that (and they can listen to the audio version).

For Literature, I read aloud (or we listen to) a classic I've chosen that goes along with the history time period we're studying. We have a packet to follow along with which includes background info on the author and time period, socratic questions (and answers), literary devices, plot diagrams, etc. I love these packets! I recently found them on CenterForLit.com. I was searching for something to make our literature lessons more quality and discussion based, and which would decrease my prep work. These are so perfect that I joined a monthly subscription so I could have access to them all.

Another resource I recently found which I love and wish I had sooner is the Timeline of Classics from Institute for Excellence in Writing. In the past, every year we'd start a new history phase, I'd spend hours and hours searching through The Well Trained Mind to find the literature books to buy that go along with that history period. The book is not organized with this in mind. Page flipping. Page losing. Different lit categories in different sections of the book. And then different ages in different sections. This was a huge and very time consuming project. Enter the Timeline of Classics. It is organized chronologically by history with only the best literature included. And every title has E, M, or H next to it (elementary, middle, high). It's perfect! I still have to buy our ancient books, and it will be so much easier to do so with this resource!

Curriculum we use: 

• Misc classics from the Medieval (or Modern, or Renaissance...) time period. (Shakespeare, Beowulf, Robin Hood, Knights of the Round Table...) I've gotten most of my ideas from The Well-Trained Mind (and now the Timeline of Classics, and Center for Lit). 
• Other classics for my younger kids. (Frog & Toad, Little Bear, Oak Meadow Fairy Tales). My younger kids are in the same room as us while we're reading, but some of the books we've read are too advanced for them and they lose interest in them. So if that's happening I try to read some other fun classic to them.
• Literature Packets from Center for Lit (also called Ready Readers or Teacher Guides)
• Audio books. Jim Weiss is THE BEST. 

Curriculum we've tried:

• Oak Meadow syllabus - this is what I used to teach my oldest three to read.  It's very fun and age appropriate with crafts and stories and art projects. 
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Engelmann - this is how I taught my youngest to read. It worked great.  
• Oak Meadow uses classics for literature as well. So we've always been doing classics. The only difference is Story of the World uses classics from the same time period as history whereas Oak Meadow chooses classics that they believe fit in with a child's personal development (Fairy Tales for young kids, books about rebellion and discovering oneself in high school). We've enjoyed both ways, but I prefer the Story of the World way because the literature books reinforce our history lessons. And because it's easier to read the same book to all of my kids instead of a separate book for each one.

Writing
Institute for Excellence in Writing has history based writing books. They work. They reinforce what we're learning in history and literature. They're organized. It's an orderly, systematic, understandable way to teach writing. And by the time they've gone through one book, they know how to write essays as well as creative writing. We've done the Medieval book, the Fun & Fascinating book, and are currently using the US History (for my older kids) and the Bible Stories (for my younger). We love how the Bible Stories book reinforces what we learn in our religious studies. It's a great writing method. They have a teacher course (dvds) which I took and recommend. I might have been lost in their curriculum if I hadn't first taken the teacher course.

Curriculum we use:

• Institute for Excellence in Writing (look for the Theme-Based Writing books) 
• The Center for Lit - instructions for plot diagrams, Socratic questions, literary devices, etc. (We still use but now for Literature and not for Writing).

Curriculum we've tried:

• Oak Meadow 4th & 5th Grade Syllabus - instructions for story boards, book reports, creative stories, research papers, poetry.
• Writing Strands - instructions for listing, reporting, paragraphing, dialogue, letters, etc.

Handwriting & Typing
Even though typing is taking over the world, I still believe handwriting is an important skill. Especially because my oldest's handwriting was pretty terrible a couple of years ago. As soon as we started using a real handwriting curriculum, it improved dramatically.

Curriculum we use:

• Italic workbooks
• Misc cursive workbooks
• Mavis Beacon Typing - this computer program is how I learned to type! Fun games and typing lessons.

History
For history, we listen to Story of the World and watch short YouTube videos that go along with it (we love Crash Course, Ted Ed, and a few others). My older kids have to take detailed notes, my younger kids do coloring pages, etc.
Story of the World doesn't include much US History. So last year I felt we should take a break from SOTW and focus on US History. I read two chapters a day from A History of US while they take notes.

Along with this, my kids write one sentence in their personal journals every day. And once a week they have to write a current event (which I find beforehand).

In the perfect world, I'd also be reading to them from a biography of whoever we're learning about. But this is one of the first things to go if we're in a rush or tired of school.

