Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Activity, Change, Progress

Tina Robertson

Homeschool Organization – Why You’re Still Drowning in Clutter

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Homeschool Organization - Why You're Still Drowning in Clutter @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Getting rid of the kids is one option for homeschool decluttering. (okay, okay). Today, I’m sharing homeschool organization – why you’re still drowning in clutter because understanding why we save things helps us to part with them.

The Big Four Barriers to Homeschool Decluttering

Telling you that I have a regular routine to declutter and why you should too won’t have one ounce of meaning or motivation to you unless you understand why we all keep clutter.

On top of that, homeschooling just adds another layer of stuff to what we already have in our home.

Before we can address workable solutions, we need to conquer our fears, which are the barriers to homeschool decluttering.

Look at these four reasons why you can’t let go of clutter.

ONE// The one day thinking.

It for sure is the most crippling mindset, which is one day I will need it.

TWO// It may be worth something one day.

This is especially hard for us as homeschoolers because a lot of us by nature are frugal or thrifty, but can that be misguided thriftiness?

THREE// My ________ (insert family relative here) saved it for me all these years or gave it to me.

My mom and I are real close, but unlike me she saves everything. She had things from my high school and elementary years which were sentimental to us both.

However, she didn’t just have a few things, but tubs and tubs of them. I have no room to store them, but I am thankful for technology today because I am able to capture numerous photos of them.

FOUR//  It’s worth too much to just throw away.

The somebody, somewhere in the world will be able to use it that can’t afford nice things is another mindset setback for decluttering.

You and I both know as teachers that before we can correct negative behavior with children or find a solution to their problem we have to understand and identify the behavior first. Decluttering our homeschool is similar.

Confession time. Which one are you or do you want to silently stalk here? That is okay too because I will be addressing each of these barriers in upcoming articles with solutions and tips.

You won’t have to wait too long for some help, look at these articles right now.
5 Homeschool Things to Toss By the End of Summer, Top 10 Tips for Maximizing Space in (Really) Tiny Homeschool Spaces and How a 31 Day Menu Plan Makes You a Healthier, Better & Smarter Homeschool Mom + Free Editable Planner.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

3 Biggest Problems with Homeschooling an Auditory Learner (And how to solve them)

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Biggest Problems with Homeschooling an Auditory Learner (And how to solve them) @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

(Even when Tiny was little, he would have to set things to music to learn.)

Tiny was my first baby I had while homeschooling and I spent many days on the couch with morning sickness when I was pregnant with him. While resting on the couch, I used music to teach my older sons because they were preschoolers. I am convinced that hearing me read books to his brothers and playing music for them while he was in my womb made Tiny an auditory learner.

Homeschooling An Auditory Learner

It didn’t stop there. The Mr. loved carrying each son in his arms; he spent many days and nights with each son on his chest, humming to them directly in their ear. Like me, the Mr. loves all kinds of music, but you wouldn’t want either one of us to sing to you. But we have music at some time in our day.

Do you know to this day Tiny hums while he does his school and while he does other things?  I knew early on that I had a strong auditory learner and it’s not easy to school him when your other kids need quiet as they work.

On top of all that, I am a visual learner and need silence when I work. That wasn’t going to work as I taught Tiny.

Look at a few of the problems I’ve encountered and a tip or two to help you.

Problem One: They need to work with you one-to-one longer in a subject they struggle with. For us, it’s spelling.

The most important thing to remember is that your child advanced as fast as he did (or if he hasn’t) because your voice made all the difference. Your child’s strength is that he needs to listen to learn and if it’s been your voice, you need to be careful to not take that away so fast, like I did.

Don’t be quick to let him work independently on all things even if he is in middle or high school.

I learned this the hard way when I tried to let Tiny do his spelling independently too soon.

With auditory learners, pitch and pause modeled by you are everything whether it comes to spelling or reading.

Because I let Tiny do spelling independently at the same age I did my other two boys, he has struggled with it.

I have had to go back and work with him on it because he got use to the way I called out the spelling words when he was younger.

It made a difference in how he advanced in spelling. Unknowingly, my teaching method for spelling was spot on for his auditory need.

Here is one way I teach spelling to my sons. I call spelling words out by saying the name of the word first and give a definition of it. Pretty normal there.

