A schedule that works!

Let's get one thing out in the open. I am NOT naturally organized. Never have been and never will be. I started out homeschooling with a 5yo, 3yo and 1yo.  Of course at the time I thought it was really hard. Now I look back and realize how easy I had it!  We did our school work when we felt like it and got our state required 180 days in easily.  If I had a new baby, we took time off without guilt. Now that the children are older I feel like we need some more structure to our schedule. I'm still working on our daily plan but I have put together a yearly plan that I am in LOVE with!

It all started when an online friend was telling me about how she was scheduling her year and I liked a lot of what she was doing.  I took some of those ideas and tweaked them to fit our family (one of the many perks of homeschooling) and am very pleased with the results.

2013-2014 School Schedule

The Planning Process

I started out by looking at each month and marking any times that we normally end up not doing school. You know......times like the week of Christmas when life gets so busy and school just doesn't naturally happen. I scheduled those weeks off.

Then I made notes of other times my husband is off work.  There are a couple Mondays in there that he has off work so I schedule those entire weeks off school for us as well.

Next I looked at our extra curricular activities and took any time off that would be a busy time for us, such as the week of the local children's theatre show.  Last year we did do school the week of the show but it was HARD to get it all accomplished and would have made for a much more relaxing time had we not attempted it.

I wanted to get done by a certain date and I did NOT want to go more than 6 weeks in a row doing school.  I am good in spurts but need a break or I will burn out.

Using these steps I was able to get all 180 days scheduled and be finished by the end of May. Of course if we end up going longer it's not the end of the world. ;-)

Creating The Schedule

Next I made a spreadsheet of the months with 4 or 5 weeks (depending) listed for each month. The 5th week is colored gray if that  month does not have 5 weeks in it this year.  Some weeks don't have 5 days because of the way the calendar falls so I made a note on those.  I noted the number of days each week in the green highlighted column and left myself space to make tally marks with a pencil once each day is completed. This has been a great tool for me to check that box and see how far we have gotten in the year and if we are on schedule.  Any weeks that we are taking a break are marked with purple.

The schedule ended up in sections of a few weeks at a time, which was exactly what I wanted.  We have some things that we will do every school day, but there are other subjects that I preferred to do more of a unit study with. I set time aside each day for a "family elective".  This is noted on the schedule with red letters. 

My oldest daughter has some subjects that the younger ones don't have.  I have a special time for her to work on those subjects each day as well. Those are her electives and are noted with pink letters.

I don't have every item that we are doing on this yearly schedule.  There just wasn't enough room, but this gets the majority of it all in one place for me to see visually what the plan is. For record keeping and our daily schedule, I use the online scheduler at Simply Charlotte Mason. I find their scheduler is very intuitive and it helps me keep things straight.

I hope this post has gotten your creative juices flowing and will help with your school year plan.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Have children. Will travel.

Can you find the stroller in this picture?


 
Believe it or not, there is in fact a stroller there.  It is buried under 2 car seats, 1 booster seat, diaper bag, insulated cooler bag, computer bag and duffle bag.

This, my friends, is how we made through the airport.  Also pictured are 4 kid-size suitcases and a backpack.

We had also shipped a box of Summer season clothes a week or so before the trip. That helped a lot and cost about the same amount of money it would have cost for another checked bag on the plane.





Saturday 2/18/12
1:15 p.m.
We packed  shoved everything and everyone into our minivan and headed for the airport.

2:00 p.m.
Potty break at a McDonald's near the airport.

2:30 p.m.
Arrived at the airport. Todd dropped me and the kids off with the stack of luggage you saw earlier. We checked our one very large suitcase and the rest were carry on bags.

3:15 p.m.
Todd had parked the van and took a shuttle back to find us. Here's a picture of the kids while we were waiting.

 3:20 p.m.
We started on our trek to security and stopped for another potty break.

3:30 p.m.
Loaded back up and ready to go. Todd carried the large duffle bag. Silas had the backpack and a pull-behind suitcase. Ellie, Avrie and Evelyn each had a pull-behind suitcase. It was slow going but it worked out really well to keep them busy lugging their suitcases around. No one ever thought to run off. I stayed at the end of our little train to make sure they were all heading in the right direction.

