Organization

5 Ingredients Every Well-Organized Homeschool Space Needs

April 25, 2015 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’ll admit it. My knees go weak and my heart goes pitter patter when planning and organizing a home school space.

It is one subject that I get plain excited about anytime of the year.

Whether you have a homeschool room or not there are just some things that I have found through the years that make my overall day run smooth when I have things that I need.

Look at my list of 5 ingredients every well-organized homeschool space needs.

Writing Surface that is Age Appropriate.

I tried it and I tried it again but the kitchen table just did not work for me in my early years of homeschooling.

Even when I lived in the 800 square foot cabin for the 5 of us and we had no school room, I still fought for a space for the height appropriate table for writing.

The kitchen table and bar area was fine for projects, art and hands-on but it is hard to have good posture and put both feet flat on the floor when my son couldn’t reach the floor.

It is one reason that I believe that my

Bookshelves.

Need I say more. Okay, maybe a bit more because there was one thing I would have done differently.

Instead of getting caught up in those cutesy little bookshelves, I wished I would have just bought regular size bookshelves because you get more use out of them.

Preschool and Kindergarten are only a very few short years of schooling compared to elementary, middle and high school.

I could have easily used the bottom shelves where my sons could reach when they were Preschool and Kindergarten ages.

I did waste a couple of years with cute shelves but it would have been more practical with regular sized bookshelves.

Out of the Box Storage Supplies.

Buying zipper pouches to use for flashcards, buckets found in the kids gardening section of Target to hold pencils and small plant pots without the plant in the outside gardening section all made for inexpensive and beautiful storage that looks good in any part of the house.

I preferred clear storage containers that could be moved to any part of the house that held atlases, maps or references.

Pencils That Never Require Sharpening

Another must-have in my organized home school space is a mechanical pencil.

Your kids will not waste time sharpening pencils and the best thing about it is that your not so neat writers become neat because the pencil always has a nice point.

We use only the .9mm lead because it didn’t break so easily and it is sturdy. These are the ones I use by Pentel.

Organized Homeschool Teachers Rock.

Too, don’t focus so much on the needs of your children that you forget to organize material in a way that is good for you.
Don’t be afraid to rip the binding off any book and coil bind if needed. Coil bound books lay flat and I am able to highlight and write in my teacher books.

It doesn’t hurt to add a few pretty but well need supplies like paper clips, high lighters and pens.

Too, I love notebooks not only for my boys but to organize my material.

More and more resources are going digital and I love the fact that I can print exactly what I want to put in my teaching binders.

There are more things that I love to add to my homeschool space but these things are the basic ingredients to start with.

How about you? What is on your basic list of must-haves for your homeschool space?

Hugs and love ya,

Check out these other posts:
How To Turn a House Into a Homeschool Space Part 1
How to Turn a House Into a Homeschool Space Part 2

6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen

April 17, 2015 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Organization is not something we should just learn our self, but it’s a blessing we need to pass on to our homeschooled high school teen.

6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Look at these 6 ways to organize your homeschooled high school teen.

1. Dedicated space.

Source: PBteen

There is nothing more important to helping your teen stay organized than having a place for “it all”.

From the time they start learning to drive until the time they graduate, they have a mounting amount of things to take up their space.

Like you, they too need to know that when they put something away, somebody else will not move it.
Having both a dedicated space to store their items and to study at will help them to learn to manage their space.

2. Coloring is for High School.

If you have a teen that loves to organize, then something that makes a young organizer get giddy is a not only a new set of high lighters, but a color coordinating system.

I allow high lighting in books at any level if it will help my boys retain their information.
Yes, I know the book won’t have any resale value, but I am foremost concerned with teaching my boys a method to study.
They are all visual learners and so having an easy system for remembering new words and key points when studying is one I encourage.
Finding answers to questions happens when the answer is highlighted or underlined.
Too help them develop a code for each color.
For example, we used green for new words, then reviewing material becomes a snap.

