I’ve accepted it now. Organization is simply a huge part of homeschooling. I’ve reluctantly shared about my stacks before. Even how we have a Filing Fridays habit with Papers, Stacks and Hole Punches. And we’ve completely been through a homeschool makeover, making it more comfortable, creating natural easy learning spots.
I’ve used those IKEA baskets whole heartedly. I love them! But when I wrote about our homeschool enrichment last week, I also came across some stacks – as is my personal style. See, we’ve been chugging along since the end of July. Because of that we have many products of learning (e.g., papers, reports, sketches). You might remember I mentioned the three hole punch?
Insert yet another realization. More children homeschooling equals more papers. They multiple. Yes, this is a common sense sort of thing but I was in denial.
Well, this was the week. We decorated binders, updated, punched. And guess what? Everybody was happy! They made comments about the subjects we were working on the binders for.
Here’s how we did it. I placed the stack of papers needing filing into the center of the kitchen table. It’s the center of all homeschooling anyway, right? Then, as we went about our normal homeschool day, we worked on each subject’s binder. So, Math, we put all those graph papers into the child’s math binder. English/grammar completed? We pulled the binder and added fresh tabs, new lined paper. Practiced drama lines? Let’s make a cover for that drama folder. It surely needs lots of stickers! Then, because I was a little under the weather and just to simply motivate everyone…
…we employed Flylady’s “you can do anything for 15 minutes” and we tackled the paper stack.
But our favorite part – which makes sense because it is one of our very favorite parts of our school days – was creating an enrichment binder. Yes, we’d had artist and composer study binders before. But this giant binder we almost named One More Thing After Lunch. Because it houses those enriching studies we all enjoy together – during and immediately following lunch. We created one for each of the older four children. Little Buddy was most happy with his one binder full of fun creations along with a fresh stack of clean, white paper for future art.
Here’s a peek into our week with…
The little ones: 1. Before Five in a Row selection this week, If Jesus Came to My House. We have this older version. Love the sweet illustrations. Today, we are enjoying the wonderful, free printables at Homeschool Creations for this book. | 2. Littlest Girl in her Afternoon Quiet Time spot | 3. It’s fun to watch rain drops bounce on the bush outside the school room window | 4. Almost five-year-old loved starting Hey! I’m Reading | 5. Lil’ Buddy got to accompany me to the fair to enter his flowers and his sisters’ – and we saw baby chicks! | 6. Littlest Girl is looking up a Bible verse a day with her take home sheet from Sunday School.
Our older ones: A BIG birthday! 1. and 2. Our eldest celebrated a big birthday last weekend. Thanks to the World of Coca-Cola, we took her and several friends to visit the Vault of the Secret Formula. Plus we all tasted lots and lots of Coke! | 3. Her birthday afternoon, she and I went to Barnes & Noble. She spent some birthday money and we enjoyed some Starbucks too! | 4. We caught Eldest Boy (8th grader) with the Do Hard Things book several times. | 5. A cozy spot on couch for afternoon homeschool. | 6. The older ones helped with organizing binders.
All together now: 1. Tapestry of Grace all together after lunch – mostly the Mayflower Compact, reading Making Thirteen Colonies, The Church in History, Pilgrim’s Progress. We also enjoyed more of our artist study of Vermeer and composer Schumann with Harmony Fine Arts (Littlest Girl was excited to hear on the radio that one day last week was Clara Schumann’s birthday!) | 2. We took a tour around the continents with Ann Voskamp’s A Child’s Geography | 3. Slow Cooker Potato soup for a rainy, fall-like day | 4. A spider and her web right outside the classroom window makes for a fun nature study! The rain drops highlighted the web beautifully.
Features! 1. Please don’t miss Hodgepodgedad’s review of three iPad apps we’ve been enjoying. They compliment our science and nature studies well. SproutLabs HD Science Apps at Curriculum Choice | 2. Along the lines of organization, I shared our Bible Basket at Passionate Purposeful Parenting. It’s right smack in the middle of our family room table and helps keep His Word in the center of our day.
Happy homeschool moments: 1. Pause right here. The thick of our homeschool morning and everybody working! | 2. Eldest Girl took this photo of me reading If Jesus Came to Our House to our younger two. They are all freshly bathed and ready for bed. I so prefer to be behind the camera but since Phyllis shared about Aleida’s Challenge I’m a little more willing to be a subject.
Our exciting news? Middle Girl and Littlest Girl will be singing a duet in our children’s ministry Christmas special. Our two drama girls are practicing wonderful parts for the Drama Troupe Christmas production. And we heard that our fair flower entries earned: Lil Buddy 1st place for his althea, Middle Girl 2nd place for her hydrangea and Littlest Girl Best of Show – Youth for her red zinnia!!
