This year in preparation for school starting I made a supplies organizer for both Mara and Jonathan. It was quite easy to make, I did a little differently with each one but the basic idea is to have a large piece of fabric for the back and then sew a couple of long strips across for pockets and then sew dividers in each strip for various sized pockets. After that you can finish the edges and add loops at the top for hanging it up. Obviously there is much more you can do with it to decorate it or make it more personal. With Mara's I stamped some butterflies and flowers in it but with Jonathan's it is still pretty basic.
Jonathan really enjoys art projects and likes to keep his things neat so this was perfect for him. We hung it over his desk and he has paper, pencils, markers, tape, scissors, paint and lots of other stuff ready to grab for any project. It is very handy for putting things away again too.
Mara isn't naturally neat and this has been wonderful for her because she also finds it handy to use. The pocket that I designed for paper is also big enough to keep her school paces in it and so that is what she has decided to do. It is so nice to have everything neat and organized.
Above is Mara at her desk. She has her supplies organizer on one side and then she put her goal card and pace chart on her bulletin board. Everything is nice and handy and easy to put away and find again.Last week was our first week (a partial one) of school. It was fun to start because Jonathan was very excited to get going again and then Mara who I didn't think was quite ready for summer to be "over " surprised by saying " I can hardly wait" and I was like "For what, school?" and she rather sheepishly said "Yeah, summer is fun but I am ready to do schoolwork again". That made for a very fun first day of school since I had such eager students.
I am so glad that was are able to homeschool and I thought I would share with you a few things that I love about it!
- Getting to be with my kids and not having to send them away for the majority of the day.
- Getting to learn together as a family. We have enjoyed that so very much and it makes us grow closer as a family.
- Getting to make our own schedule. Though we basically start and end our school year when the public school does that is about as far as our similarities go. We do not stop school when they have teachers conferences and many other such things and we usually don't take much of the holiday breaks that they do but we are able to take special breaks of our own.
- Having a much shorter school day. To me this is one of the huge advantages of home schooling. I as a teacher am not dealing with a huge crowd of students and so we are able to be more efficient. Also if a child is diligent they can work hard and get done quite quickly. We generally get our basic schoolwork done it the morning. We start at 9 am and try to be done by lunch time.
- Getting to have a biblically based learning environment. This is of huge importance to me. We incorporate Bible memorization, prayer, singing (bible songs) and christian books into our school day.
- Being able to help my kids on a one on one basis. I can cater to how they learn best and make sure that they are getting and understanding everything.
- Getting to watch as they learn how to read and other fun things like that! We also go through challenges together but it is fun to see them finally figure things out!
Those are a few of the reasons I am very thankful for homeschooling. What about you?
Homeschooling and organizing certianly works for me! For other works for me Wednesday tips visit Rocks in my Dryer.