But animated teacher that I am, then I hold my hand up in the air and bring it to the right side and say the first sound of the word, then I move my hand to the center and say the second sound and then to the left and say the last sound. Each sound is over exaggerated and very clear and distinct.

I taught all of my boys this way to show them how to break words down into sounds or their smallest part.

But this is exactly how an auditory learner learns and it lines up with his strength. When he hears me say the word broken down into sounds, his spelling is solid.

Problem Two: I call this a problem or a challenge at the very least, which is reading aloud.

The reason it’s a challenge is because if you have younger children, reading aloud with your auditory learner is not just about pleasure but they need your help to get the meaning from text.

Now, this is one thing I’ve done right.

I have never been a fan of reading aloud to my children only when they are little. The rewards change at they grow older because it’s now about discussing with boys the different view of the characters in the literature.

We still read aloud through to high school.

In addition, I haven’t realized until this year that I have been strengthening his reading ability further because he is an auditory learner. He is still learning from me as I read. I know this because as I change the pitch and power in my voice, he gets the point in the literature. This teaches him how he needs to read to himself.

My other two boys just got it when they read alone. The challenge here is that when you have younger kids and an older auditory learner they may not necessarily find delight in the same material.

I’ve learned that if you keep the younger kids interested, the auditory learner can learn from any book as long as he hears your voice.

In addition, audio books for the older learner fills that need they have because it can be exhausting to read each day with a lesson in mind. I try to focus on the enjoyment of reading aloud.

Problem Three: Along with being an auditory learner, there may be a need to wiggle, which can be a distraction.

This is also a challenge because it can make teaching them seem like a 3-ring circus, which I don’t have a problem with now, but may have been a problem in my earlier days of homeschooling.

For example, even in middle school, Tiny would throw a football while spelling a word out loud.

Also, Tiny turns grammar rules that he needs to memorize into musical jingles. If I’m not looking, he will add in a dance move.

He also has a need to recite things more to me than my other boys. He is constantly interrupting me with what he is learning or thinking.

Before I understood about his learning style, I thought he was just not putting effort into something. For example, he wouldn’t study his vocabulary very long or spelling before he brought the book to me to go over with them.

Instead of being lazy about it, it was quite the opposite. He was doing his school and applying his strength of learning out loud and with others.

He learns best by discussing things he learned with me and moving around. At first, it was very distracting for me, but having another son who learns by moving, I recognized the behavior.

When he exhausts me, he is more than willing to go into another room, shut the door and read out loud.

I’m still discovering new ways for Tiny to learn while listening, but to also teach him how to absorb information when others are not around to listen to.

Do you have an auditory learner? Have you recognized the signs? And what do you do?

Also, look at these articles: Homeschooling: Learning Styles – What’s the Difference anyway, Day 16: Practical Tips for Learning Styles and Day 15: Discovering Learning Styles.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Linking up @ these awesome places:

31 Days of Dinner Ideas for November With Linked Recipes for Busy Homeschool Nights

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

November 31 days of dinner ideas internet linked recipes. Grab these awesome and easy dinner ideas for those busy homeschool nights @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

You know that big sigh of relief you have when you know you’re coming to the end of a long-term goal? Well, you can just about exhale because we have almost made it to the end of the year in our year long menu planning.

My goal this year was to share with you one year’s worth of dinner ideas with recipes internet linked to  show you how 31 day menu planning is superior to any other planning and especially because we are homeschooling.

I use to stress about planning for the month but I stuck it out many years because I knew once I planned for that many dinner ideas for the month, I could concentrate on our school.

And well, it just took over and has been the BEST thing to do for my family because I didn’t want to give up good home made meals.

Besides that, I do love to cook, but not when I’m stressed all the time. So 31 day menu planning has been the solution many years for me.

By doing it this year with you, I hope to give you the boost you need to keep on going.

Look at my tips that  I follow now for 31 day menu planning.

  • Forget looking ahead to see what is all planned for the month. Things change, so don’t worry about trying to match the dinner idea to the day. It’s easy to find one dinner idea that will match up for the day when you have 31 ideas that your family likes.
  • This list is NOT about matching dinner ideas to  a date.  It’s about having 31 days of dinner ideas to choose from. Some months, I renumber my dinners to match dates and other months, I just follow my ideas straight through.
  • When menu planning, mix and match crockpot ideas, salads and easy dinners with dinners that take a bit more time. This way you can choose one of the crockpot dinner ideas if you do have a field trip or two planned for the month.