3. Written or Digital Planner.

Though I love techie things, I found that having a paper planner or just even a daily checklist if a planner sounds cumbersome to a teen was a better fit for us than a digital device.

Student Planner 15 min increments editable 1

Student Planner 15 min increments editable 2

(2 Page View for the Student Planner – Tracking in 15 minute increments.)

I managed my boys’ time on line and because being on the internet was something they could not do in private, we found it easier to manage their time through easy paper checklists.

4. Subject Balance.

Taking their notebooks, planners or checklists with them in their bedrooms gave my kids time to look over what they actually did versus what we planned.
Like us, they can over plan.
Learning to balance the time they spend on each subject is critical to keeping the flow to their day balance.
High school is the time to learn to organize subjects differently.
For example, like a lot of college or upper level subjects, they may tackle one or two subjects intensely and then move on to others.
What matters is what is accomplished at the end of a semester or at the end of however your track a school term.
Let them try different approaches to organizing the approach they take to school subjects while they live with you.
That is the time to see whether a creative idea works or not.

5. Paper Management.

Mr. Senior 2013 came up with his own system of managing pages for assignments for the week.
Actually, it was a perfect example of how our children will model our behavior if we put forth a bit of effort.
He adopted a system I had used for years, which was pulling the pages out of a workbook or printing them off for the week from the internet and placing them in an organized bin.

Homeschool High School Student Organization @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

One of the reasons I fell in love with this system was that it showed my kids what was expected each week and they could get started quickly without waiting on me to present their work to them for the day.
Nowadays, they call it a workbox system, but I still love organized bins that hold weekly assignments.
They are super compact if you are short on space and everybody can access them and see what is expected each week.

6. Supplies Matter.

Get your teen excited about an organized lifestyle by providing them with cool supplies.

Whether you’re starting a new school year or want to get your teen excited about organizing, sleek and snazzy supplies can infuse a crush for organizing.
One or two snazzy pieces to organize their supplies will give them a kick start to organizing.
In a world that teaches that we constantly need more of everything to be happy, our teens will be faced with the same decisions about trying to keep their lives clutter free.
Organize your homeschooled high school student now because organizing chaos never worked.
Organization at the high school level is not only the beginning to successfully learning how to follow a workable schedule but to mastering the skills needed for savoring life.

What about you? How do you organize your teen for high school?

Homeschool Day: 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting It All In

April 6, 2015 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I can’t drive and talk on the phone at the same time and have any kind of quality conversation much less pay attention to my driving. Add in a homeschool day and In this day and age it’s called multitasking.

I really don’t like that term in my homeschooling day because it makes me think that I am not giving 100% to the task on hand.

Not only do I not feel productive while driving and talking, but in a lot of places it is illegal because of the dangers.

Simply put, we can get side-tracked.

Homeschool Day: 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting It All In

1. Homeschool Prioritizing = Important Things First

Prioritizing is a term I prefer to use because that is really what a homeschool day is about.

Did you know that prioritizing is the secret in not surviving homeschool, but treasuring each day?

Homeschooling is a long trek and stacking all the things we want to do in our day by multitasking can leave us sidetracked with very little ability to do what is needed.

Prioritizing your tasks in order of importance is the key to a stress free day.

I am not really even talking about getting an early start in the day even though this proves very successful for most homeschoolers.

What you need to remember is that what ever time is first in your day, that time needs to be your school zone.

Your teaching needs to be given priority so that before anything else comes up, you have accomplished some of your goals.

2. Do Opposite Planning

Another mistake I was making for many years is setting my homeschool schedule to the beat of my oldest son.

If your household is filled with lots of little ones, your rhythm needs to beat to the youngest and not to the oldest child.

Many years ago, I heard David Hazell of my Father’s World give the best piece of advice.

He said the oldest child needs to be dethroned.So true! In other words, quit setting the schedule to suit them.

We worry so much about our oldest child that he may view his time as absolute to the other children’s time.

