Homeschooling Challenge – Clutter

One of the biggest challenges to homeschooling – based on what I hear at homeschool support meetings and read on homeschooling forums – is clutter!!  I think we all have times when we wonder if there is really a floor under all that stuff in the living room.  We have been known to search for days for a book.  Let’s talk a little about clutter in a homeschooling house!

Causes of clutter

• Kids who are educated at home spend most of the day at home, giving them lots of opportunity to make clutter – there’s also lots of opportunity to clean it up, but somehow THAT seems to happen far more rarely!!
• Homeschooling families generally have lots of educational supplies and books (even when we use the library regularly – how does that happen?).
• Homeschooling parents are so busy educating the kids and making sure that the family is fed that housework often gets pushed aside. 

Aggravating factors for our family (I’m sure you have your own list)

• It’s hard for me to keep up with household clutter with my frequent headaches.
• Our current house is too small for our stuff.  Of course, Mr. Math Tutor would say that we have too much stuff for our house.  Whatever.
• Living in The Great White North, we have snow for 3-4 months which means that we have lots of added coats, gloves, hats, scarves, etc. to add to our mix of stuff.

How to deal with the clutter (Please note that I’m not remotely an expert here – I’m just giving you ideas that work for me and I’ll be asking you to comment and tell us what has worked in your home.)

• Daily chores – My kids have chores to do every day that include keeping the living room vacuumed (requiring that it is at least straightened first).  We’re not perfect about getting them done all the time, but it’s a start.

• Bookcases – We have bookcases filled with books in the living room, dining room , schoolroom (Rosie Girl’s and Mr. Math Tutor’s office), sunroom (my and Wild Man’s office), the landing of the stairway, the upstairs hallway, the master bedroom, and Rosie Girl’s bedroom.  In fact, every room except the bathroom and Wild Man’s room has at least one bookcase.  (The bathroom is too small and humid, and Wild Man just keeps a pile of books near his desk in his room.)

• Boxes – I keep the rest of our supplies in plastic boxes (Rubbermaid or Sterilite).  So, there is a box with microscope slides, another with dissection supplies, another with various art supplies, etc.  These boxes are kept in closets in the schoolroom and in the basement.  (By the way, I just adore these sliding trays in the schoolroom!!  We keep games on the top three shelves and plastic boxes on the bottom two.)

• Each child has their own desk.  Rosie Girl and Mr. Math Tutor share an office  (in what we call the schoolroom) in which they both have desks.  Rosie Girl works at her desk some of the time, but it is a good place for her to store her things.  Wild Man’s desk is in the sunroom with my desk.  Every few months, I have the kids clean up their desks.

• School throughout the house.  We didn’t have any room for a world map in our schoolroom, so we put it in the dining room.  Now, we have a world and US map in our dining room.  It’s actually rather convenient because we refer to it during dinner time discussions more often than we expected!  We use whatever space is available!

• Library basket – I keep a large basket in the living room for library books.  Of course, the kids end up taking the books to their rooms, but before they start reading a book or after they are done with it, the books (or CDs) go into the library basket.  This shortens the book search right before our library trips.

• Phone baskets – We have an antique radio (a large piece of furniture) in our dining room that mostly just looks nice.  I put four baskets on the radio along with a power strip so that we can all keep our phones in the baskets when they’re not in use and they can be charged using the power strip.  The kids can also use the power strip to charge their video games.  Our family whiteboard is right above this.

 

So, what about you?  How do you manage clutter in your home?  Enquiring minds want to know!!  I want to know!!

Check out Thirsty Thursday for more great homeschooling posts!

 

The Secret to Homeschooling High School

Yes, indeed, you have come to the right place because I’m going to tell you the secret to homeschooling high school – how to make sure our precious darlings one day become productive citizens who move out of our house, quit eating our food, and buy their own clothes, how to ensure that they can spell their own names and know their date of birth, how to get a child from reading Dr. Seuss to Shakespeare.  Are you ready?  Here it is.

I have no idea!!!!

We are eleven weeks into my daughter’s freshman year of high school and I have only one concrete piece of advice for anyone attempting this crazy venture:

Pray without ceasing!

It really helps that it was God’s idea first, so I’m clearly a total copycat here.  But, I can’t stress enough that praying is the only thing that seems like it might do a lick of good over the next four years.

So, why did we even attempt to homeschool through high school – besides the obvious fact that I’m crazy?  First of all, we were doing so well through eighth grade that it just seemed like the right thing to do.  Second, we live in a small town and the local public school doesn’t have much in the way of curricular choices.  For example, all the kids take the same English 1, 2, 3, and 4.  There aren’t any advanced classes except for a few AP classes and nothing like Creative Writing.  Third, I really want to spend the next few years working on developing an even closer relationship with my daughter and that’s easier to do when she’s here instead of at school.  Then there are the other things like the fact that schools don’t fit well with kids’ circadian rhythms, the entire institutional nature of schools rubs me the wrong way, and I want my kids to spend more time with groups of people of different ages, not just their own age (to name a few reasons of about a hundred).

