Organizing Post II

Last on the organizing list was my linen closet. This proved to be my most difficult project to date. I have tried to organize this thing before and was never very successful.
I tried to follow the advice of this organizing book that I had recently purchased, Organize Now!: A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life by Jennifer Berry. Linen closet is on week 39 but I wasn't going to wait that long! Btw this book is excellent!!!

She writes that you really only need two sets of sheets per bed, three if you have a flannel set for winter. Needles to say I have more than three sets. The kids' bed have four sets ea plus two flannel sets ea. I also have extra sets for guest's beds. That's a lot of sheet sets!! Plus blankets and pillows, again for guests. I have a lot of our winter stuff in space bags but that still did not create enough room for everything.

Thank God my very cleverly smart Mother in law suggested I keep the kids' sheets in a plastic storage box in their own rooms. Plus we have an under the bed storage box that we only use for Roxbury, I decided to put all the flannel sheets in that and under A9's bed.

Then I purchased three plastic storage boxes, one for ea of our rooms. I also got rid of a couple of sets that were not being used at all. This is what the linen closet looks like now!I also followed the books advice on putting over the door hooks on every door.

Linen closetCoat closet
A9's door (found them at Target for $2.50)
X7's door
Bathroom door
My bedroom door
Basement door
I'm so happy that we were able to do everything I wanted to get done before school starts this past weekend. We have one more week of summer vacation!!!!

Organizing Post

For the last couple of months I've been taking a break from homeschool planning and instead spent some time organizing my home and my schedule.
I found various organizing blogs that helped me create a planner that suited all of my needs so I don't keep forgetting the things that need to be done and also how to get rid of clutter and hot spots all over my home so that I don't need to spend too much time looking for the things that I need.

My first find was of course Pinterest. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where you can "pin" pics of the things that you love. I started by looking at homeschool rooms and from there I kept finding pics of family command centers. That's when my journey into organizing really took off.

Here is a pic of my new family command center. The purpose of the command center is to have a place upstairs where I can keep track of mail, appointments and things. My real command center of course is my desk downstairs, but I found that I needed something upstairs as well.

This is what it looks like now... everything I need upstairs is in here!

Next I found Organized Home.com, where I was able to create my own household notebook planner, blogs like Simple Organized Living and Organizing Your Way also allowed me to make a plan as to how I wanted to organize my home.

I did a lot of purging in the last few weeks, I tackled the basement first, my home office and the kid's desk areas. Here is a look.
Here is DH's side, I was able to give him the smaller desk and we added a shelf above it.
I added a new filing cabinet, a couple of baskets, the phone sits here as well. This is also where I keep my household notebook. I updated my filing system as well...

Here is the pic that inspired my new filing system!(I found it at Pinterest!) Mine is not color coded but it looks pretty similar, I needed two filing cabinets instead of just one.

Next we organized the entry way, we needed more wall hooks so my Dh made me a brand new one using hooks we already had! It is semi homemade! This is the one by the front door.This is another one Dh made me by the back door!My room! I added hooks to hang my bags instead of having them all over the floor.
There is a hook in Dh's side of the room as well for his Club bag to hang nice and neat!
I also decided to organize the bathroom closet. Yes, those are Flylady cleaning equipment right in there!

The room closets were organized as well, all closets throughout the house! I'm sad to say this is the end of the organizing projects for now, school is starting next week and Clubs is starting in two weeks and so is co-op. I need to focus on those things now. I do have one last project, my bedroom night lamps.
I will be going to Ikea (YYYYYYAAAAAAYYYYYY) in the next couple of weeks to buy them.... Hopefully all these changes will make this coming year a lot easier to manage, that is after all the point of organizing!

Our Upcoming School Year 2011 Edition Part 2

For this coming school year the focus will once again be on teaching X7 how to read. He has been doing very well with the phonic readers we started using at the end of last year, so we are just going to build on from there.

Also, I'm going to be separating them during school... she is becoming a bit more independent and he still needs me there all the time.
I got the downstairs ready for her and I will be working with him more upstairs. She gets too distracted sitting by the doors in the dinning room and he gets too distracted downstairs.

Here is what I have planned for X7 for the upcoming school year.