Curriculum we use:

• Story of the World - It is so wonderful, we all love it. It brings history to life and makes it interesting and memorable.
• Story of the World Tests - my workbook-loving son enjoys these.
• Story of the World Activity Book - has coloring pages, map pages and other enrichment activity ideas to go along with each section of Story of the World.
• A History of US
• YouTube videos - we love these. Some of us aren't great listeners, so seeing a video really helps 
• Misc biographies
• News for current events

Curriculum we've tried:

• Oak Meadow syllabus grades K-4 - these are all inclusive lesson plans that have fun history activities to go along with what you're studying. You start by progressively learning about yourself, your house, your community, your state, your world. They fit well with a child's development and understanding of his surroundings. We thoroughly enjoyed it, however, I wanted to teach all my kids the same history subject, not each individually. So we stopped using it and switched to Story of the World.

Art
We used to do art at home, but my kids now go to a private art class (paid for with our charter school money). I love it so much. It's such a high quality class. And I love not having to do art myself.

Curriculum we've tried:

• Discovering Great Artists by Kohl & Solga (this includes all the biographical and project instructions)
• Various Art History books (I studied Art History in college and have many on hand). It's usually easier to just look the artwork up online and show them lots of different images of it.

Music
I have printed off a chronological list of the greatest hundred composers of all time (I don't have a website for this, but I just googled it). Sometimes we read a biography excerpt about the composer. I have the music playing during (parts of) school. They have to write the name and date of the composer in their history book. We've found some great music we didn't know about doing this.

I am teaching my kids to play the piano, my son and daughter are taking guitar lessons, and my younger daughter is in a singing group. We also have other instruments with instructional books that my kids and I play around with occasionally.

Curriculum we use:

• Misc list of great composers
• Faber Piano Adventures (an organized, simple, easy-to-teach and easy-to-learn method of learning and teaching the piano. I had piano lessons for twelve years, so I have a solid understanding of piano and music, but if you wanted to teach yourself or your kids the piano without having this background, you could do so using these books).
• Misc piano pop songs (found online)
• Misc easy church songs (churchofjesuschrist.org has simplified hymnals for beginning pianists. They also have a list of all the easy piano songs that have ever been printed in The Friend). 

Science

Science is not my forte. For the last month I've been wondering how to do a better job with it. We used to do science kits, which were fun, but in no organized order.  Then we slowly transitioned to just watching YouTube videos, which are interesting and less effort on my part. I researched different science curriculums looking for one that is fun and interesting and which has experiments that require minimal prep and effort on my part. And I found one (that I had heard about at the homeschool conference years ago!). It's called Berean Builders. And not only is it in story format, with simple questions, fill-in-the-blank notebooks, and simple experiments, but it is organized chronologically through history (so it will correlate perfectly with our other subjects), it incorporates math (so my kids will understand that math and science go together/the importance of math), and it talks about famous scientists and their discoveries in an easy/biographical/story-telling way. I actually can't wait to start it! We'll still be watching YouTube videos, but now I'll find them to go along with whatever we're learning in this curriculum.

Curriculum we use:

• Berean Builders - Science in the Beginning (younger kids), Exploring Creation with General Science (older kids)
• YouTube  

Curriculum we've tried:

• Science in a Box kits - these are fun. One box or kit has everything you need to study the topic with hands-on experiments. 
• Oak Meadow Syllabus - fun, hands-on, stories, outdoor explorations. We no longer use this because I'd rather teach all my kids the same science lesson versus each child doing their own.

Spelling & Vocab

My oldest child is a great speller, but my middle two need spelling help. My daughter uses Spelling Workout (a boring workbook).  My son uses All About Spelling. It is PERFECT for him. It explains all the rules, has flash cards and lots of review. He is slowly transitioning from the worst speller I have ever beheld, to a competent one.

Curriculum we use: 

• Spelling Workout - just a boring workbook.
• All About Spelling (plus their app that goes along with it)

Curriculum we've tried:

• Oak Meadow 3rd Grade Syllabus - list of 500 most commonly used words
• Our Scripture for the week
• Our current Literature book

Spanish
We've tried this off and on for years. I don't focus on it as much as I should to help them really progress. But they'll be taking Spanish in high school so I want them to have a taste of it beforehand.