Many thanks to our Friday hostesses!
- Homeschool Mother’s Journal at iHomeschool Network
- Collage Friday hostess Mary at Home Grown Learners
- iPhone Photo Dump at Passport Academy
- Jamerrill at Holy Spirit-Led Homeschooling
- Weekly Wrap-Up hostess Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
- No Fear Homeschool High School at The Daisy Head
I invite you to subscribe to Hodgepodge (it’s free!) Don’t miss a homeschool post!
This started out as a short and sweet post and somehow ended up this long. Thanks for sticking with me! How was your week, friends?
I love pictures of homeschooling all over the house! It is also lovely to see all the different levels of learning going on at the same time, sometimes separately, sometimes together. It reminds me of a symphony, where you get repeating phrases, but with minor changes as it goes through it each time. Lovely. I bet that potato soup was so good. I love, love, love the picture of you reading on the couch. I know how you feel about not wanting your picture taken, but you will be glad in the years to come. Thank you for sharing your beautiful symphony with us.
Phyllis – what a beautiful comment! Thank you for the friend and wonderful example you are to me.
Ah, these dear, dear home school teacher comments just take my breath away…what a lovely word picture! And…what a busy, busy week at Hodgepodge! Congratulations to the ribbon winners for their floral entries at our Fair! Birthday girl! So much to be thankful for…thank you for making wonderful memories for your children!
Forever,
N
Love you Nana!! We were SO excited to hear about the fair ribbons. Yes, so much to be thankful for!
I like the way you organized as you go, that’s very time efficient. There have been lots of days I just had to clean…so we’d clean one room, homeschool a subject, clean one room, homeschool a subject, etc. But it makes totally great sense to organize each subject area before the subject. Tons of great resources in this one too! T
Stephanie – I have really enjoyed all your organizational tips! If anyone knows you do – with all your moves with the military. Wow!
I’m a stacker too! ::laugh:: I’m trying to get better though. I just see an uncluttered school room (i.e. diningroom) as a better, calmer area to work for all of us. I did purge over 1/2 my In the Future Curriculum…and didn’t buy as much supplies (like paper, markers, etc) this year. I still have stacks though. We’re doing a 7 weeks on / 1 week off schedule this year…and during the 1 week off I will be filing papers and tidying up those stacks. I’m hoping to stay ahead of the bulk of it this way!
So much here to learn, Tricia. I was just looking at “Do Hard Things” and thinking I may need to purchase this book.
I also have felt overwhelmed by homeschool papers, but keeping things in binders and notebooks has really helped! I like how you used FlyLady’s 15 minute system, too.
It’s nice to see a picture of you for a change! 🙂
Do Hard Things and the sequel, Start Here are both wonderful. Perfect for teens – young adults. My two older ones were both 12-13 when they read it.
Oh, I could have written this post! 🙂 I am definitely a stacker, too, and I was actually saying out loud, “wow, that’s what it looks like here!” as I saw your photos. 🙂 Loved seeing the photo of you reading with your kids. I’m not in very many pictures, either, as I am always the one taking them. Congrats to your kiddos for their parts in the Christmas special and for their flowers winning prizes! Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Many blessings, Lisa
Hey there Lisa, fellow stacker! It’s a constant, isn’t it? Thanks for the congrats. We were all so excited!
Love all the notebooks. I’m starting to do more notebooking this year, which is good but generates more paper. Love the way you make the organizing useful and also beautiful.
Alice – thank you. I agree there is so much more learning that opens up with notebooking!
I love the Bible Basket! I’m am going to do this.
I need to do some more notebook organization, but I always find something else to do instead. I guess this week I need to take the bull by the horns!!
Thanks for the inspiring post!
Beth – that Bible basket is so very simple and effective. Best wishes on tackling the organization. It’s so easy to get into the overwhelm. Just spurts work best for me!
My son is a stacker and I am a filer so we butt heads over things during the week. He doesn’t see the point of filing it all until the Friday after we talk about it. Sigh. Instead of friction, I just let him do it his way.
The FlyLady changed my whole life..seriously. The 15 minute idea has trickled into every aspect of my life and made it better. Freedom to let some things go and tackle the important things and enjoy the results.
Wonderful post…my stacks are smaller these days. 🙂
I am so thankful for Flylady! Ever since 1999! It’s in those moments of overwhelm that I try to remember her 5 minute room rescue or you can do anything for 15 minutes. As you said, such freedom to do many things – and to rest – and the idea has trickled into every aspect of our lives as well. Thanks Barb 🙂
Love the idea of just taping a paper on the front of the binder…I don’t always buy those folders that have the pocket on the front.