Five in a Row: One book a week, he will be doing a lapbook which will include geography, copywork and art from ea book.
Henry the Explorer
Madeline's Rescue
Andy and the Lion
Amber on the Mountain
Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair
Climbing Kansas Mountains
Christopher Columbus
The Red Little Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge
The Wild Horses of Sweetbrier
How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World
Cranberry Thanksgiving
Gramma's Walk
The Clown of God
A Farmer Boy Birthday
Warm as Wool
Very Last First Time
Daniel's Duck
A Pair of Red Clogs
The Glorious Flight
The Rag Coat
Three Names
Bearymored
Mirette on the High wire
Chicken Sunday
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny
Zarafa: The Giraffe Who Walked to the King
Miss Rumphius
Dory Story
Down, Down the Mountain
Isla

Math
Math U See Beta

Writing
Handwriting without Tears: Printing Power
Writing with Ease 1

Phonics
Explode the Code

Co op
Reading List(3)
Flat Stanley

Geography- Around the World in 180 Days
Health- Abeka
Science- experiments from Zoology 3

History- The Mystery of History Vol 1

Music- Tin whistle

Art

I can't believe I got this post done! I will try and post about our new setup downstairs and all the organizing I've been doing!

Our Upcoming School Year 2011 Edition Part 1

Here we are again about to start our fifth year of homeschooling! This has been a very interesting summer, usually I take the summer months to plan for the upcoming school year. This summer however was very different. I took time off from homeschool planning and spent more time organizing my home and my life for that matter... Now I not only have a homeschool planner but a life planner as well! believe me that was a good thing. I'm hoping to find some time to blog about that, but for now let's stick with school.

Our school year is 36 weeks, in the past I've been able to schedule one book a week and go from there.... this year is not that easy, at least not for A9.

We are done with Five in a Row. We are now entering chapter books land and is not as easy to schedule.

1st Semester
American History: We are going to continue to do American history using the Dear America books just like last year. These books will be read a loud by me. There is a notebooking journal that I created to go along with all the books.

Turn of the Century(1900-1920)
Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, 1912
When Christmas Comes Again: The World War I Diary of Simone Spencer, 1917
A Time for Courage: The Suffrage Diary of Kathleen Bowen, 1917

The Great Depression(1930-1939)
Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift, 1932
One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping: The Diary of Julie Weiss, 1938

World War II (1939-1945)
Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows, 1941
My Secret War: The World War II Diary of Madeline Beck, 1941

These Dear America books are double the size of the My America books from last year, so instead of reading them in one week it will probably take us two to two and a half weeks each.

Biographies- These books will go along with the Dear America books.
Who Was Amelia Earhart?
Who Was Franklin Roosevelt?
Susan B Anthony: Fighter for Women's Rights
The Story of Ann Frank

Science
Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day & Notebooking Journal

Math
Math U See Gamma (lessons 21-30)
Math U See Delta (lessons 1-21)

Language Arts
Primary Language Lessons
Writing with Ease
Learning to Spell Through Copywork Book B
Handwriting practice both cursive and print
Little House books for independent reading
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
Farmer Boy

Co op (28 weeks)
Geography: Around the World in 180 Days
Health: Abeka
Editor in Chief Beginnings
Reading List (3)
The Littles
Music: Tin whistle
Art

Languages
Spanish
Prima Latina

2nd Semester

History
The Mystery of History Vol 1
History related read a loud & independent readers;
Trojan Horse
Book of Greek Myths
Adam and His Kin
Tales from the Odyssey
The Five Chinese Brothers

Science
Nature Studies

Language Arts
Beyond Five in a Row Reading List- Read a loud books.
Fiction
The Cricket in Times Square
Homer Price

Biographies
Betsy Ross
Heller Keller

Sonlight Reading List for 4th graders- independent reading time
The Hundred Dresses
Strawberry Girl
Mr. Popper's Penguins
My Father's Dragon
Ginger Pye
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Charlotte's Web
The Twenty One Balloons
The Story of Dr. Doolittle

Vocabulary
Vocabulary from Classical Roots

The reading lists are not set in stone, it all depends on how fast she can read all of these books. We may end up reading more or less, there is a lot of flexibility in this area. She will be doing oral narrations for some of the books and written narrations for others.
The Latin curriculum is another thing not set in stone. If it works out great, if it doesn't we stop doing it.

We will also be doing artists studies, probably Mozart and Da Vinci and she will be doing a typing program this year as well.

Our Time at Roxbury

It was that time of the year again, Roxbury time! We had a great time, even though it rained... a lot!
I truly miss the sense of community we have while we are there!

 See you next year Roxbury!

Homeschool Break

I have taken a break from all things homeschool to work on my home. After thinking of nothing but homeschooling for the last four years I needed to take a break and concentrate on home for a while.

I will be posting about some of the changes and pics after Roxbury. See you then!