3:40 p.m.
We made it to security. They saw us coming and actually opened up a separate area so we didn't hold up the line. (Why would they ever think it would take us longer to get through? LOL)

I had the children dress in easy on/easy off shoes but it turns out that anyone under 12yo doesn't have to remove their shoes. woot!

They let all of our food go through, but had to rub something on each baby food jar to check it for possible explosives. On the other side of security we had to re-assemble our makeshift car seat holder. (We used bungi cords to keep everything on the stroller.) Each child was responsible for their own suitcase, so again they were quite busy. They sat and waited for us to get situated.

3:50 p.m.
We made it to the gate!  Everyone found a spot and watched planes take off and land. The kids were super excited!  I had made up snacks so we had "dinner" here. 

Our menu:
Turkey meatballs
clementines
cheese sticks
celery sticks
red bell pepper slices
bananas
grapes

We purchased a bottle of water to share.

4:15 p.m.
BEEP!  My cell phone alarm rang to remind me of our last scheduled potty break before boarding the plane.

4:30 p.m.
Once first class boarded they let us go since we had small children.  We traveled toward the plane in the same order we had been in. Todd stopped off to take the car seats and stroller apart to gate check them. So that meant that Evelyn ended up boarding the plane first. ummm  Let me just say that it's probably not the best idea to have the three year old go first.

The first seat she came to, Evelyn jumped in and said, "We're going at Florida!".

We finally made to it our rows of seats. We took up 2 rows of 3 seats each. Todd got one row with Silas and Avrie. I got the next row with Evelyn and Ellie. We passed Sadie back and forth.

That concludes part 1 of our trip to Florida. The fun was just beginning.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Closet organization

I have been at my wits end dealing with the clutter and unorganized state of our closet. Basically I did the big clothing change over in the Fall and then it didn't really stay cold. The kids ended up dragging out a bunch of short sleeve items and everything got all mixed in together in the closet.

Winter also adds more of a challenge in that clothing is bulkier and there are more layers in general. Things just need stored differently. We also have some up and coming kiddos that need drawer space. ;-)

So we did a revamp of the closet!

I didn't think to take before pictures. I will try to paint a word picture for you. Let's see.......


complete and utter chaos. Yep. That describes it pretty well.


I moved in one set of drawers that I picked up at Goodwill Outlet for cheap. The rest of the drawers were already in there. 

The top rack is for Evelyn and Sadie. I only have some of Evelyn's there right now. I need to get Sadie's put up. The small drawer set on the left is for undies/socks for the three youngest girlies. Silas gets that single drawer for his pajamas. His jeans are folded on top. One stack for play and one for nice jeans. The pans on the shelf are nicer church pants. I just decided to put all empty hangers above the jeans for now.

Notice the lovely sharpie art on the wall here. This is the prime example of why we don't have a lot of markers or other various art items in the house.

This is directly to the right of Silas' jeans. My clothes are hanging. These drawers weren't finished at the time of the picture. They now hold Some items for Avrie and Evelyn and the bottom drawer is for Silas' undies and socks.

The hanging clothes here are Ellie's, Silas' shirts and Avrie's. Two of the pink drawers are Ellie's since she is needing more space now that she is bigger. The bottom pink drawer is for leggings for all the girls. The three larger white drawers are for Avrie, Evelyn and Sadie's pajamas.  Tights are going in a tote on the top shelf. They don't use tights much and Evelyn has been getting 2 or 3 pairs of tights out every day trying them on. Up high they go!

 Ellie made labels for each drawer. She assigned each child a picture and put that next to their name. She came up with that idea herself saying it would help all the non-readers find their drawer. Such a sweetie.You can see a couple of them here on the white drawers.

 Oh and see those clothes sitting on top of the drawers?  That is not supposed to happen. It's been a couple days now and so far things are staying organized. I've just got to stay on top of things.


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

My favorite school items so far

I must share my favorite school items so far. Of course the books we are reading are awesome!  Here are a few. ;-)

But, I'm not talking about those, I'm talking about my favorite organizational items.



