source: Larsz
This week we’ll be talk about organization for homeschoolers. One of the benefits of homeschooling is the flexibility it affords families to tailor school to fit their lifestyle. Because I’m just starting out on this journey, I’ve asked several people to share their experiences and systems with us. And of course we’d love to hear from you in the comments with your experiences as well!
The following is a guest post from Joy, who blogs at Lymeade Homeschool about homeschooling while battling a chronic illness:
Where in your home do you homeschool? Do you have different areas for read-alouds, workbooks and/or independent work? Is there anywhere that’s off limits?
We have 2 living areas, so the “den” is our main homeschool area. But my daughter takes her independent work where ever she please—including her room and the living room. Occasionally, we read in the living room (such as when the den couch is holding laundry that is waiting to be folded). Our television is in the living room, and we watch our Math-U-See DVD there.
Do you have a set schedule for your school days? Do you have a set start time? A set end time?
I teach from about 10:00 to noon. My 3rd grader starts her independent work before that time and continues it until she is finished. I used to require that work to be completed before our read-aloud time, but that made things difficult for me when she got her work done “late,” so this is a new schedule for us. This year, I’m expecting it to be started in the morning and done by afternoon. No play until the work is done. After lunch time, she has a little while to play with her younger sister and then she has quiet time in her room. Since she loves her time to play, she wants to get her work done beforehand. But if she doesn’t, it no longer messes up my routine.
I also made a schedule for my preschool daughter, complete with clip art so she can “read” it. Most of her things are things like get dressed, but it also includes her art journal and doing 2-3 workboxes a day.
How are your school supplies organized? Do you stock up on extra supplies? How do you organize the extras?
I created a spin-off on the “workbox” idea. I store a lot of our items in a drawer cart. I use a 6 drawer cart similar to this one, and I have all of my daughter’s independent work in the top drawer (including a pencil) plus 5 enrichment drawers, one per day. This allows me to include extras, but only have to fill it or think about it once a week.
When cleaned up, my school room looks mostly like an office. About two-thirds of our den is a sitting area. Instead of a coffee table, I have an old family trunk, which has some extra linens and some extra school boxes I’m not using this year. One-third (behind the couch) is a little office. It has a tall bookcase, my desk, a computer desk and a semi-circle table, the my daughter uses as a desk (when she bothers to sit there!). Hidden behind the couch are 2 short bookcases. On top of them is a lamp and the books we are currently reading, so they are easy to access. Right off this room is our laundry room, where we keep some things in cabinets as well as my younger daughter’s school boxes.
What do you use for recordkeeping? Do you store completed work? Do you go above and beyond the recordkeeping requirements of your state?
Since my state has no record keeping requirements, I do not do much. I do have complete math workbooks and our Sonlight Instructor’s guides which show what we completed (though not when). When we get to high school age or if we start considering transitioning to public school, I will probably end up storing records in the garage.
What is one area that you wish was more organized about your homeschooling?
I’m still trying to figure out where I want to store the things I use for the enrichment drawers, since I rotate them every week. They are mostly educational toys, games, and puzzles, and right now I have everything in a storage box, but I’m looking for a storage place close by. I probably need to clean out some of my desk drawers and make some space. The only problem is time!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
“The only problem is time!”
So happy I’m not the only one with this problem!
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I am so interested in this series. My oldest is just younger pre-school age and I am starting to think about grade school options. I don’t know that much about homeschooling and am interested to learn more from families who do it every day. I’ll definitely be tuning in for more! Thanks. By the way, to the author, how did you develop or decide upon what your pre-schooler curriculum? My younger one will probalby be a bit behind her peers, she was a preemie, and I wanted to start practicing things with her at home before she is thrust into a class setting. Great post Mandi! Happy rest of the summer.