Curriculum we use:

• Spanish Rosetta Stone

Computer

My kids have taken various computer classes at the charter school. They've taken coding, graphic design, and a basic computer class that taught word & excel. At home they used to spend 20 minutes a day on the computer doing either typing, math or language arts. But I've found that they weren't learning much and were progressing very slowly. So I've cut everything unnecessary out and have only kept typing. They'll learn to use the computer whenever life directs us that way (if they need to type something up, I'll teach them how). They're more tech-savvy than I am now, so I'm sure this will be easy. Plus they can take computer classes at the community college.

Curriculum we use:

• Mavis Beacon (typing)

Curriculum we've tried:

• Khan (math)
• Lexia (language arts)
• Rosetta Stone (Spanish, switching to Latin)
• Misc educational & non-educational games & websites

THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF SUBJECTS WE'VE DONE IN THE PAST THAT WE NO LONGER DO.  In the past I would hear about friends doing all these subjects, and it would make me feel that I wasn't doing enough for my kids and that they would have holes in their education. So we tried doing it all. But I found that it made our school day too long, they were just doing the bare minimum (and so was I), and that a lot of this really wasn't necessary for my kids because we spend so much time on reading and writing. Because we had so much to "get through" we would spend less time and attention on those things that we are passionate about. So as a result, everything was suffering.

Grammar
We chose a scripture for the week (which by now had been written on the white board) and take it apart grammatically.  We used different colors for each part of speech and write the abbreviation on the scripture that's on the board. For instance, my son would find all the nouns and writes a blue "n" above them, my daughter would find all the verbs and write a yellow "v" above them, etc.

Curriculum we've tried:

• Oak Meadow Syllabus (where we got the idea for the colorful grammar exercise we do. I used these to teach my kids how to read).
• Fix-it Nose Grammar- this is fun and quick and the kids enjoyed it, but it was one of the excess workbook items I found unnecessary.
• GUM workbooks- these are dry and my daughter hated them (my son didn't mind them). I don't like the layout order and that it's a workbook with no real interactive lesson going on.
• Lexia - computer program. Good reinforcement and they can actually do it without my help.

Latin
We've tried doing Spanish. We've tried doing Latin. In both cases, we do the bare minimum, don't spend enough time on it, don't make it a high priority, and really don't learn much at all. So we will no longer be doing either. I still own Rosetta Stone for both languages. So if my kids every show an interest in learning either, they'll be able to do it on their own. Latin really was interesting and beneficial in understanding English better, plus there are so many Latin references all over English in general and English literature. My oldest son particularly enjoyed it. However, we just don't do it as we should so I think it's best to spend more time making our other work higher quality.

Curriculum we've tried:

• Latin Rosetta Stone
• Prima Latina
• Home-made flash cards of the Prima Latina vocab

Logic
Logic is introduced in the "Logic Stage" of a Classical education (about 5th grade). So only my oldest has done this. He enjoys it, but we now only do it as a supplement occasionally. His deductive reasoning is already very good, so it's unnecessary for him. Maybe I'll use it more regularly for my other kids (or maybe not).

Curriculum we've tried:

• Mind Benders - written fun puzzles to solve by deductive reasoning
• Red Herring mysteries - fun read-aloud riddles that help you think differently

The Homeschool Schedule - Yearly, Weekly, Daily

Our yearly schedule:

School is year-round. Three days a week we do homeschool. Once a week we have tutors (music, math, art). And once a week we have a Field Trip day (beach, museums, etc). On field trip day we don't do any real school work, so it's a very fun, hands-on-learning day.

Over the last two years we went on many ski trips throughout the winter. So we cut out most of the field trip days and did school four days a week instead of three (plus the day of tutors). That way we didn't have to do school during our trips. 

We do not take a break during the summer. I tried it once, and it's horrible for so many reasons. However, I cut out most of their school work and focus on the most important subjects (math, reading, religion, music). 

Here are a few of the reasons we don't like summer break:

#1- The kids forget everything they had learned in April & May. The entire month of September is a complete waste-of-time review. Or you could say the entire months of April & May are a complete waste-of-time because you'll be re-learning it in September.

#2- My kids' independent play time ability falls apart without our regular school routine going on. All of a sudden they're given a big chunk of free time that they're not used to having. Even though my kids are really great at coming up with things to do, for some reason it works a lot better when it fits into our regular school routine (ie. school in the am, lunch at noon, free time from 1-3pm). They become whiny, dependent, and they constantly ask to play on screens (tv, computer, ipads, etc).

#3- I ignore my kids too much. When we don't have our school routine going on, I get busy doing my own projects that I usually don't have time for. Which is AWESOME. However, I could go days and weeks without giving my kids any real attention. And then I start feeling guilty for it, our relationships suffer, and my kids start acting out because of lack of attention.