But it’s not easy.  Rosie Girl and I butt heads about getting her work done just about every week.  Part of me wonders if it is really worth doing this or should we put her in school or do an online school.  We are already having her do an online writing course since that’s the subject that has given us such fits in the past.  The reason that we continue with what we’re doing right now is that I see progress in our relationship every week.  Rosie Girl is not only learning to manage her work (and I’m learning to help her) but the two of us are learning to talk about the problem, not just carp at each other.

I hope that I can give some of you some more concrete advice at the end of this year, but right now, we’re just hanging on for dear life and enjoying the ride!!  And, of course, praying without ceasing!!

Check out Thirsty Thursday to see what others have to say this week!

Mythbusters as Science Class?

One of our family’s favorite TV shows is Mythbusters (on Discovery Channel) – the show where Adam and Jamie test out various myths to see if they hold up to close scrutiny.  Note only is the show fun to watch, but it doubles as science class when I’ve got a migraine!  Why?  Glad you asked!

1. Mythbusters uses basic scientific principles to test their myths.  They test the myth itself along with a control group.  They often start with scale testing to decide how to do the final test at full scale.  They also often break the myth into pieces and test each part before testing the whole thing at the end of the show.  When all is said and done, the kids are learning a lot about problem solving.  My favorite – Diet Coke and Mentos.

2. The Mythbusters actually teach science.  Yeah, they put up a disclaimer, so kids can close their eyes and cover their ears, but I have threatened my kids enough that they usually listen!  My kids have learned the science behind various kinds of explosions and terminal velocity, among other things.  My favorite – dropping a penny from the Empire State Building.

3. Even history makes an appearance in some of the myths.  Mythbusters did a pirate special in which they included lots of information about piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries.  They have tested myths from ancient Greece and ancient China and the US Civil War.  My favorite – Archimedes death ray.

4. Safety comes first!  Many of the myths that are tested are safety related.  The show about how many lights it took to set a Christmas tree on fire ended with a strong lecture on Christmas light safety.  There have been shows on kitchen grease fires and defective fire heaters, all of which end with discussions of safety.  I am also happy to see that all of the testing is done with safety in mind.  My favorite – Kitchen grease fires and water.

5. They do a number of alcohol myths which might be off-putting to some families, but I actually don’t mind it.  Pretty much all of the myths about consuming large amounts of alcohol show the Mythbusters being quite miserable, whether from the drinking itself or the hangover the next morning.  My kids aren’t too interested in drinking to excess after watching these results!  My favorite – Beer vs. beer and shots to see which gives a worse hangover.

So, yeah, Mythbuster science may be lazy day science, but it certainly works around here!  My kids have learned some surprising things and enjoy it at the same time!

Check out Thirsty Thursday for more great homeschooling ideas!

Thirsty Thursday – July 23, 2009

Before we go any farther, you need to go read this post and sign up for the cool book giveaway which will be on Friday, July 24!!

This is my first time to participate in the Thirsty Thursday meme, but I figured that since I love homeschooling and love to write about it, it would be easy.  But, alas, no.  This week, I perused the Sonlight Core 100 forums, as I am wont to do on occasion, and came across a thread about Core 100 language arts.  The mom who started the thread was quite unhappy with the Core 100 Language Arts.  Many of the responses were other moms telling what Language Arts curriculum they had substituted in place of the Core 100 Sonlight Language Arts.

And all my confidence for this year’s curriculum went down the drain.  We haven’t used Sonlight’s Language Arts for several years, but I thought I had researched it pretty carefully this year and really wanted something that integrated literature and writing.  And, now, all these other moms were saying that I must be wrong.  Right?

Wrong.  Those moms were writing about their experiences with their children while I have to choose what to do with my kids.  After going back and looking at the Core 100 Language Arts curriculum, I have to agree that it isn’t a seriously structured writing program like some others.  But, I chose it knowing that.  Rosie Girl is already a very good writer.  She can structure ideas well and uses words better than most adults.  I already have plans to have her do her research paper with an online writing coach, but otherwise still think that Sonlight is a good fit for her.  I’m pretty sure it won’t be for Wild Man when he gets to be this age because he’s wired so completely differently.

So, my plan is to stick with Core 100 Language Arts this year.  If I’m not happy with her writing at the end of the year, then I’ll probably do something more structured the next year.  In the meantime, I need to remember that I know my kids best.  As my hubbie reminded me – A bad day at home school is better than a good day at public school.  We are committed to homeschooling because it’s the best thing for our kids, not because of the perfect curriculum, but because of the time spent with each other.

Check out Thirsty Thursday for other great homeschooling posts!