Search Results for: planner

Back To Homeschool Student Notebook Covers

July 8, 2014 | 10 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have some free back to homeschool student notebook covers today. Also, look at my page The Dynamics of How to Homeschool Easily and Smarter for more fun ideas and tips.

Don’t panic, it’s not quite back to school yet.

However, I was panicked excited when I created my back to homeschool student notebook covers last year.

Last year was the first inkling I had that we might move overseas. And knowing my fixation with having an organized space, which includes student binder covers, I created a set of science notebook covers back then.

Who knows what options I will find overseas for student notebook covers, right?

Then, I created history notebook covers too.

Though I had shared my science notebook covers with a few of you back then when my blog was new, I didn’t share my history covers.

Homeschool Student Notebook Covers

Too because I like all forms of back up plans for my learning area, I have slowly been creating printables for my school area when I have one again.

Also you know my aversion to matchy matchy sets of things and my need for a variety of color choices in any printable I do.

So I have created covers for two subjects (history and science) but they are in a variety of colors.

Five color choices with six spine inserts too for both subjects.

Mix and match the covers for each of your kids with the spine inserts.

Plus, I already have an idea for a style of cover for the other school subjects, which is completely different than the style I am sharing today.

This is a jump start to having covers for our school subject binders and I thought you might like them too.

Download science set here.

Download history set here.

It just feels good knowing that I am doing something to be somewhat prepared for the new school year even if I won’t have a learning space just yet.

More Back to School Craft Ideas

Look at these other helpful tips:

Are you looking to build your homeschool directly from Amazon? Check out my Amazon boards where I organized curriculum I’ve used by subject.
Homeschool Planner Supplies – Organizational Eye Candy Because Paper Planners ROCK!
100 BEST Ideas to Organize Your Homeschool Area – Storage, Spaces, and Learning Places

Hugs and love ya,

How My 25K Pinterest Followers Avoid Pinterest Pandemonium

July 6, 2014 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Because Pinterest tops the board of social media hogs, not only do you want your Pinterest account to flourish, but you also want to capture unique followers in your niche on their first visit to your page. Sharing how my 25k Pinterest followers avoid Pinterest pandemonium, I hope you too can avoid some rookie mistakes made by some bloggers or businesses.

What Are You Pinning?

Growing your blog or business presence in Pinterest land is quite different than pinning strictly for personal reasons.

Obviously the two concepts, pinning strictly for business reasons and personal reasons become intertwined because businesses are made up of real folks.

However, there are a few Pinterest savvy tips that help me to remember to hone in on my unique business audience with each pin regularly. Too, though I am sharing tips here for either a business or a blog and because I want to keep my explanations easy, I will just refer to blogs since I am a blogger.

Blog Niche = Pins and Pins = Blog Niche. This is a simple concept. But everyday on Pinterest, I see mistakes of this very important but basic idea.

There is a huge disconnect between blogger niche and the total number of relevant pins I see when I visit the Pinterest stream.

For example, just today, I was visiting a blog, which touts organization as a niche. Everything on the blog from presentation, to blogging articles to branding was beautifully laid out and there was no doubt as to her niche.

However, that same concept that did not carry over to the blogger’s Pinterest stream or recently pinned pins. I could not tell what her unique niche was from viewing her recent pins.

Scrolling, scrolling and scrolling in her Pinterest stream and in between wellness oils, how to blog, and dessert recipes (all of which nobody minds if that is what you expect) I could not find one pin about organization.

Yes, she had a board set up for her niche, but more than that is required. Like a blogging brand, your Pinterest pins or branding needs to be consistently pinned throughout your stream to attract your unique followers.

Too, just like your blog, followers don’t mind a mix of content for spice. But very soon, they want to read about what they came to your blog for. This same consistent branding needs to be followed when you pin.

When a new visitor lands on your Pinterest page, it should not take more than 4 or 5 pins for them to know exactly what you pin about and if they want to follow you or not. Within those 4 or 5 pins, you should be able to capture your target audience because you have pinned pertinent pins relevant to your blogging niche.

Primo Pinterest Spaces

Not only is it important to be consistent about pinning pertinent pins on a regular basis that capture your target audience, but board arrangement is extremely vital in attracting unique visitors.

The top two rows of boards, which most people can see without having to scroll down is premium advertising space. Do NOT give away the space to boards that are of a personal nature or to topics that are secondary to your main branding.