First up we have Ellie's checklist, in its home on the infamous pink clipboard.

I took all of her HOD boxes and some other things she has to do throughout the day (piano practice and such) and listed them for her. They are color coded. The green boxes are things she needs to do with mom. The purple items are her independent work and the pink boxes are her independent reading. I separated the work and reading because sometimes we will be out and about and I can tell her to grab her reading for the day. I thought it would be easier for her to find this way.  Ellie seems to love that she knows what she must accomplish and can see what is done and what has yet to be done for the day. We are pleased with our list!





Next is our timeline. The timeline we are using this year happens to span over three pages. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it and I happened upon a file folder that opened into thirds! I got a cover sheet off of the wonderful HOD yahoo group shared files to make it pretty.

Then put the timeline pages inside.

 I love how it folds up for storage inside the binder but will fold out to show the years all at a glance.




Speaking of the binder........that is my next favorite item. Rather than blank pages, I printed off the History notebooking pages from a lovely HOD mom. I felt like it would help us out a bit. Ellie still has to fill in all of the information but there is not nearly the amount of writing she would have had otherwise. (I don't know why these pics are sideways. I have rotated them all different ways and it's not working.)

History

Next is the Science notebooking section. I just put a blank page in the page protectors for each unit. That way they are read to go and we don't have to hunt for a piece of paper. Ellie has a bible verse at the top and then she made a drawing of high tide and low tide. Since we were learning about the sea she drew a fish around her bible verse. :)

Science

The last section (so far) is for her science experiments. I printed a worksheet off for each unit and it is all ready for Ellie to fill out. I had a picture but blogger is being difficult tonight.  I have to say that the page protectors are what makes this binder so perfect. I got the idea from Julie on the HOD forums. She is a genius!

Well, there you have it. My most favorite organizational items for the year. 




Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Our school days

I finally got to take some pictures of the school areas in our home. My wonderful husband found these fabulous milk crates for me. Not the cheapie ones you find at stuffmart that would fall apart with any amount of weight. No these are the real deal!   We are using Heart of Dakota (You can learn about HOD HERE ) and have several read aloud books to use throughout the year during storytime. Each child has their own crate for their school books, but I only have the current storytime book in their crate (The rest are on our bookshelf.).

Ellie's crate contains:

1. A 3-ring binder. This holds her notebooking pages for history and science. I also tucked her timeline into the front pocket. I am considering keeping some of her artwork in here as well.
2. Math workbook 
3. Handwriting workbook
4. DITHR workbook and current independent reading book
5. Several books we are reading from daily for history and science.
6. Her current storytime book.
7. My HOD teacher's manual for the level she is doing.
8. Her vocabulary notebook.
9.. Her clipboard!  She is loving the list to check off each day.

I'm sure I missed something, but you get the idea.

Silas and Avrie don't have everything Ellie does but they do have a lot of the same items. Silas did make it a point to have his own clipboard. You can read about that in this post: My Son The Inventor if you missed it. 

Evelyn has a few read alouds, her own Bible, some coloring pages and her HOD teacher's manual. Yes I did get a TM for Evelyn. With the older kids I just did a hodge-podge of things for preschool but I needed something to make sure I covered all the bases since I am now so busy with the older ones.


These crates sit on the bookshelf when not in use. I know, it's not pretty, but until they find another home that is where they will live. When we begin school they each bring their crate in and sit it on the floor around my chair.

Whoever I am working with sits at the small wooden table (picked up at a yard sale by a wonderful family member!) right beside me. For some subjects I can give direction and they can take their work to the desk or the other table in the room to work independently. For other subjects they need mom right there along side for the duration of the lesson. So this little table works perfectly for us!

Then we have the ball gym there for Sadie. She crawls around and is currently trying to pull up. We have to watch her because she tries to pull up on the crates or tries to pull things out of the crates. We also have to keep an eye out for baby drool on the books. ;-) Then sometimes we have this:

Is it my turn?