Our weekly schedule:

Monday- Thursday - homeschool days (plus one of those days is tutors)

Friday- Fun day/Field trip day. This is our favorite day, and we are so very lucky to have it. Our kids play a lot of sports, which take up most of our Saturdays. Sundays are reserved for rest/family activities. So having this free day allows us to do all the things we would normally want to do on Saturday, and do it on a day when there are no crowds! We go on outings like the museum and the fair, we go to the beach, we relax at the pool, we learn new skills or do projects around the house. I feel very lucky and blessed that we still get a free day plus my kids can still do the kinds of sports that have games on Saturdays.
Saturday- sports, play with friends, etc.

Sunday- church, family activities, etc.

Our daily schedule:

6-9 ish - I work out, do scripture study, meal prep for the entire day. Or sleep in if I need to.

9-1 ish School (with a break for lunch)
1 ish - Once the kids are done with all their school and jobs, they have free time (and so do I!) By this time they are tired of being told what to do and happily go off and play independently or together. This is also my productive time. I can get caught up on my to-do list, work on projects, etc. I occasionally join them in their play. 

3 ish- Sports. Every day every child has something (except my youngest). Swim team, water polo, basketball, volleyball, etc. I use this time to work out if I haven't yet, or be productive. Plus of course shuttling them around (with the help of carpools).

6 ish -  Dinner. We probably only sit down all together twice a week because we're all over the place with sports. 

9-10 ish - Bedtime. I hate how long bedtime takes (brushing teeth is the worst). We try to lay with each child every night (although this never happens with the teenagers anymore). It's great for one-on-one time, it has helped keep our relationships solid, and it has led to some deep conversations about moral issues. We're now trying to find other times to have one-on-one time with our teens. My husband takes one kid to Costco with him every week, which they all love. 

Our Homeschooling Journey - Embracing Change

Homeschooling equals change. You change, your kids change, it makes sense that the way you homeschool changes too, whether it be your methods, curriculum, or daily schedule. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that if something isn't working, you can seek inspiration on how to fix it, and make the necessary changes. We are all blessed with access to personal revelation. God answers prayers and wants you to succeed. He will bless you with the right person to talk to, article or book to read, podcast to listen to, etc. So don't give up. Just try and try again.

We "began" homeschooling nine years ago. At the time I had a five year old son, three year old daughter, and one year old son. We used a Waldorf curriculum called Oak Meadow. Waldorf is beautiful. I still love it. But it's not the easiest to use when you're teaching more than one child and they're getting older. But at the time it worked fabulously. We did art projects, we molded letters out of clay, we spent lots of time playing indoors, outdoors, together and independently. There was minimal sit-at-the-table "school work". And it was always something fun that they enjoyed like using water colors to paint an "A".  The "school day" was short. Which was perfect because I had younger kids who needed my attention. My younger kids would do our school work with us because it was art projects and play time. In a nutshell- school was short, it was fun, and there was lots of play time. I had plenty of time to pursue my own interests. I picked hobbies that I could do with my kids nearby (gardening, baking, cooking, canning). I didn't have much alone-time, but I didn't really need it because of the types of hobbies I was choosing. I took my kids to the YMCA where I had access to two hours a day of child watch. This gave me time to work out, be alone, take care of myself, and interact with other adults.

We continued this Waldorf homeschool style through a rough pregnancy and then a newborn-in-the-house stage. I had done school in the summer so we were ahead of schedule for the times I knew we would need to take off. There were times when we were just in survival mode due to illness or sleep deprivation (lots of tv and minimal school work). But we always got through those times somehow and back to our ideal homeschool schedule.

Our Waldorf phase lasted for five years. I had a friend who was starting to go more Classical with her homeschooling, and certain aspects of it really appealed to me. One of the biggest draws was being able to teach certain subjects to all of your kids at the same time. (We'd been doing entirely independent curricula with each child and at this point my third child was starting to receive real homeschool instruction). The other draw was the use of classics for literature that went along with the history being studied. I read The Well-Trained Mind (by Susan Weiss-Bauer) and planned out our new homeschool curriculum and schedule (quite a big project). I made the change to mostly Classical with my older two, but I still used the Waldorf curriculum with my Kindergartner. (It really is such a wonderfully fun way to teach letters, numbers, etc.) This change meant that my older two (at the time ages nine and eight) started doing more lecture-style, workbook based schoolwork and less hands-on creative projects. It also meant we started using Story of the World for history (one of my all-time faves), and for read aloud literature we started using Medieval classics (Robin Hood, Knights of the Round Table, Beowulf, etc.)