My top two rows of boards are carefully selected by me to attract my target audience and I also rotate some boards by season. Simply put, the top two rows should mirror your blogging niche.

Avoid confusion for potential followers by selecting pins that pertain to your niche. It should not be a balancing act when determining personal pins versus pertinent pins. Always have more pertinent pins if you want to continue to grow your blog.

The flair in your personality can by spotlighted by pinning personal pins and it adds spice to your page, but should never overshadow your main branding.

Pertinent pins and the well-arranged top two rows of your Pinterest account will seesaw your blogging niche and visa versa. Just like a seesaw, your boards and pins will balance and highlight your content even when the pins are not from your blog.

Do you see a few changes today that you can make or that will help you grow your personal Pinterest page into a flourishing business?

If you are a blogger and want to grow your blog as a business, then checkout iBlog Pro for more of my Pinterest tips. Click on the book below and when you get to the page, be sure to look for iBlog Pro.

Hugs and love ya,

Did you read my other articles about Pinterest?

Pinterest Tips to Grow A Business From Just A Mom With 24K Followers

How to Grow Pinterest From a Few Hundred Loyal Followers to Thousands

Linking up @ these fabulous places:

The Hip Homeschool Hop | The Mommy Club |

Homeschool Lesson Planning Backwards Part 2 of 2.

June 20, 2014 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’m not saying it was a good idea to wait and do Part 2 to Part 1 of Lesson Planning Backwards more than a year later, but I had a real good ~~excuse~~ reason. When my only blog was at New Bee Homeschooler, I really didn’t have a way for folks to follow me there until later. Many of my thoughts on my blog posts went to just my new bees either in a public workshop or on a private forum and not on my blog. Now that I have two blogs and they are separated, I know that some of my blog topics belong over here too. So I didn’t get back around to sharing some of them publicly until now.

Lesson Planning Backwards Part 2 is one of those posts and so today I am sharing the second part of that post. Plus, summertime is really a good time to talk about planning because you are not rushed with everyday school.

You can step back and reevaluate how you want this next year to go. Or at least that is what I like to do when school is slower in the summer.

Backwards Planning

It might sound like a bit of an oxymoron, but lesson planning backwards is not backwards. Planning means just that, looking forward to an end goal. Too, lesson planning for homeschoolers has changed over time because we now have some really helpful teacher’s manuals to choose from, which are not glorified answer sheets. The manuals make lesson planning more manageable.

Lesson planning though will remain a staple in any well-planned day because no matter how wonderful curriculum is, it will never replace your much needed guidance in tweaking lessons for each child.

Whether tweaking the plans of a laid out curriculum or drawing up a simple lesson plan, a few key points always helps me to keep lesson planning streamlined and forward moving.

One central spot is key. Whether you have one kid or it feels like you have a dozen on some days, lesson planning is about finding all your notes for each child in ONE spot. This is such a huge time saver.

Organized lesson planning is not about bulging notebooks of paper falling out of it, but it is about one central spot to see what everybody is doing for the day. That is why my lesson planning sheet is a weekly plan. I find that lesson planning is much like outlining. We just need a word or thought so we know what is planned for the day.

(Step 4: Choosing Lesson Planning Pages)

The weekly planning page is just to glance at because most of the time there is no need for such detailed lesson planning notes, unless of course you lesson plan the whole year which I have mentioned to you before that I have done. Oh my goodness! Let me say that again, oh my goodness. I would not ever recommend that, but I will share why in another post.

Let’s just say I thought I was trying to stay ahead by planning that far ahead.

Simplified planning is suppose to cut down your paper work and time. Flipping through one book is easier than 4 books. For example, having all 3 or 4 kids math lessons on one page is way more helpful than digging through 4 manuals each day for math lessons.

Plan longer, but not too far ahead. Sitting down about every 2 weeks to jot out the main points of what each kid will be learning over the next few weeks is a just about right pace for us.

You don’t want to play so far ahead that if your child has a problem understanding a new math concept, for example, that you can’t change your lesson plans to include more time for that. Too, some things my boys picked up quicker in grammar. So I had another week to look at and pick lesson plans from which allowed us to skip ahead of what I had written down.

How to Homeschool Without Kids

Plan Like A Teacher. I learned this point early too when planning for multiple children and that is take a lesson from some public school teachers. There is a reason they stay a bit later after school or have teacher in-service days. It allows them, hopefully, to catch up on some of that lesson planning.