By the time we finish, we will have more than 365 recipes for the year. Boo-yah!

Then think about the return, next year we will have ALL of our menu planning DONE! And the BEST part is that hardly any recipe repeats. Yes, that’s what I’m talking about.

Oh for sure you can repeat your favorite, but variety keeps the family loving every precious moment you spend making them delicious food.

 Download here November 31 Days of Dinner Ideas

Grab the other months here:

January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner
February dinner ideas
March dinner ideas
April dinner ideas
May dinner ideas
June dinner ideas
July dinner ideas
August dinner ideas
September dinner ideas
October dinner ideas

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Free Rolling To-Do List (for your Homeschool or Blog Planner)

| 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Free Rolling To-Do List (for your Homeschool or Blog Planner) @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusBlogging goals are somewhat like homeschooling goals, but not exactly when it comes to meeting deadlines. As I homeschool, I only have the goals for my children that I want to meet.

As a homeschool blogger I collaborate with others. That means there are some deadlines, goals and tasks that need to be done, which are out of my control.

Also, some of the tasks that I need to do can wait for weeks and months and others need to be addressed quickly. Still other goals or projects require multiple steps that don’t necessarily go on the blog pages I use now for each month.

I know you don’t necessarily follow me because you blog, but I do know that certain times in your homeschool journey you have much to do as well and need a place to dump it.

Flexible Rolling To-Do List

So because I needed this form for my blog and I know you probably could use it too for your homeschool or blog, I am sharing this Rolling To-Do List with you freely instead of adding it to my Forever Blog Planner.

Forever Blog Planner 361 pages. The Ultimate Blog Planner @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus store

The reason I named it a rolling to-do list is because there is no date on it for each month. You just keep adding your to-dos and rolling them over onto the next page while you mark off what you have completed.

I will be placing my rolling to-do list pages at the front of my blog planner for now.

As I complete the tasks, I will check them off or put an arrow if I need to move that task forward to another page.

Like I mentioned, I can check off the list and keep using another page or rewrite a task if I want to onto another page.

It’s a place to dump all that is on your mind.

This rolling list just lets me keep on adding and scrolling through it and it is flexible. I don’t have to decide which month to put a task at the moment. I just simply note it to get it off my mind.

 

I love forms that are flexibility and I’m excited to use it. I hope you can use it as well.

Download the Free Rolling Printable To-Do List Here.

Also look at these other snazzy forms you may like: How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Lesson Planning Pages THIS Year, Homeschool Quarter Planning Form – Free UNIQUE 7 Step Planner and How to Grade a Homeschool Unit Study for an Older Child (& high school assessment).

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

14 Fun and (maybe Frugal) Homeschool High School Electives

| 3 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

,
Choosing homeschool high school electives are a fun part of your teen’s journey or at least it should be. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School for more tips!

Beyond the core homeschool subjects, electives allow a teen to pursue his passion.

When this time came for my oldest two, I tried to stay out of the process, but I didn’t realize that my boys actually welcomed my input.

Maybe some of this comes from my homeschooling them from the beginning.

They don’t really mind discussing things with me, but I want them to have the final say in what they chose to study.

14 Fun (and maybe Frugal) Homeschool High School Electives @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Keep in mind this part of high school is about discovery, exploring and maybe creating.

Each teen will view this time in high school differently depending on their goals.

14 Homeschool Electives

Some teens are more sports-minded, some academic-minded and yet others may be music and art-minded.

I’ve learned a lot about what I consider to be an elective and I’ve learned that you don’t have to spend a whole lot if you don’t want to.

Keep in mind though, this is high school and that means books do cost more.

So when I think about the cost of something, I think in terms of what value we get in return.

For example, if we pay and only get high school credit that is not necessarily a good deal to me.

However, if we pay for something and get some sort of certificate in addition to high school credit, then I’m all in.

The whole realm of what could be studied and discovered can be anything from art and automobile repair to woodworking and pre-med study.

Look at some of these options.

1 and 2. Home Repair and Maintenance & Woodworking.

My first son started off with Home Repair and Maintenance but switched to Beginning Woodworking.