This set up works pretty well as I can nurse Sadie while helping someone with math or reading aloud to everyone at once. They can color on the floor or at the various tables/desks and still be within earshot. Everything we need is right there with us, so they don't leave the room unless they are going to the bathroom or to get a drink.

Ellie will sometimes go read on her bed for her independent reading but she reports back within 10 or 15 minutes so that works well.

For a change of scenery we will come into the dining area and use the dry erase board. Todd nabbed this at an auction for a local college. It's 12 feet long! We LOVE it!  Above it we have our art-line where we hang the kids' artwork. We got that at Ikea. The art-line was hung before the dry erase board or else we would have hung it a bit higher.  It works well enough.
 

This is where we will do things such as:

         - Learn a new letter for handwriting.

          -Work on Ellie's DITHR (Drawn Into The Heart of Reading) brainstorming and such

          -Learn a new math concept

          -And of course we have dinner and just have fun drawing silly pictures ;-)

Another spot we use frequently is the couch, but you already know what a couch looks like.

I'll try to grab some pics of the kids in action. So far we are taking extra time getting our flow for things so I haven't had time for pictures.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

On Your Mark. . . Get Set . . . Go!

We have been on a break from school so I could get things ready to add in more children and more items to the schedule. After some major deliberating I think we are set!

Todd took the kids out this afternoon for several hours and I was able to get lots of things organized and ready. I am finding that having it ready ahead of time is better for me. I am an "all or nothing" personality. I am not one of those types that will print a worksheet off daily or weekly. So I printed Ellie's entire year of notebooking pages today. I would have taken pictures but Todd took the camera with him to capture some fun times at the park.

All I can say after today is...... I love page protectors!

I'll try to grab some pictures of everything in action tomorrow.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Bows, Barettes and Bobby Pins.......

I have to be honest, as much as I LOVE cute little girl hair-dos I have been secretly pleased with my girls' slow growing hair. Not always of course. There have been times where I would love to have long locks to curl and braid, but for the most part I'm a wash-n-go kind of gal.

Now that their hair is getting a bit longer we have been doing some fun things. Avrie and Evelyn both have bangs hanging in their faces, so out of necessity it needs pulled back. If we don't, there is a good chance of finding globs of breakfast, lunch or dinner in it later on.  Try getting a comb through dried yogurt.

All three of my older girls have baby fine hair. Ellie and Evelyn are my curly girls and Avrie has stick straight hair like her mama. Sadie....we can't tell yet. ;-)  With all this baby fine hair we need very small hair doodles. Reeeeally small.

I have been flying by the seat of my pants for the last couple years but all these hair accessories have taken over. They are everywhere! We have been using an over-the-door shoe organizer but all those tiny little hair doodles fall to the bottom and I break my wrist trying to get to them. Very annoying.

Since Todd took Silas to the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis today, (I won 2 tickets at the grocery store!) the girls and I worked hard at organizing the doodles.

First - here's my guys at the Brickyard.

Notice it's a bit sunny. Good thing I got Silas some sunglasses just for the occassion.

There. That's better.  Oh did you notice Silas lost a tooth and his new one is coming in?  THAT'S a story I should tell! I'll try to remember to post that one.

So now that you saw what the guys did all day........



Here's what the girls accomplished!

I bought this in the craft section at walmart. I think it's intended for storing beads. What I absolutely love about it is the dividers for each section actually touch the lid when it's closed. This is very important when some of the barettes are 1/2" in size. Also, a few of the dividers were removable so I could arrange them a bit to suit my needs.

We have lots of the "ouchless" pony tail holders in various sizes and colors. (We love these!)  So I sorted them by color.  In the upper left corner are our sparkly items. I think we got them when Ellie was a flower girl. So pretty!   We also have clear bands. The size we use most is medium. That's what's in here. There are pastel colored rubber bands as well. The bottom three on the left are barettes sorted by color. The right side has larger items with beads or bows on them and clips.

I underestimated how much we had so there was not room for everything. I took all of my own basic pony tail holders and put them on an "O" ring. This seems to work well and keeps them all in the same place.

I still have a few elastic head bands that have made it over the years. I put those on an "O" ring as well. I plan to get more now that I have a good place to keep them.  Poor Sadie needs a few every now and then.

