Staying Organized
I’ll be honest – I have never been good at keeping track of
appointments. We’ve missed practices, dentist appointments, late starts at the
public school, and all kinds of other events because I’ve never been able to
find a calendar system that I can keep up with. I buy planners and use them for
a week or two; I put things into Gmail or Outlook and fail to log in to them
for weeks; I write notes that get lost or thrown away or stuffed in the bottom
of my bottomless purse.
Enter Cozi, a free online calendar/to-do
list/journal/shopping list program that has totally changed my life and
reputation. I am now “on-top-of-it” Mom who never misses anything and is
actually able to tell people what we’ll be doing and when.
If I had a smart phone, which I don’t, I could look at it
and update it from there, but I just keep it all updated from my home computer.
I can print weekly and monthly calendars to hang up at home and at John’s
office, and I can have text message reminders sent to my “dumb” phone for
important things that I’m likely to forget.
When you create your account, you can share your password
with the whole family, and everyone can go in and add their own events. You can
flag each event for one or more family member and do all kinds of other things
that I haven’t used yet.
Check it out! www.cozicentral.com
Homeschool Share & Lapbooking
Lapbooking is one of the best discoveries I’ve made since I
started homeschooling. I would describe it as “educational scrapbooking,” and
it’s something that all ages – preschool through high school – can use to
enhance their study of a particular topic. They make great presentations for
older kids and great “quiet time” activities for younger ones.
Each lapbook has a theme, and it opens up to a bunch of mini
books and pictures and activities related to that theme. You can either make the
whole thing yourself; or with kids who are old enough to cut or color, you can
work together; or, with middle- and high-schoolers, you can have them work
completely independently.
There are a ton of websites that sell or offer free lapbook
kits, but if you’re creative and have the time (ha!), you can make your own.
Homeschoolshare.com has some great free ones; right now, I’m doing one for Esme
about apples. We did lapbooks with the boys last year for our book studies of
Island of the Blue Dolphins and A Cricket in Times Square; both of those were
free lapbooking kits from Homeschool Share.
Most lapbooks use one or more file folders as the base, and
you tape, glue, staple, or fasten your materials inside the folders. There are
all kinds of neat paper-folding and paper-cutting techniques that you use,
which appeals to some kids (Simon) and annoys others (Isaac), but it helps
develop hand-eye coordination and forces them to work carefully, which I think
are great skills to develop. Take a look: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php.
What We’ve Been Doing
All of my kids love animals. Animal books, animal
documentaries, animal stories, actual living animals, dinosaurs…they are just
fascinated by anything animal-related. Simon has amazed me more than once by
identifying some obscure animal that I’ve never heard of, and Isaac has decided
that he wants to write a nature guide about birds. Simon asked me the other day
if he could play on the computer, and I reluctantly said yes – only to find out
that, instead of playing computer games, he was searching Google images for
pictures of gorillas and other creatures that he thinks are cool. Animals are
the one topic that they get truly excited to learn about, and we’re always in
search of ways to incorporate animals into our studies.
This week, we discovered that Aunt Ann bought us a
subscription to National Geographic Kids magazine, which is all about animals.
Yay! They also have a huge website (www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/) with
videos, pictures, and facts about all kinds of animals, places, crafts,
recipes, science experiments, contests, and games.
There’s even a “Little Kids” version of the magazine for
ages 3-6!
Next time we’re looking for a supplement to our curriculum,
we’ll have to remember to consider a magazine subscription as an alternative to
another book or textbook.
10 Great Homeschool
Pages to Like on Facebook
- Library and Educational Services
- Holy Spirit Led Homeschooling
- The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
- Preschoolers and Peace
- Practical Homeschooling
- Lesson Planet
- I Love Homeschool
- Homeschool Share
- Homeschool Freebie of the Day
- Homeschool Creations
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