I received some other Classical curriculum ideas from my friend who I had copied and from The Well-Trained Mind. We spent more time doing school and a lot of it had now turned into workbooks.  School was now taking us at least five hours on a good day whereas it had been taking us maybe two. I felt like we had a very academic homeschool and thought we were doing a better job because we were doing more subjects and were doing school for a longer time period. However, this schedule and style began to take a toll on us. Especially on my daughter, and on my relationship with her. My boys thrived on this type of school. But my daughter and I struggled through every single day. I didn't really think anything was wrong. I just thought that if I helped her get started earlier, or gave her more individual help, things would get better. She told me she wanted to go to public school, that her worst parts of the day were school, and that she felt like her brothers were smarter than her because they could get done with their stuff faster.

This schedule also posed new difficulties for me personally. School was taking longer which meant I had less time for myself. Any spare time I found was used on getting through my to-do list. I still had the two hours of child watch at the Y, so I still kept my sanity. But when 1 PM passed and we still weren't done with school, I slowly (or not-so-slowly) morphed into a mean, bossy, unsympathetic mom. Looking back at that year and a half of workbook intensive Classical homeschooling, I can see now that it was definitely our worst year. But even a month ago, I still didn't have a clue that we needed to make any big changes. 

Then I went to the California Great Homeschool Convention. Besides homeschooling, going to this convention has been the absolute best thing I have ever done for our homeschooling career. It was two and a half days of lectures from various homeschool celebrities (curriculum writers, older homeschool parents that have already done what we're doing, family "experts", etc). The entire conference was full of the Spirit. I received so much inspiration. So many ideas. There were two main (huge) ideas that hit home to me and inspired some big changes in our homeschool. And there were so many little ideas that I've also been incorporating but have to do with little superficial changes. It was literally an outpouring of inspiration and ideas and took me a week to get all my thoughts in order and start implementing all the wonderful ideas I'd received.

The first huge idea came from Dr. Kathy Koch in her "8 Great Smarts: Discovering and Nurturing Your Child's Intelligences" lecture. There are eight different ways in which people learn. Everyone has more of some and less of others. The "smarts" are: Word Smart, Logic Smart, Picture Smart, Music Smart, Body Smart, Nature Smart, People Smart and Self Smart. Sitting in the lecture I (of course) started determining which Smarts my kids are. My boys both have a lot of Word Smart, Logic Smart, and People Smart. And (lightning bolt) my daughter is Picture Smart, Music Smart and Self Smart. Is it any wonder then that she had such a hard time with the way we had been doing school the last year and a half? We had cut out all the art and craft projects, and forced her in a little room with four other people doing lectures and workbooks! :(

The other inspirational idea came from Sarah Mackenzie. I went to two of her lectures and my friend gave me her "Focus & Align" Master Class Workbook. Just completing the workbook was life-changing. It helped me determine what my main goals and purposes for our homeschool are, and how to implement them into our daily routine so that they really happen. In the workbook, you visualize what your perfect homeschool day looks like. You imagine your kids in twenty years talking about what you were like as their homeschool mom (and what you wish they would say). You ask your kids what subject they would do all day if they could, and what their most frustrating part of the day is. You ask yourself what would "light you on fire" if you could teach it all day. And then you use all this info to make your "Rule of Six" (your top homeschool priorities) and your "Words to Live By" (reminders of how you want to be as a homeschool mom). So I did all this while I was sitting in other people's lectures. I had a good idea of what the changes were I needed to implement (cut the excess out). I got onto my excel school spreadsheet and started cutting things out. But then I got stuck. I just couldn't do any more. I knew it wasn't right yet, but what more could I cut out?

During the second of Sarah Mackenzie's lectures that I'd been to, I was sitting in the back of the room, on my computer, pretty much ignoring what was going on in the lecture. And then she started talking about cutting out the excess! She used the analogy of backpacking. When her husband first started backpacking he got all the cool gear he thought he'd need. Packed it all up. Started on his backpacking trip. And enroute regretted that he had so many unnecessary things in his pack. (My husband and I go backpacking and are familiar with this experience). Now when he packs for a backpacking trip, he takes the absolute minimum he possibly can. Even to the extreme of cutting off the handle of his toothbrush. Upon hearing this analogy I immediately went back to my excel spreadsheet and knew what else I could cut out. Literally EVERYTHING that wasn't absolutely essential. We didn't need five different writing exercises. (My boys hate writing). If  they're already writing for scriptures (we copy a scripture every day), then why do they also need to be writing for Writing, Literature, History and again for Grammar? Every day we were doing our main Math workbook (still using Waldorf Oak Meadow by the way), plus Life of Fred, plus Beast Academy, plus a Logic exercise. So I cut all that out and we now do one Math supplement each day instead of all three. Oh how liberating this was. To recognize the essentials and cut everything else out.