The rest of the clear rubber bands didn't make it into the box. I still had the original holder they came in so I just put some bands we don't use across it to hold it shut and that's where they will stay. We really don't use the small and large sizes much and have plenty of the mediums out for now.

 Notice the metal on the band holding the box shut?  I don't prefer to use this kind of band as the metal gets caught in hair and pulls it out. OUCH!

I have a few clip style bows that I didn't know what to do with. I grabbed one of the pieces of cardboard that hadn't made it to the trash and voila! a bow holder.

*oops didn't get a pick of it. <blush>    It's the same idea as the next picture.

I also had some pins and clips that needed a home.

The few bobby pins that are still accounted for are on the top piece of cardboard. I reinforced the top with tape before I stuck the "O"ring through it. I plan to hang all these "O" rings on cup hooks inside the linen closet door.

I still have to figure out what to do with my clips and larger items, but at least these are somewhat organized.

One of these days we'll have to get some pretty ribbons for their hair. I'm already contemplating how to store them. :)

So maybe the "system" will be.....

.....there is no system! LOL


So far I have  not stuck to it at all. Laundry has gotten done, so that's good.

I'll try it again next week I guess.

Unplanned Laundry Day

Honestly we have laundry about every day. My plan was to try a system I had heard about. Basically doing all the laundry on Monday. Skip Tuesday. All the laundry on Wednesday. Skip Thursday. By Friday there shouldn't be much to do, but do it all anyway. Then begin again on Monday. This would of course change if ...... say.......we had ...... wet sheets for instance.

Today being Monday and all it was to be the first day of the great plan!  What did I wake up to? Out of 6 sets of sheets .....4 needed washed. To protect the innocent I will not name names here. At least they told me. There have been times we were getting ready for bed and we found out there were wet sheets from the night before. We have made progress.

Between all the mattress protectors, fitted sheets,cover sheets and any soiled clothes....no other laundry was done today. So now I am officially behind on my brand new system. Lovely.

But most of the sheets are clean and lots of people got to practice making beds today!

I do plan to continue this new system and take tomorrow off.  Okay, maybe not. ;-)

Socks!

Yes this post is about socks. What about socks is so interesting that they need their own blog post? Well, okay, maybe they aren't all that interesting, but those little boogers have required a lot of my brain power lately. If it requires brain power then it's goin' on the blog!

First off - I have four girls. Little girls don't just get any ole socks. They get pink socks, ruffled socks, toe socks, striped socks, tights, legwarmers....

Well here. Take a look for yourself. This is just a small portion of our sock collection.

Notice the four on the upper left? They are all a different size and style of ruffle socks. There are many many more. Believe me.


This was cute with one girl.  But now...... NOW that I have 4 of these girlies.....oh my. They have gotten so many different types of socks over the years I could outfit an army. (The fact that the army wouldn't use ruffle socks is beside the point. Just go with me here.)

I am cheap. I don't like to waste things. So I have tried to keep socks to pass down to the next child in line. (Yes, you can do that with little girls. Boys? Not so much.)  After 9 years, yes my oldest is 9, of this hoarding of socks I was left with a huge amount. Most of them singles by the way.  Every few weeks we would sort through them trying to find a pair here and there.   In the Winter they would often be mismatched because you couldn't see them under their boots. When Summer came it was time for flip flops.

Praise the Lord for flip flops! 

We didn't need socks if we had flip flops. We get out the door much faster in the Summer. Well, much faster as long as we can find the flip flops. But that's a whole 'nother post.

Once Summer was here I would forget about my sock woes and live in denial for a few short months. Then Fall would arrive. Funny how Fall arrives every.single.year. and it always takes me by surprise.....

It would soon come to my immediate attention that not only have the children all grown 2 shoe sizes, but they have absolutely no socks. Actually they did have some socks, but they were not in their sock drawer. They were hidden away....under beds, behind dressers or eaten by the washing machine. I was too unorganized to even begin to find them or pair them. It was cold and we had to stop wearing flip flops once it began to snow. (You know I'm kidding about the snow right?) What to do? What to do?  Buy more socks of course!  But, Tammy, aren't you cheap errrr uummmmm frugal?  Yes, I am cheap but I am also a procrastinator, so you gotta do whatcha gotta do.