Do you ever have school without the kids? You should. Use the time to get caught up on lesson planning. It took me a while to learn that point. I never had a problem doling out time to catch up on things around the house, but it took me longer to catch on to that mind-set as teacher mom. My children’s education is of way more importance than a sink of dirty dishes.

Allowing time with minimal interruption from the kids meant that some days were a “mom is here, but teacher mom is not here” day. However, those days were meaningful and well deserved as I could get absorbed in analyzing which direction we needed to go next in our lesson plans.

As the kids get older and take longer for some lessons, use that time while they are working on school to also plan ahead. The time may come in 10 or 15 minute increments. I do some of my best brainstorming and planning when I am sitting there waiting on Tiny and planning in shorter spurts too.

Lesson planning backwards is about understanding the end process and then finding ways to simplify it.

Hugs and love ya,

Don’t miss these other tips!

Lesson Plan or Lesson Journal?

How to Write a Simple But Effective Homeschool Lesson Plan

The FBI

You’ll love this fee FBI unit study and lapbook. You’ll love my other best homeschool unit study here at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.

We covered this in high school and my younger sons joined in too so the unit study can be applied to multiple ages.

J. Edgar Hoover was named Assistant Director on August 22, 1921.

We focused on the time period around his start with the FBI.

Studying modern American history? Grab this AWESOME free FBI Lapbook and Unit Study | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When asked about our next unit study, the older boys decided to study about the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. I have one high school teen too and needed to tweak this to his needs.

My objectives for them was a focus on American History/Government.

So the FBI topic is not just a fun way to learn about history but way more meaningful too.

Hands-on FBI Unit Study Activities

Taking fingerprints. Click here to read FBI Unit Study Experiment Making Invisible Ink.
Build a Crystal Box Radio Set with an oatmeal box (cool). Click here to read FBI Unit Study how to make a crystal radio.

The FBI – A modern American history unit

Sub-topics that fit naturally with the main theme of FBI & sub-topics that interested us.

However, I listed them here but didn’t cover them all but it was our starting point.

People

J. Edgar Hoover
Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte {yes part of that Bonaparte family}
Presidents before & after J. Edgar Hoover served.
First Wanted Poster
American Gangster
Special Agent Charles Appel
he fall of John Dillinger was the beginning of a different period for FBI

Events

First Model T’s impact on crime
Rise of anarchism {part of Marxism}
Results of World I & World II
Development of the FBI’s lab
The Palmer Raids
Origin of Finger Printing
Effects of 1930 Great Depression
Rise of Communism/Background of Russia and the Czars
Understanding the 3 branches of the American Government and explanation of the function of each one

Terms

Red Scare
lawlessness
G-Men
marxism & capitalism

World of 1908

Impact of Ford’s Model “T” on crime and criminal.
Impact of other inventions – telephone

Here is a picture of how I lesson planned the FBI unit study to fit what our needs were this year by using my unit study planner.

I use planning pages from my Ultimate Unit Study Planner.

Free Lapbook Printables Below

Free Decorative Covers for Notebooking Page, To use as Dividers or for Front of Lapbook

Free Lapbook

national landmarks lapbook collage - Copy

Exploring the 3 branches of US government - Copy

Free Notebooking Pages

FBI Unit Study Links and Resources I liked:

Movie: National Geographic: The FBI. 56 Minutes. With worries about the state of our national security increasing, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been under more intense scrutiny than ever. This penetrating documentary offers high-security access behind the scenes at the FBI. Rare footage and interviews with agents combine to offer insight as to how the Bureau really operates.I had this on Netflix and it well worth watching with older teens. Tiny got a little bored with it, but not the teen boys. It had rare footage of briefing the president and gave a nice overall view of their work. Kept our interest all the way through. Because of the crime, etc and other crime footage, it’s probably not suited for younger kids. Too intense. It’s on Amazon as dvd now, but the only one I can vouch for that gave us a glance at the features.

The FBI has the best resource for information about how it operates and that can be used for lesson planning. Under the section ABOUT US > History is an interactive place for kids and adults.

Also there is a HUGE 138 page book titled, The FBI; A Centennial History from 1908 to 2008 that was a our primary source. Look at the left, very teeny tiny corner under the document to download the pdf.

The Spy Museum has some wonderful downloads about the background of spying. From the site “Spying and intelligence is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.

Use intelligence as a lens to examine history, science, mathematics, English language arts, and art and design.”