It has now been almost a month since I went to the Homeschool Convention and since I implemented some major changes to our homeschool. I would define our new and improved homeschool method as a mix between Waldorf, Classical and Charlotte Mason. We spend three hours a day, three days a week "doing" school. We only do the most important things and I've combined a lot of our subjects to help cut out the unnecessary (we break apart our daily scripture grammatically, we find spelling and vocab words out of our own writing samples or the literature book we're reading).   In addition to cutting out almost all of our workbooks, we've incorporated more visual aids, art projects and music for my daughter's sake. A lot of our time is spent on classic literature (my recently acknowledged passion thanks to the "Focus & Align" workbook). For the preservation of all our sanity, especially my own, we have at least two hours of personal free time every day. And we now have time to play together again like we used to. I am happier and more peaceful. My kids are happier, especially my daughter. School is fun, and life is full of joy.

The moral of our homeschool journey is: don't be afraid of change. Seek inspiration and you will find it. Do what works for you and not what's working for someone else. And above all: enjoy your kids and your homeschooling experience!

7/2019 Update: Three years later, this post still applies. My youngest is now 7, so our days of Waldorf are waning. I tried to implement parts of the Charlotte Mason approach, and succeeded for awhile, but I slowly started cutting it out because it required more effort (planning?) on my part, rather than just following along in our books. So now, I would define our homeschooling method as  Minimalist Classical Christian. My go-to resources are Come Follow Me,  Story of the World,  The Well Trained Mind, Institute for Excellence in Writing, Oak Meadow Maths, and youtube (we love CrashCourse!).  I've been pretty good at keeping the excess out, but when I feel like a child needs something, I add it back in. Over the past couple of months I've been self-reflecting about our schooling and what I need to do better. So we're now also using Center for Lit, and I'm very excited to start using Berean Builders for science. All of these resources are Christian. I can't use charter school money for any of them. But it's worth it. And all of them follow along chronologically through history - even science! So what they're learning in science, writing, literature, and history all build upon and reinforce each other. Pretty great! 

Purpose of this Blog

I recently listened to a Read Aloud Revival "Author Access" by Andrew Clements. One of the things he said really struck me. He said: you either talk, or you write. I have never been a talker. One thing I love about my husband is that he is great at expressing himself verbally. He can argue, he remembers facts right when they're needed in a discussion, he's convincing. I admire it in him because I am not like that and I have always wished I were. When I heard "you either talk, or you write" I realized for the first time that I may not "talk", but I DO write! I've always kept a journal, ever since I was a young girl. When I struggle with an issue, I write it all out to get my thoughts in order so I can figure out the root of the problem. I love being organized, especially on paper. I recently asked my son what I'm good at and he said "you're really good at making lists!" I make excel spreadsheets and to-do lists for everyone in our family. I have pages and pages of notes from all the different "self-evaluations" I've done over the past six years we've homeschooled. I've NEVER considered myself a writer. In fact Beginning Writing was the one class I postponed until my senior year at BYU because I was so scared of it. But, I guess I'm a writer!

Over the past six years I've been asked a lot of questions about homeschooling. What does your day look like? What about time for yourself? What philosophy and curriculum do you use? The list goes on and on, but the biggest one is: Why do you homeschool? Of course I have my answers. My very well-researched, well-thought-out, probably written-out-somewhere-in-all-my-notes answers. But when I'm in the moment and someone throws a question like that at me? My mind goes blank! It is so frustrating. If Steve is around I look at him to either take the conversation out of my hands and answer the questions himself, or to at least give me prompts or reminders of what my real answers are. If he's not there I reply with a blundering half-answer that doesn't really answer the question being asked. And what ever does come out of my mouth definitely does not have the passion, clarity and inspiration that my real, well-thought-out answer would show.

So, the purpose of this blog is to direct my friends, family, acquaintances and I suppose strangers to my REAL homeschooling answers. And hopefully my passion and love for homeschooling will shine through here like I wish it would in person. ;)