It is okay to worry about doing school with them, we need to be conscientious.

However, the lessons we teach our oldest child about patience, forgiveness and an independent attitude to pursue some learning on their own is what homeschooling really is about.

How does this fit in with getting it all in the day? We are moms first and it always take priority.

Caring for our family’s needs, whether it means cradling the toddler, hugging the preschoolers or wiping the tears of a hormonal middle schooler, our homeschool schedule needs to work around our family.

3. You Have to Plan

Sample Homeschool Schedules

Another tip for maintaining a calm flow to your day is to plan it or schedule it. Don’t let a schedule stranglehold you.

A homeschool schedule is a like a vacation plan. You use it to be sure you don’t miss any of the important things along the way.

It is a guide to your day but should never be viewed as another stress inducer. It points your direction so that you keep going along.

Look at two of my homeschool schedules I followed for quite a few years.

Older Household

Mon. off.

Tue – Fri. School

9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

2:00 – 4:00 reading time, chore time and quiet time.

Younger Household.

Mon. off

Tues – Friday School

10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

1:00 p..m. – 3:00 p.m. school (school, hopefully while the toddler and preschooler napped)

3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. chore time and quiet time.

I even did school on Saturday one year when I had a toddler and a newborn. The Mr. was home and I could get so much accomplished with my oldest son.

If you love white chalkboards like I do, then you’ll love this whiteboard for organizing.

Instead of panting through the day and giving homeschooling, cooking or caring for the little ones with meager energy, prioritize your day.

Seasons of time pass by quickly. Don’t spend precious homeschool days that won’t last forever by pushing your limits to the max.

And if you need more help, you’ll love my book, Homeschooling 31 Day Boot Camp for New Homeschoolers: When You Don’t Know Where to Begin Paperback.

You’ll like these other posts and helps:

Homeschool Day. 3 Smart Strategies to Fitting it ALL In @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

What does your homeschool schedule look like now?

Dedicated Homeschool Room or Dining Room Homeschooler

January 23, 2015 | 16 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Pining for more books and bookshelves is something that most all homeschoolers agree that we can never get enough of.

Collecting materials, books, supplies and every possible learning tool that we can imagine is a never tiring hobby pursuit too.

However, when it comes to either having a dedicated homeschool room or dining room homeschooler that is where the similarities end.

Homeschooling not only for 15+ years but also in helping new homeschoolers and yes I even made house visits to set up a few homeschool rooms, I want you to know there are so many things that weigh in on the decision to either have a dedicated homeschool room or be a dining room homeschooler. It is not as easy as it seems.

As I school longer, I have come to value the fact that we have very little control over most of the factors.

This point has become more sharply focused for me now and I appreciate it way more than I did 5 or 10 years into my homeschooling.

For example, we may just not have the space for a dedicated room and become dining room homeschoolers not by choice.

This was the way I started off with Mr. Senior 2013. A 800 square foot cabin for 5 people just did not allow room for a dedicated learning area.

Too, I have heard many positive and negative points made for doing school at the dining room table or setting up a homeschool room.

I have even heard that learning can’t be contained in any one room no more than living can be. That learning in a dedicated homeschool room separates living from learning. You can disagree with me right away on this too, but that simply is not true.

Let me expand on that thought too and here is my stipulation, which is if you only school in that area for your whole journey from preschool to high school, it could seem more public school-ish than homeschool.

On the other hand, I have never meant a homeschooler who spent their entire journey, preschool to high school in one room, including my family. Have you?

So this is not another blog post about whether you should or shouldn’t have a homeschool room, but it is about sharing how when you and your children’s needs change, so should your area.

Whether you are a dining room homeschooler by choice or not, or you have a dedicated homeschool room, the points today will help you to decide if you need or just want a dedicated homeschool room.
Too, I will share some tips about how to maximize the room in your house if you are a dining room homeschooler.

