homeschool challenges

Some days it is hard for me to write because I always prefer the weight of a spoken word over a written word when it comes to telling you things that are important to me, like your heartfelt questions.

How can I achieve simple homeschooling is a reader question and I always make time to change my blog posts to talk with you about things that are heavy on your heart.

Look at Anne’s question. Do you feel the same way?

“How can I achieve a simple homeschool ? The amount of available options and materials are overwhelming.

Even after 1 1/2 years into it. I just love all the fun and creative ideas out there and get “side tracked” by it all.

I would love to be more minimalist in my homeschooling so I don’t have to do so much sorting, organizing and constant revisiting of plans!

And your amazing blog and Facebook posts are not helping! So many wonderful things, and so much of it free. Who can resist? I look forward to your blog post. Thanks from an unintentional unorganizer who is overwhelmed.”

Satisfied with Simple Homeschooling

Certain times during my homeschooling journey, I envied the pioneers of the past, like my mother, who had very little to choose from when she started homeschooling my youngest sister.

Though I was in high school, I took notice of her home made flash cards, learning games and books she collected.
Her choices for learning products to choose from couldn’t even begin to rival with all the things that you and I have today.

My younger sister’s schooling days were simple, filled with creative learning techniques and fulfilling.

Less is more sometimes.  However, there are many times I remember too that my mom was not allowed to choose from the things we have today because back then she was not viewed as a “real” educator.  She couldn’t receive access to the same learning materials as other teachers.

Things have changed significantly during my homeschool journey because we have access to so many free things that just were not available to those that went before us.  I wouldn’t trade our options today for those limited options back then.

We face another problem today, which is curriculum options overload.
So what I am saying is that though free is available, it doesn’t always mean that it may fit our homeschool plans.
Today, we need to develop the ability as educators to reach back to the simple times of those homeschooling pioneers without giving up the options that we have now.
How do we do that?

Homeschool Teaching Goals vs. Curriculum

Struggling is something no homeschooler likes to do.

Out of struggles at times can come a clear plan of action. From my struggles of deciding which free resources to use, I had to balance them with with my teaching goals.

Along the way, I had forgotten what I was teaching that year, that week or a particular day when I was swimming in a sea of free resources.

Getting caught up in curriculum hype and teaching resources is easy to do.

Trimming those overwhelming resources to usable resources for our family is done way easier when we don’t forget our teaching goals.

Think back to the past again to the one room school houses.
Teachers had very limited resources for multiple ages. Resources were not the teaching tools but teaching goals were primary and resources were built around them.

Coming full circle today, that is why you see many seasoned homeschoolers tout over and over that curriculum is just a tool.  When free resources are used to embellish the direction we are going, those teaching resources just become tools that we are glad we have.

Just because our toolshed is full of unique tools that we may need someday, it does not mean we will use every tool when we simply want to weed a garden or trim the sidewalk.

However, when it comes to time for a big project or a unique project that suits our family, I am always glad I have unique tools on hand and organized in a way that I can find them.

Homeschool Organization – Simple is ALWAYS Best

After determining your teaching goals and being determined to stay on focus, you want to develop an organizational system that works for YOU.

Forget all the crazy notions of things you would never do, develop a simple system for immediately putting that tool where it belongs so you can retrieve it easily when you lesson plan.

A super complicated fancy organizational system does no good if you can’t use it.  It can go from useful to useless real fast.

Think of a system that does not slow you down, but one where you can download the freebies, organize them, put them in the place they belong in the beginning and that can be retrieved easily when you lesson plan. And the best part, it can be done in a few clicks with minimal time.

When I set up my homeschool files on my computer, I knew I didn’t want a kajillion different topic files because that would be hard to retrieve and hard for me look at when there are too many files.

I start with very HUGE general sweeping topics.  For example, SCIENCE, is one big main file.

I am not hunting on my computer for rocks, animals or chemistry.  All of that can fit under one topic.

File: SCIENCE.

I want one go to place for planning science when I get ready. Easy Peazzy.

Then next, I don’t just dump all the freebies in that ONE big file.

I took time to organizes sub-files so that “everything has a place”.

A little side tip about freebies.  Normally freebies come in either one of two ways when we get them.

One way is by grade level and the other way is just by subject.

Think about that for a few minute and it really tames all the freebies. They have a subject matter and are either grade level or not. Simple.

Knowing this, I set up my sub-files by grade level and by topic.

I go one tiny step further and even number them or label the sub-files so they stay in the order that I want them to.

For example, I put zero on Kindergarten sub-file so it stays in grade level order in front of 1st grade and so I don’t think that I missed overlooking making a file.

File: SCIENCE > Grade Level or Topic.{Life Science}

Too, you see I have the 4 main branches of science so that if a resource is not specifically grade level, it goes in there.

Then going even further, my sub, sub-files under LIFE SCIENCE are even labeled by plant, animal or human body alphabetically.

I won’t make your eyes pop out, but even under human body, I have sub files for each body part if I find those resources.

File: Science > Life Science> Topic.

You notice under Life Science that I have a file marked “Animals”.
Sometimes I may come across one free resource and I won’t make a sub file on that animal until I have a few more to put in a file.

This is just my system because until I make a file for it, I know I don’t have that many “tools” for that topic.
It is just MY system but it works for me. You may want to create a sub-file for each freebie you get.
Again, this is just my way of glancing quickly when I am planning and knowing that I don’t have much on that subject when I don’t have a sub-file.

You can see quickly that under many of the sub, sub files like Flowers, Insects, Dogs, Frogs and Human body that you can have many sub,sub,sub files.
Please don’t get overwhelmed with all of this, because you can create files as you go.
In the beginning, all of my files were general files like Animals until I started collecting an overwhelming amount of free resources. Then I slowly set up each file.

Phew. Back to the beginning, can you see though that a good place to start is with GENERAL CATEGORIES?

History, Science, Language Arts, Art, Music and Bible.  That’s it. Start there to organize your freebies as you plod along. Don’t spend time going back over things you already did.

Too, with the overwhelming amount of free online storage, there is no need to worry about downloading and storing your “tools”. Grab them all because homeschooling is a long journey and you’ll be surprised at how many freebies you will cycle through.

Now that I have homeschooled for quite a few years, I have items also stored on a Toshiba, external portable slim drive.

I love this baby.  It is so very slim and I can plug it in a second and it goes with me in my purse.

I prefer it sometimes over online storage because of how fast I can retrieve what I need.

Achieving simple homeschool means to not give up all the free resources we have today, but it means to use them to enhance, embellish and make our teaching come alive.

It means to be satisfied with a simple homeschool day like times pasts where kids eyes lit up when the teacher introduced a new tool.

Lastly, it means to set up an easy, non-time consuming system for storing and placing tools right then in their permanent place so that they can be retrieved instantly.

What are some other ways you keep your homeschool simple that Anne could use?

Hugs and love ya,

Also, check out these tips for simple homeschooling:

When Homeschooled Kids Are Not Excited About Ordinary Days

Eliminating 3 Non-Essentials in Homeschooling