This Summer things changed. The kids played baseball in a league on Saturday mornings. They had to have tennis shoes. Since they had to have tennis shoes, they had to have socks. Since they wore shorts or capris the socks <shock> had.to.match!  I was in trouble.

I was very much done with the sock battle. We had tried all sorts of ways to organize.

• Each with their own drawer. 
• A large sock tote to throw them all in and every man for himself.
• A tote for the singles to get paired later.
• Washing each person's socks in their own private mesh garment bag.
• Pinning pairs together.

...nothing worked.  And now I wasn't going to get my summer off from sock torture. <stomp stomp whine whine>

I went out and bought new socks. But this time I was a little smarter.

Ellie got these:

Avrie got these:

Evelyn got these:

Sadie? Well, she honestly isn't wearing socks much now that it's Summer. She can't play ball yet. ;-)  Plus, if she had socks on she couldn't do this:

My plan was to get all different colors, but this is what walmart had available. You see, there is enough size difference between Ellie and Evelyn that we can tell those apart easily.I can glance in a drawer and know without a doubt that the correct socks are in the correct drawer! woo hoo!

All other socks are GONE. I will admit I kept the legwarmers. They are primarily used for baby - way easier than tights, much cuter and make for quick diaper changes....all while protecting their precious knees from rug burn.  Now we can easily see whose socks are whose. Even Evelyn can pair them up. When I need more I will buy the exact same brand/color/size. When they go up a size

<Todd stop reading here.>


I am going to throw their old socks away. No kidding. It's not a battle worth fighting.  Sssshhhhhhh! Don't tell.

For all you gals with only boys...I know you are laughing at me right now. You can't possibly understand why in the world this is even a problem.  "Who has socks left to pass down?"  LOL I hear ya. Really.

Silas failed to tell me that his had holes. He just started using MY socks. I put a pair on one day and there were holes in the bottom. I have had these same socks for years! No holes, ever. He wore them one or two times. geesh!  So he got new socks as well. His have a big L on them. I don't know what we will do when he is no longer wearing size Large. Right now he goes through the pile looking for his "L socks". So sweet!

I think I have found a solution to the mixed up clothing problem as well. I am planning to start a brand new system. More on that later.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I have read about this before and just never got around to doing it. I can't believe it's taken this long. I am just now implementing this so I will have to update later how things are going. But so far so good.

What am I talking about?  Keeping our house looking somewhat presentable. That's what. I am not naturally organized. At this point I don't believe it will ever come as second nature. My poor kids don't have a chance at the rate I am going. They walk over things all. day. long. Things are so cluttered they don't even see the stuff anymore.

We got one room perfectly clean. Okay, not perfect by some standards, but by our standards it was perfect. I took a couple pictures of this room and typed up some simple instructions. Now they can see in the picture what it's supposed to look like!  I am no longer the bad guy. I don't have to keep saying over and over...did you get the blocks picked up? Are the papers picked up? Is the room clean? No honey, it's not clean. You can't leave 10 gallons of duplos on the floor and consider it clean.......sigh.

Now all I have to say is....Does it look like the picture?

Sunroom

·      All toys in their place. ·      Floor is clean – no papers or toys. ·      Table is clear and clean.

·      Cabinet closed. ·      Totes lidded and stacked neatly in corner.

I have pages done for various chores as well. Here's what is finished so far:

-dining room table clean-up
-closet tidy
-laundry directions (how to do the washer and dryer)
-morning routine (brush teeth, brush hair, get dressed type of stuff)
-night time routine (brush teeth, jammies on....you get the idea)
-putting clean batch of laundry away.

Some other pages I am thinking of doing:
-kitchen pantry
-toy cabinet
-hall linen closet
-bookshelf

I would like to get these perfect (they are actually close to it now believe it or not.) and snap a picture to laminate and place on the inside of the door.  Not sure where I will put the one for the bookshelves.

I sure hope this works!