You Can’t Afford to Ignore This

Looking back on my journey if you were to ask me when my sons were 5 years of age and 2 years of age and a newborn, I would say that a homeschool room was an absolute must.

Fast forward to high school years where my sons spent more of their day away from me and in their room, I would say it’s not a necessity. Again, your current needs should be considered.

Look at my list of things you really can’t ignore when deciding how to set up a school room or if you should make a switch.

Space. There is no getting around it. If you don’t have the room, you just don’t have the room. There is not really a choice of where you homeschool.

I have schooled about half of my journey around the dining room by choice and some years when we lived in the cabin not by choice.

Ages. Ages of your children really matter and affects your view at the time.

This is where, if you do have a choice, that it makes a difference having a space when training very young children to a routine.

When Mr. Senior 2013 was 3 years old and I was teaching him handwriting, he would just set at the bar because we did not have a dedicated room.

Right away I could see that it was hard for me to tell him to have good posture for an emerging writer if his feet couldn’t touch the floor.

At this age though too, his attention span was real short and he would be out of the chair as we danced our way through the ABCs each day.

The rest of the day would be spent cuddled up on the couch with a warm blanket as I read aloud to him, my middle son and my newborn. The need for a dedicated area was not really a need during those years.

After we built a new house and had a dedicated school room, Mr. Senior 2013 was now 5 years old and having a place for him to write that was ergonomically correct was absolute key to his beautiful penmanship later.

Along that time, came Mr. Awesome right behind him and at 3 years old, having a dedicated school area was a sanity saving tip for me as I corralled the mounting educational clutter.

When teaching study habits and especially for wiggly boys, they knew I expected different behavior in that dedicated room. It was not the time to get down on the floor and wrestle.

Though I did tend to run my day more public school-ish because I was still learning back then, the dedicated area helped me to train my sons for good future study habits.
Back then, looking at the dynamics of a family, which had kids of different ages than mine was an eye opener for me.

Helping moms who started their homeschool journey when their children were middle or high school, the dining room table was a welcome sight and a relaxed way to foster family togetherness as they gathered around the family table.

It was a relief from the rigid schedule of public school confined to one room.

Listen to your inner teacher/mom needs. I don’t mind you knowing it and that is part of my personality is that I simply can’t overlook clutter and start off my school day by stepping over it.

Some days I wish I were different. As hard I try through the years to be more easy going about it, the truth of it is that I am so utterly distracted by the sight of clutter, it’s crippling.

I envy the moms who can look past the clutter to start school because I could probably learn something from them.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a joke when I was pregnant with my number three son because it didn’t matter if we had clutter, I couldn’t really do anything about it.
When I got to the point in my journey when I could do things the way I wanted to, I embraced that part of my personality because I could come to my children “whole” for the day.

An organized school room was a breath of fresh air every morning for me.

A dedicated homeschool room, when they kids were very little, was more than a relief, it was an unexpected blessing.

As moms sometimes we are so busy filling the needs of our children, we don’t stop to think what do we need to keep homeschooling each day too.

What rocks our homeschool world as we start the day? For me, I could not push down my need to have things organized and not have clutter strewn all over the house. I simply would not be a good teacher to my kids.

As the boys grew and hit middle school and high school years, I had help around the house now. We moved away from a dedicated homeschool room to the dining room table. Coming to the table with my morning cup of coffee to meet them after they gather their school books for the morning is sheer delight.

I realized too that I didn’t have to give up my need for organization either.

By using furniture we had in our dining room for school books and supplies, it still gave my sons a place to put away their books for the days.

Fast forward this many years and I have changed some too because I don’t mind science and history projects around the house because it is evidence that we live and learn in the same places.

