So how do you organize everything!?

I feel the key to great homeschooling is good organization.

Here are five of my favorite organizing items.

1. Binders, Binders & more Binders. I can not say enough about binders. You can buy these real cheap. I put my lesson plans, attendence records, calendars, and Bryleigh's finished work in binders.

2. File Folders...File Folders are great. You can use them to make Mini-Offices & Lapbooks and they make a great filing system for all your lesson plans for the whole year. Here is a picture of the way I organize my school year. I have 36 file folders. One folder for each week that we homeschool. I put all the lessons I want to go over for the week in each of the folders. The Saturday before the week begins, I pull out all of the lessons for that week and place them in the folders labeled Monday-Friday. This really works for me and I always have lessons on hand.

3. Labels!!! I label everything! Things are much easier to find if they are labeled. I recommend buying Avery Labels, if you have a printer. If you do not have a printer, you can purchase a label maker. The picture below is of a Brothers Brand Label Maker. It costs around $20 on Amazon.com.

4. Laminator.... I love my laminator!! I bought it for around $20 and I laminate everything from my homemade educational games to my educational posters! It is great!

5. Boxes...yes, boxes...every size & shape!! They make wonderful organizers...You can store paper, pencils, markers, crayons and many, many other things!

Just how do you do it??

I love when I tell people that I'm a stay at home mom & that I also homeschool because the expressions on their faces are priceless! When people find out what I do they always ask the same question "How do you do it?" I begin to explain to them how easy it is to stay at home & homeschool, however many times I don't have enough time to explain just how easy it really is. So I will begin to explain a few ways in my blog of how I am able to stay at home & homeschool as well. First thing I'm going to cover is finances. That is one of the biggest issues that people have. Well, God has blessed my husband & me. When I was in college, I ran up $32,000 worth of debt because I had no clue about how to manage my money. These credit card companies were sending me all of these pre-approved credit cards but, I did not understand the consequences of interests or paying back the money plus interest. I had to learn the hard way!When I met my husband, we decided to go to a Dave Ramsey course that was being offered at my grandmother's church.

I had never heard of Dave Ramsey so I was really amazed at the knowledge I gained through the course. He offers great money management information based on Godly wisdom. Every topic he discusses is backed up by a biblical reference. And he offers great products to order to help maintain a credit card free life. I highly recommend checking him out. I can honestly tell you that Dave's course changed our lives forever! You will not regret it and if you are considering staying at home, this will help you get off on the right foot.

We need Grammar in the House!!

So I was looking for a good Grammar program to start Bryleigh on and I didn't really want to spend a fortune on books. As I began to scan the internet for a good 2nd grade program, I ran across Scott Foresman's Grammar & Writing webpage. The site has online workbooks for 1st graders through 6th graders and the workbooks are absolutely free to download! So of course I am going to start printing these off and using them!

http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html

Looking for a good Reading Program??

Did you know that Chuck E Cheese offers free tokens for stuff such as good manners, sleeping all night, tooth fairy, etc.? They also reward kids for reading! All the child has to do is just read (since there're no guidelines on how long, I would just assume at least 15 minutes) each day. Complete the Reading Rewards Calendar as your child reads and bring it to the nearest Chuck E Cheese. They will then give you 10 free tokens with the completed calendar and a pizza purchase.

http://www.chuckecheese.com/promotions/rewards-calendars.php

Everyone loves Free stuff!

The first concerns that many homeschool parents have are I don't know anything about making lesson plans or planning schedules and how much is homeschooling my children going to cost me? Well, let me just say, lesson plans are easy to create and scheduling or planning your homeschool day is as simple as waking up in the morning. You do not have to search long and hard for lesson plans on the computer. They are everywhere and many of them are absolutely free! Here are just a few examples of the websites I have found that give away free stuff! Hope you enjoy them as much as I do! Enjoy!

Here is my favorite webpage for lesson plan examples.

http://donnayoung.org/f11/apologia-f/gen/dy-g1-2.pdf

You can find History & Science lessons on this website and they are absolutely free!! Love it!http://www.prontolessons.com/asian_americans.html

Now to answer the next question, homeschooling can cost as much or as little as you want it to cost. Many homeschooling forms, planners, lesson plans and charts are free, you just have to look for them.

This is one of my favorite websites! I could spend all day on it because you can find tons of information on just this one site. You can find many different homeschool forms on this page, as well as free Lesson Plan forms!

http://donnayoung.org/forms/planners/index.htm

Forms, Forms & More Forms....absolutely Free!! This is a wonderful site full of homeschool forms that you can download absolutely free! http://www.newbeehomeschooler.com/moreplannerforms.htm

I absolutely love this webpage! We are constantly looking for paper to write on!!! So now we have to look no further than this page....Free Notepad & Notebook Paper
http://www.fuzzimo.com/free-hi-res-notepad-and-notebook-textures/

This one is from Five J's and it is awesome! If you need a gradebook, look no further. This is from her site: "Gradebook+ is a free gradebook and record-keeping spreadsheet template for homeschool." http://fivejs.com/gradebook/fivejs-gradebook-plus-v1-excel.xlt

Free books are everywhere! The greatest resource is your local library, however, here's a great link for online audiobooks that I found!http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/genre/Children/all

Finally, here's a website you can not pass up!! You'll find here a directory of free homeschool curricula, literature and text books organized for the use of homeschooling families. http://oldfashionededucation.com/

Our Daily Schedule Revised! New Lesson Plans are coming....