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I tried many ways to educate my children. I tried public school, private school, correspondence school, and home school. My state wants to see your curriculum for each year. Their main concern is that your child not fall short of what his/her peers are being offered in the local public school. This is a valid concern since you are not required to hold a degree in any area of education to homeschool your child. You don’t even need a high school diploma. Between us, my dh and I hold advanced degrees in education from k through high school. I’ve also taught adults, college students, and adult students at a technical school. My thought on this is about quality. When I taught any subject I had the state’s curriculum guide available to me. I knew what the students were expected to know and do in every area at every grade level and how they would demonstrate it. I could see the scope and sequence and I presented that information to my students. That curriculum guide was the barest minimum to be offered to the children. I brought with me all the knowledge and skill I’d acquired over decades of intense study and classroom experience. I can still see myself using the four wall maps every day(political- world and USA and physical -world and USA). If it was in the news we needed to know where those places were. It it was in a textbook or a storybook we needed to understand where. If a scientific process or principle was mentioned we needed to understand it. I can understand the immense quantities of materials every educator should have available as we are constantly searching for a better way to explain something. As homeschoolers, how do you choose what to teach? So much of understanding relies on having common ground. For example, if I said I could hum two notes and elicit a feeling of dread and I produced the first two notes of the theme from JAWS, would you understand if you had not seen the movie? Dah dum! When I wanted to explain social customs and talked about tradition I showed the opening scenes from Fiddler on the Roof. West Side Story offered unlimited opportunity for teaching. In math classes I showed students where they’d been last year(2 goes into 4 twice), where they’d be this year(20 goes into 40) and where they’d be going next (20 goes into 4.0). I was never able to find everything I needed/wanted to teach in any one workbook or textbook on any topic. I was always expanding the knowledge base of my students,helping them stretch and grow. Because I knew what was ahead(access to all state curriculum guides at every level), because I read extensively, I had knowledge and skill my students needed. So, really, I’m wondering how the homeschooling parent who has none of these experiences provides adequately for his/her child. If you’re doing it right, teaching is brutally hard work and second in importance, imho, only to motherhood. There’s no manual on motherhood and all teachers aren’t the very best and brightest, but, in all my searching for what was “right” for my children, the public schools had the most to offer them. What they couldn’t get there, they got at home. My dh and I would have been totally on our own if we’d chosen to homeschool and with all our knowledge, background, skills, and experience, we realized our limitations. So, how do those who aren’t even professional teachers make this choice? Do they know what they don’t know? Dh and I understood that we could not provide adequate instruction in some areas. How huge is the network that supports homeschoolers, providing expert instruction in every area? Because, quality does matter. I used to start each year no matter what grade level, by writing numbers on the board and asking what they had in common. Nobody ever guessed. The different numbers were the number of days of school required in various countries, and in our own state. The tremendous difference surprised students. They didn’t realize other countries had classes on Saturdays or more than 300 days a year, many more, or even schools for after school. Then, I’d erase all the other numbers and leave the one for our state. We’d talk about programs and parties and all the things that take away time from actual learning. By the time I was finished subtracting what was available to us they were highly motivated. I pointed out that they were not going to receive the education that others in the world would receive BUT they would have to compete with those others. Not fair, but life. I told them I needed every minute to help prepare them for their future. I was told my students were the best behaved, most cooperative, supportive classes in the school, year after year. Then, I read how homeschoolers are “done” in less than two hours? Perhaps, you can see why I am concerned. The education of children is something so important that I dedicated my life to it.
Hi Flo!
Thanks so much for taking the time to type out your thoughts. I’ve actually shared on my personal blog that my children’s education is my number one reason for choosing to homeschool them, so I share your concern that that be a priority.
However, I do disagree with the premise that they would be better educated in public school because of the training teachers receive. In fact, there was just an extensive independent study published by the HSLDA that shows that homeschooled students score an average of 30 percent higher on standardized tests, regardless even of parental education. (http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp) Of course it’s not for everyone, but one reason homeschooling is growing as a movement, even outside of religious circles, is because there continues to be data that shows that it works. I would never jeopardize my children’s education if I didn’t believe that to be true!
I don’t think that a person has to be an expert on a subject in order to teach their kids about it, especially in this day and age when we have access to so many resources. And while I’ve mentioned our two hour schedule on more than one occasion, I think it’s important to realize that my oldest is in kindergarten. If she was in school, she would be there for 3 hours with several transitions, recess and other interruptions. I absolutely expect her school day to get longer as she gets older.
Thanks again — I appreciate your thoughts!