Repurpose and Reuse

Look at this list of ways I organized our school things when either by choice or not by choice, we learned at the dining room table.

small pretty and clean trash cans turn to map fold up storage
plant pots turn to teacher utensil holder and writing utensils holder
wooden or plastic crates turn to stacked and inexpensive bookshelves
empty gallon paint cans can be painted pretty turquoise and orange (couldn’t resist you know I love that color) and hung on the wall for shelves
cedar trunks in the boys bedroom become a place to hold our tons of books
empty picture frames hung on the wall in the guest bathroom became a place where I hung and switched out weekly
metal baking sheets in the kitchen become a place for magnet play during the day and used for baking at night
the small space between the refrigerator and the wall become a place to put away and store my diy trifold cardboard word “wall “ when teaching them to read for the day
china cabinet turned book and craft supply storage
the standard for buying sofas in my house changed to something that was high enough off the floor so that I could store rolling storage with school supplies in it
scaling back my love for shoes, I used my over the door shoe hanging bag for school games and manipulatives
my newborn’s armoire got a shoe bag added to the side of it so it would be height appropriate for my then 3 and 5 years old boys to reach to grab books to “read”

{one area in my dining room}

Embracing both you and your children’s needs at the time is the deciding factor for how each learning area worked for us.
If you are mom with a young household, I encourage you to spend part of your day in a room that engenders routine.

As we schooled longer, we did end up doing science and history in the living room.
Embracing both routine and relaxation in our day was key to keeping balanced. My boys looked forward to entering our lively learning room in the morning each day and did so without me prompting them each day.

Homeschooling well trained middle school and high school students is a time I savor too.

{I didn’t give up my need for organization when we moved from a dedicated homeschool room to the dining room. I used part furniture intended for dining room use like the hutch and then part storage containers like shorter bookshelves and drawers so my sons could put away their supplies each day.}

Our day starts off with us together at the dining room table now and the rest of it is spent by the boys being in their room or in another part of the house on computers.
Now, I couldn’t imagine all of us entering a homeschool room each day. In the past, I couldn’t imagine not having a dedicated homeschool room when I needed it too.

Has your journey changed through the years too? If you are a dining room homeschooler, do you have any great tips to share for clever storage?

Hugs and love ya,

Check out these other posts.

How to Turn a House Into a Homeschool Space Part 1

How to Turn a House Into a Homeschool Space Part 2

Linking up @ these awesome places:

100 Best and Easy Ways to Organize Homeschooled Kids

December 8, 2014 | 12 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’m excited today to share 100 Ways to Organize Kids. When we share learning and living spaces, it’s difficult to say the least to keep the clutter corralled.

Too, it’s easier to train our kids from the time they can toddle to learn to put away their things than it is to wait until they are teens to develop the love of organizing.

Also, we need to provide kids a place to put away all their things.

The dreaded words of go clean your room do not have to be followed by moans and sighs because we have taken time to teach them where all their things do belong.

So, I have divided this page out by the troubled areas in organizing kids’ spaces so that you can grab a few tips that will make our organization efforts count!

100 Best and Easy Ways to Organize Homeschooled Kids

General Tips for Organizing Kids

Frugal Tips for Organizing Kids Room
Organizing the Unorganized Learner
Organizing tips from homeschool Moms
50 Clever DIY Storage Ideas To Organize Kids’ Room
Helping Disorganized Kids Become Organized
5 Ways to Develop Your Child’s Organizational Skills

6 Simple Successful Strategies for Homeschool
49 Clever Storage Solutions For Living With Kids
10 Must Do Ways to Organize Kids Things

Chore Charts

Dry Erase Chore Charts
Task Cards.
Free Printable Chore Charts for Kids
Free Printable Chore Charts
Free printable kid’s morning routine chart

Kid’s Routine Chart and Printables
KIDS’ ROUTINE CHECKLISTS
Free Homeschool Time Management Printables for Kids
FREE PRINTABLE CHORE CHART

Look at these other tips you’ll love:

Hugs and love ya,

This blog hop is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutual beneficial projects.

Organization

5 Ingredients Every Well-Organized Homeschool Space Needs

Look at my list of 5 ingredients every well-organized homeschool space needs.

6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen