Organized Part 2 – Getting the Kids Organized!

You can be the most organized person in the world but if your kids are not organized you will pull your hair out trying to keep yourself that way.  We love our children but we learn fast that they generally don’t have the organizational drive that we do.  I have tried several different things to keep my kids homeschool stuff organized. 

I learned fast that sending their school books to be placed neatly on their desks in their room is NOT a good idea!  Things get lost and destroyed in their bedrooms.  One of the things that I started doing that has worked is I have a small shelving unit and I have a spot on it for each child to stack all of their books, papers, etc.  The rule is when their work is done all items go back on their spot on the shelf.  That way I can find assignments to grade and we don’t spend half the day finding the spelling book that was swallowed up by the bedroom.

Organization is the KEY to keeping yourself sane!

I learned very quickly that organization is a MUST when it comes to homeschooling.  If you don’t stay organized you can get buried in paperwork almost overnight.  I wish I could get back all the time I spent trying to find school books the kids had misplaced.  And there is nothing worse than losing track of what you wanted to accomplish this year because you are unorganized. 

The best thing I did was create a binder just for me.  This binder is my “hub” for all things homeschool.  The first thing I did was sign up for this website called Mom’s Tool Belt.  She has tons of great designs for covers, spines, calendars, support materials, etc.  I like to use color coding so I picked a color for my binder that I know right away that it is mine.  My binder is green with “Mom’s School Notebook” on the cover and binding.  I put my binder together with tabs for each subject.  Behind each tab I put a lesson plan outline, a record sheet to record scores (or check off sheet), tests, and any answer keys I have in print off form.  I bought tabs that have built in folders so I could slip anything I needed to give the kids this week into the folders. 

Lesson Learned – Set a schedule

I would love to say that all of my kids loved the idea of homeschooling from day one but I would be lying.  I have received a lot of wining from my children about what they are missing out on.  When I try to explain to them the benefits of homeschooling such as a better education, more opportunities, etc. they roll their eyes and continue to complain.  So I had to pull out all the stops and try to win them over with other benefits such as being able to sleep in.  When I say sleep in I was thinking we normally was up at 6:45 to be on the bus by 7:30, and now we can sleep in till about 7:30 or 8:00.  But my children took it to a new level. 

They think sleeping in means they don’t see the light of day till about lunch time.  Until recently I had allowed them to do so as long as when they got up they had to complete all of their assignments.  The problem was our days became longer and longer.  Kids were sleeping later and going to bed later and it was a vicious cycle.  I was starting to sleep on this “2^nd shift” type schedule and I was getting NOTHING done!