Our Daily Schedule Update *Tenative* - notice I said "tentative" because although this is my goal - life happens LOL! =0 ) We are trying something new...we are schooling year-round this year. So far, I am reallying enjoying schooling year-round! It seems to be a lot less stressful and less demanding.

Mon-Fri
Bible Reading - 15 mins every morning- We read a story out of the Beginners Bible or a lesson out of the book, Leading Little Ones to God.

Mon-Thursday
Spelling - 20mins-30mins- We go over Dolch words for her grade level & complete one worksheet out of the Scholastic Week by Week Homework Packet Spelling workbook, Grades 1 and 2.
Grammar-10m- We go over a Grammar Rule each day and Bryleigh has to write the rule in her composition notebook. Not only is she learning the rule, but she is also using her handwriting skills and spelling skills as well. She also works Grammar/Phonic worksheets that we bought from Sonlight.com.
Writing - 10m- We write more than 10 mins a day, however, I do not require her but 10 mins a day. She volunteers more time because loves to write.
Math - 40m- we do visual Math. She watches the Mathtacular video that we got from Sonlight.com and then does worksheets that correspond with that days' lesson. We also use real life events to enforce math skills. Ex. Grocery shopping & cooking

Monday and Wednesday
Science - 20 mins- 30 mins - we also do visual Science. She watches the Discover & Do video from Sonlight. com and then we do experiments & worksheets using real life events. She loves learning Science in the Kitchen. I also just received new Science Lesson plans that I will be intergrating in with her current lessons.

Wed- Thursday
History - 20 mins - 30 mins- We acquire History Readers from the library. And we read a book each day about a current event that is going on. I also print out worksheets from Enchantedlearning.com to help with the lessons.

Tuesdays
Piano Lessons - 30 mins
Library time- 20 mins- 30 mins

Weekend
Art - 1 hour

Home Economics - daily- She folds clothes, dusts, vaccuums, and helps me cook each day. I have bought a curriulum called Keepers at Home. When I get that in the mail, I will begin the lessons in it. http://thegreatestcallinginlife.blogspot.com/2012/01/keepers-at-home-little-keepers-at-home.html

Quiet Time- I will begin to implement a quiet time for 30 mins to an hour each day. During this time, Tracee will lay down for a nap or go in her room to play while Bryleigh goes to her room for required reading, to finish up any work that she did not complete or to have some playtime. (Also I found some great audiobooks that I thought she could listen to while she plays). This will give the girls a break from me & each other - you know we are together all the time and we all need breaks! lol This will give me time to get my lessons together for the next day or finish housekeeping.

Mon-Wed-Friday
Piano practice -10mins- 15 mins

Co-Op
We have 40 days of CoOp each school year (We actually attend 2 Co-Ops, one on Tuesdays & one on Wednesdays). Bryleigh is learning Phonics, Geography, Art History, Reading, Kitchen Science & Magic School Bus Science on CoOp days. Also she is learning social skills & is able to interact with other children during this time. Let me add this: When we have CoOp days the CoOp lessons will replace the lessons on the days indicated above.

Mini Offices? What's that?

I've always wanted to lapbook but after my second daughter was born, it just never seemed that I had enough time to cut out all the things that I need to make a lapbook out of and my oldest daughter didn't really seem interested in helping. So a friend introduced me to a Mini Office.

Mini Offices are an ideal method of keeping all the charts, facts and lists at hand in a lapbook folder or file folder or reference file. A mini office is a particular application of lapbooks. Each child can make his own mini-office -- a lapbook filled with reference pages for his own learning. The sky is the limit on what you can include. With a mini office, you have an individualized reference tool for each student! Cater it to your child's level and needs. Make a new one each term if necessary or make several -- one for each school subject. Pull out the math mini office when studying math. Or use a language arts mini office when doing a writing assignment.

How do you make a Mini Office? Depending on how long you want your mini-offices to be, choose 2-3 file folders and glue them together side to side. Download the sheets you want to use and a cover sheet. Cut your sheets and start placing them on your panels of your mini-offices until you have it organized. This could be challenging if you have a lot of sheets you want to add. I had to cut down some of the charts so that they could fit on a panel. Glue and let dry. (You can laminate them if you want)

What do you put in your Mini Office? The sky is the limit. You can make one Mini Office for each subject you are teaching or you can make a mini office for all the subjects. Depends on what you want.

Where do you find all of these charts? Simple. Google it. If you want a Math Mini Office, simply google Math Charts. The internet is full of examples of Mini Offices & charts or reference sheets to put in your Mini Office.

The best part about the Mini Offices is that they are easy to store & don't take up much room. My daughter made the one below. She loves pulling it out and opening up all the panels.