Half a Hundred Acre Wood

Christian homeschooling integrating Classical and Charlotte Mason principles

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With the added incentive of inviting our homeschool group to our home for a back-to-school bash, we finally went from this:

 
AAAACCCKKKK!!!!!!!!
to this:

 

 

 

Just a few weeks ago I was saying:

I’d like to say that we were trying to prove the Law of Increasing Disorder, so I will. You cannot argue that things will naturally return to a structured, organized state, ESPECIALLY in our home. Because I am STILL TRYING to prove that things will return to an organized state all by themselves. But nothing has happened! That stuff just sits there laughing at me! So, I propped a broom against it as a threat.

No, it didn’t go back to normal all on its own. And the broom just looked pitiful sitting there. It was a tough thing for me to face, really.  But I finally grabbed the broom and moved it around, which started the most tedious task EVER!  (It was worse than MT. WASHMORE!!!)  And, despite my efforts, I can already see the Law of Increasing Disorder prevailing once again (especially after a wonderful experience of 40+ children visiting, but, boy, was it WORTH IT!!!).

So it’s not perfect, but at least I can find the scissors now.  And because I was willing to admit how sad our situation was, we won The Classroom Contest:

Congratulations to our two “Classroom Contest” winners:

Best Homeschool Classroom: DONNER ACADEMY 59 VOTES!
Most in Need of Online Classroom: ARROWOOD ZOO HOMESCHOOL 93 VOTES!
And congratulations also to HAPHAZARD HOMESCHOOL AT 100 ACRE WOOD AS MY PERSONAL PICK – BECAUSE HER ROOM IS WHAT MINE LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT’S NOT BEING PHOTOGRAPHED! 🙂

Can you BELIEVE that?!?!?

What did we win?  A one-year on-line subscription of interactive unit study tutorials from The Simple Homeschool.  Thank you, Stephen, for making me meet a deadline, even when you had no idea what it involved (including the embarrassment of using our chaotic classroom to enter a contest!).  But his efforts at hounding me were not in vain, for now he’s enjoying learning about Sharks, which is one of his favorite things to study over… and over… and over again.

Homeschool Organization

Now, as far as how we keep organized at home during the school year, we use our own version of a workbox system.  Last year we had the boxes in order of our school schedule (for the most part), with breaks actually written onto the boxes as well.

This year, instead of separating all of the subjects, I’ve only separated Language Arts and Math because the boys are all studying the same thing for history, science, etc.  And it’s organized in order of what we study over the course of the day, along with reminders of which day of the week will have that subject focus in the afternoon.

The boxes are labeled from top to bottom as follows:

  • Bible
  • Latin
  • David’s Math
  • Stephen’s Math
  • David’s Language Arts
  • Stephen’s Language Arts
  • Handwriting/Music/Art
  • Geography
  • History
  • Science
  • Levi’s Box (with pre-school activities, coloring, etc.)

When we get home from our co-op on Tuesdays, we take out everything (e.g., their tin whistle) and place it into the workbox for the week.  That leaves their bags hanging up and out of the way the rest of the week.

We also use a hanging file folder system with folders labeled “Week 1,” “Week 2,” …, “Week 23,” “Week 24.” At the beginning of the year I print out ALL the stuff I’d like for us to do and file it under the appropriate week (including the print-outs for our tri-fold board).  As I find coloring sheets, special articles, activities or experiments over the course of the semester, I print them out and file them in the appropriate week as well.  At the beginning of each week, I transfer the items in the current-week folder to the workboxes.  For the remainder of our school year (the other 12+ weeks that our co-op is not in session), I have another folder called “Other resources.” During those other 12 weeks, we also finish what we didn’t get around to doing (or finishing) while classes were in session.

Our file folder system.  This helped me so much last year!
Last year’s tri-fold board with page protectors taped to board.

So, there you have it.  Our organized chaos.  I’m sure others can really outdo us in this arena, but if you’re having trouble getting organized, take comfort in knowing that even I can get organized!


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