National Aviary

Over the 4th of July weekend, (while visiting Nina and Grandpa) we all got to go to Pittsburgh's National Aviary. The kids had a great time there and they got to see many interesting and unusual birds... here are some pics of our time there!

Planning for 2011-2012 Part 1

I know it's a little early for this post but in the last couple of weeks I've had some time to think about where we've been and where we are going as far as school choices and I've made some decision that I want to record here as part of my brainstorming.

When we first started homeschooling A9 was still in Preschool, in fact she had two weeks of preschool left when we started.
Back then I made a four year plan. I planned for K, and 1st through 3rd grade. Now that A9 has finished 3rd grade it is time to evaluate where we are at and what direction we want to take for the next four years 4th to 8th grade.

Five in a Row was a Godsend back when we first started homeschooling. Four volumes with book lists and lessons for each of the books. All I needed to supplement it was math and phonics... later I added spelling and language lessons and this year we started vocabulary.

Now that I'm looking ahead I realize that I no longer need the Five in a Row approach. A9 is past picture books, don't get me wrong, she still enjoys them but she is very happy with chapter books than you very much!
We don't need to do Beyond Five in a Row since I no longer need to follow an unit study approach to our school. Beyond uses chapter books but it is more intensive, were you are taking four to six weeks going through one book.

Also, I have been branching out from the unit study philosophy. I have embraced a more Charlotte Mason/Classical approach to school lately. It seems to be the right fit for A9 and I at this moment in our school journey. This Charlotte Mason/Classical philosophy is of course books, books and more books... read good living books for EVERYTHING. It is also more history centered than literature centered.. although in most cases it uses literature for history as well.

Both philosophies are very similar except when it comes to language lessons. Were Charlotte Mason likes a more gentle approach to grammar and a later start (around 10 or 4th, 5th grade), Classical likes to start grammar nice and early (around 6 or 1st grade).

Charlotte Mason also likes to do lots of nature studies and arts at an early age, were Classical likes to pay more attention to grammar early on. We have done nature studies from the very beginning in our school and we have had a more gentle, later approach to grammar as well.

Classical likes to start history early on as well... they like to cover history in four year cycles starting in 1st grade.
1st, 5th, 9th -Ancients, BC 5000-400 AD
2nd, 6th, 10th - Medieval/Early Renaissance, 400-1600
3rd, 7th, 11th- Late Renaissance/Early Modern, 1600-1850
4th, 8th, 12th - Modern Times, 1850-Present

Charlotte Mason takes a gentler approach as well, btw don't confuse the term gentler with doing less, it is not like that at all. Instead of doing history in four year cycles you have the choice of doing it in 5 or 6 year cycles and instead of doing it three times in 12 grades you only do it twice, giving the earlier grades time to do nature studies and more creative stuff.

I like this approach as well.. I don't see the point of reading about ancient history to a 1st grader...

Taking all of the above into consideration, I have started to map out how the next four years are going to look. I have all the curriculum for the next four years beleive it or not :) history,science, math, language lessons, writing, spelling, vocabulary, and we are starting Latin as well as continuing with spanish.

My one concern was literature, how am I going to do literature now that I will no longer be using FIAR? Well, after reading about Susan Wise Bauer author of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. I have downloaded her audio lectures from Peace Hill Press, specifically What is Literary Analysis? When, Why, and How Should I Teach IT? and Great Books: History as Literature, I know this is the way I want to teach literature.

Stay tuned during the next few weeks as I start to plan our own Dampf Homeschool book list for the next 4 years of A9's schooling. This will be fun!

BTW X6's schooling will remain the same, we will still use FIAR but I am giving Reading made easy a long break and sticking with the code books and of course math! We need to get this child to start reading!!

Book Lists and Other Happenings

Today was A9's ballet recital.. she looked like a Princess onstage, it was very emotional for me to see her like that! Yes.. I cried!
The performance was very good! At the end all of the girls danced together on stage, they all had the same routine, it was wonderful to see all the older girls dancing along with the younger ones.. I know A9 had a blast!
Things to remember for next years' recital.. bring her snacks and her DS. She spent the whole time there in the changing room waiting her turn onstage.

I have also been working on a book list for her, now that she is in 4th grade all we need to do for literature is read as many books as possible and pick one book out of every three for her to write a short summary on.
It doesn't get any easier than that!
The best part is, we can start right now... during the summer months! I have a feeling I am going to start having to go to the library more.. there is no way I'll be able to buy that many books... although I'm willing to try!!!