High School Electives

Though I felt Home Repair and Maintenance was of much more value, this is again about my son choosing things that he thought interested him at the time.

3. Fine arts includes Ballroom Dancing. At the time it came to choose, my older two sons wanted to do some kind of sports, but we didn’t really have any homeschool sports group that were close.

I couldn’t do another hour of driving at the time.

What we did have close was an Arthur Murray studios for ballroom dancing. This is one of those things that I viewed as a two-pher.

The boys wanted to be with other teens and I wanted them to explore more fine arts.

At first, my boys said absolutely NO to ballroom dancing, but the Mr. got involved and told them to try it out.

After two lessons with hip young instructors and with other cool homeschool teens their ages, all of my boys took ballroom dancing for a few years.

I think they toned their bodies and learned a beautiful art more than they would have if they played sports and they also now agree.

4. Local programs assigning a certificate.

When my niece lived with us and was thinking about going into the medical field, I learned a lot about certificate programs.

For example, there are different levels of CPR training and it normally is offered to anybody as long as they can perform the duties.

This is one of those things I feel is not only practical to learn, but it gave her a glimpse of what it’s like if she decided to pursue something in the medical field.

Electives for Homeshooled Teens

Do you know how many certificate programs there are in every field?

Dozens as I began my search. It just takes some digging because it may or may not have a minimum age requirement. 

Also, it gives a teen has a completed certificate of completion in maybe a vocational field and a teen gets a taste of what a particular field is like. At this age, it is about exploring career options too.

5. Apprenticeship for photography.

My other niece was interested in photography and was offered to work with a local professional while learning photography.

Again, because she was going to get paid while learning a craft, this is an excellent choice for a teen. They are always looking for ways to make put some money in their pocket. This is a super two-fer and frugal.

6. Check out the local pool.

Though I wasn’t interested in my boys working at the local city pool, they are good swimmers and love the water.

Today some schools gives PE credit for working as a lifeguard, but this is certainly a doable option for a teen if he or she loved the water.

7. Weightlifting.

Yes, I know, but I have all boys and I really do love the fact that studying health, about the muscles and the body can be included in this and I did.

I didn’t really follow a course for my first son, but we did convert the garage to a weight room.

8. Create and collaborate with others for a group yearbook.

When I was with one group, they determined to do a yearbook to showcase our group’s activities for the year.

The high school teens would be the ones heading it up. If a student was interested in journalism, creative writing or art it gave them a way to use their talents.

Not only did the teens get credit for the year, but we got a unique yearbook.

I liked the fact that the teens had to follow up with homeschool moms to get information and work together to incorporate their ideas.

Electives for Teens

9. Choir.

One group that lived near us had a homeschool choir group. I had one son interested in taking choir, but it had a few too many girls for his taste. I wished it had a few other boys his age, but it was a great option.

10, 11. Foreign Language & Sign Language too.

Though foreign language courses can be costly, my boys got to use some of their Spanish when we went South America.

This is another example of how I don’t mind paying a bit more for this elective because it’s a great return in not only learning the syntax of a language, but it’s so practical as they travel.

12. Geography and history Unit study.

One of my sons also did a half of a semester learning about the country of Turkey.

Like his mom, he loves history and geography and not only did he read about it, but he learned about the culture, background, people, art and food. It was fun for him to share with our homeschool group what he learned.

13. Travel.

Yes, we intentionally moved to South America for a year and half so that my second son could receive credit for traveling and exploring other cultures.

Exploring the Amazon and trekking through mountains is the way my second son rolls.

Build Your Own Unique Homeschool High School Electives

So maybe this idea isn’t so frugal, but it sure was fantastic and he won’t easily forget what he and his brothers learned through their guided science tours in the Amazon.

Don’t forget that . .
(14.) Driver’s Education can be counted as an elective and it’s another two-pher when your kid takes this.

Most teens are ready to drive and I am here to testify that having a couple of chauffeurs in the family rocks.

My grocery shopping time has never been the  same because I rarely have to do it.

More Homeschool High School Teen Elective Resources

These are a few of the homeschool high school electives we have chosen so far. There really is no limit on the topics that your teen can choose.

Instead of focusing on the fear of how to count the hours and credit, focus on what your teen wants to learn because any topic or theme is readily available for your teen to explore.

Grab some other tips here:

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.