Look at the Educator’s Guides Found here on their digital page for the following subjects.

Art
US Government
English
History
Math
Science
Cold War

How to Get the Free FBI Lapbook

Now, how to grab the free printable FBI lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

1) Sign up on my list.

2) Grab the freebie now.

3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

The Sticking Power of a Solid Homeschool Schedule

June 6, 2014 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule.

POWER OF A HOMESCHOOL SCHEDULE

Too, I have a bit of trepidation in sharing about this topic.

It has been my experience that homeschoolers obsess worry about this topic more so than some other homeschooling issues.

Deep down they truly care how to fit everything in a day, maintain their sanity and identity, and strive to make the homeschool journey a memorable one for the right reasons.

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule. Click here to grab these tried and true tips for planning a schedule!

Sometimes they feel isolated because they think other homeschoolers manage their schedules better.

Doing what I love to do and sharing with you just two points that help me to organize and what sometimes {not always} comes easier for me, I hope to give you a gentle sweet nudge in the right direction.

You are not alone in your struggle to make it all fit in a day.

Homeschool Schedule Equals A Plan of Action

Visible Schedule. Achieving success starts by creating a visible schedule. I know, you may think that is stating the obvious, but I promise there is a fundamental, but powerful point here.

Understanding that your schedule needs to be visible is the first step to a well-defined plan of action.

This is a very fine and let me emphasize that again—very fine point—that makes a huge difference between the organized homeschooler and the wanna be organized homeschooler.

Having good intentions by going through your schedule in your mind keeps it just that – a thought.

It is not a call to action or a plan.

Staying in your mind is sort of like keeping it at brainstorming level or at a mulling over stage.

Too, if you have a creative solution for a hiccup in your schedule, then you want to quickly commit that to a point of action.

When a schedule is committed to paper (or any other location in your house) it becomes a plan of action. It has gone from abstract to concrete. Does that make sense?

Paper method is just one way that a schedule is visible. It is my preferred way, but it does not have to be your way.

Shocking Invisible Homeschool Schedules

Avoid schedule type mayhem. In addition, what type of schedule you create depends on which family members you want to make aware of it.

Don’t just jump out there in your enthusiasm to organize and create something that hems you in.

Carefully scrutinize the needs and ages of your household. It will change and your need for different schedules will change.

For example, when the kids were little and though I hadn’t moved away from stepping in sync with a public school schedule.

I still presented what worked for them at a very young age which was simply something hanging on the wall to talk about each day.

At that time though I still had my schedule down on paper though it was not necessary to share it with my young kids.

Also, having more than one place or location for your plan of action is a recipe for success.

How? Because you have just doubled your efforts to help you accomplish each task day by day by sharing it with your children.

Many hands do make the work light or in this case, keep all on task.

Children have a natural bent toward routine. If you want to be more organized, use that natural bent toward helping you to flow through a day with a better plan of action.

Homeschool Organization Means Communication

As your children grow older, they become self-starters and built in motivators when they don’t even know it.

On more than one occasion when my sons were very young, they would prod me by asking if it was time to start our school or task.

Then last year, I shared my Woo-Worthy Big Calendar by NeuYear that I had visible in my house for a while.

Even though I had already started downsizing for our move, a temporary command center was a must.

The ages of my children have now changed dramatically, but the need of a visible place to communicate my plan of action has not.

Whether you put your schedule in a student planner, your homeschool planner, on a wall, on your refrigerator, or a central place in your home, it needs to be visible to accomplish your plan of action for that year.

A homeschool schedule is the backbone of homeschool success and a visible schedule has helped me over more than one homeschool hurdle through the years.

However, a common mistake in creating a homeschool schedule that has sticking power is to plan hour by hour, minute by minute and what seems second by second.

Next, I will share a few tips so that your plan of action keeps you organizing instead of agonizing.

How many places do you post your homeschool schedule?

Want some more tips about scheduling?

Hugs and love ya,

Search Results for: planner

Back To Homeschool Student Notebook Covers

Homeschool Student Notebook Covers

More Back to School Craft Ideas

How My 25K Pinterest Followers Avoid Pinterest Pandemonium

What Are You Pinning?

Primo Pinterest Spaces

Homeschool Lesson Planning Backwards Part 2 of 2.

Backwards Planning

How to Homeschool Without Kids

The FBI

Hands-on FBI Unit Study Activities