- Let's talk about staying organized.
(soft music)
Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.
I'm Sonya Shafer,
and my friend and co-worker, Laura Pitney
has joined us today
as we're going to share some ideas on organizing
your Charlotte Mason homeschool.
Laura has a real heart to encourage,
and help other homeschool mamas,
plus she's very organized,
so I'm glad that she can join us for this episode.
You're gonna love her ideas.
First, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about
your family and your homeschool.
- Okay, well, I have homeschooled the whole time
that my kids have been school aged,
so we're heading middle school years.
I have four children that I currently homeschool,
and a niece that tags along with us.
I love using the Charlotte Mason methods,
and I'm excited about the years to come homeschooling.
- That's great.
Now, Laura leads a Charlotte Mason group,
and recently in that group somebody asked
would you please share how you organize
all of your books and materials for a day of homeschooling.
The great thing is that there's so many ways of doing this.
Laura and I do them completely different.
- That is true.
- We have completely different methods, yeah,
but it works great for me, mine works great for me,
and yours works well for you,
so we wanted to just share both of our ways.
Maybe that will give you some ideas,
and help you get organized in your homeschool as well.
So, shall I start or you want to start?
- I'm gonna give you the baton on this one.
- All right.
I mainly focus in on having a weekly chart.
I'll have Monday through Friday,
and under each day I have the subjects listed
that we're doing for that day,
and I post that chart where everybody can see it.
Then I keep all of our schoolbooks on shelves in my office,
which is my bedroom,
but it sounds good to say office, right?
- It's a really cute office. - Thank you.
So I have all the books on the shelf,
and then when I had all of the kids
we would look at what are the scheduled subjects for today,
and we would go in and pull all the books
that we're going to need,
carry them into the living room or the dining room,
and just put the stack down
wherever we were going to be doing our schoolwork.
That's how it worked well
for back when I had all of my kids at home.
Now, I have just my youngest,
and we actually have for the first time ever
a dedicated school space,
which we've never had before.
So I keep the books that we are currently using
on a special shelf in that room and then every morning,
oh, I still have my weekly
what subjects we're doing each day little chart
I have it in that room,
and every morning my youngest
gets to the school room ahead of me.
She wakes up so early,
so while I'm still eating breakfast
she runs to the school room,
and it was a great pleasant surprise,
she started doing this a few months ago.
I came down to join her,
and when I opened the door
she had laid everything we needed out on the table.
- [Laura] How beautiful.
- She knew exactly what books we were doing for what,
so she refers to the chart,
she pulls everything we need, lays it on the table,
I just sit down and we go to it.
That's how it works for us.
You have a little bit more.
- Yeah, a little bit different.
- It works well so go for it.
- Well, what you just said I think is so valuable to where
Hannah now has become more of a step towards independence
where she can know what's happening that day,
pull out her resources,
and help your day get started with her.
- [Sonya] Yes.
- And that's a gradual thing that y'all have worked up to.
So when I think about
organizing my school materials for the week
that's ultimately my goal in mind
is how do I train them to become independent learners,
independent thinkers.
What do I need to get done today.
How can I best line up my own resources
to get my work done in a timely manner.
So, for my thinking
that is kind of the underlined goal
is to how can I help them to get independent.
So in my homeschool it looks a little different
because of the variety of ages and skill level.
- You've got 12 or 13. - Yes.
- Down to six? - Seven.
- Seven, oh, she turned seven, okay.
- I know, my little baby growing up.
So what helps me the most is each one of my children
they have what we call a memory binder,
and they have a checklist that is their independent work,
things that I trust them to do by themselves.
- What kinds of things are on that?
- So it might be reading their Bible,
and it might be studying some skip counting,
or it might be going ahead and doing their copywork.
Things that I have entrusted them
they've earned the right to be able to do it by themselves.
So, obviously, with the younger ones
there's plenty of subjects I still need to oversee,
but as they have moved up towards middle school years
there are things that I feel like
I can trust them to do by themselves,
so their checklist has that on there.
Each child has a tab that has our current memory work in it
meaning the Bible verse we're learning,
the poem they're working on,
the hymn that they're studying.
So each child has that in their memory binder
so it helps me keep track
of what they're currently working on memorizing.
So they all have different poems,
but we all have the same hymn and Bible verse
just so that they can use that to study independently.
- Yeah, it's a great idea.
- Whenever they feel like it.
The main reason I love the memory binder
is we're eight years into it with my oldest,
so in the back of her memory binder
it's eight years worth of every poem she's ever memorized,
and every hymn we've ever learned as a family,
so it's a great way to review.
This may sound super familiar because it's kind of a copycat
of the scripture memory system.
I have taken that because, you know, sometimes ideas grow,
and turn into other things.
- Absolutely, you have to tweak it to fit your family.
- Right, so it has turned into the memory binder,
and it's not a new idea.
It's just one that I have embraced,
and changed to fit our family,
so it's just a great way
to keep track of everything each kid is doing,
and what that looks like,
and then it's a great way to be able to review things
that we've learned five years ago,
or a poem that they learned last year in school.
You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, yeah.
- So it's just a way to keep all those
collected into one thing. - Nice.
- So that's kind of the main thing I use everyday.
- Didn't you also say you had some of their responsibilities
what I would call chores you call them responsibilities,
some of those are in there, too, right?
- They are, especially, while they're forming those habits.
Gentle reminders
of what I expect them to get done chore wise,
or whatever else it may look like.
It may be practice piano or something like that.
It is in there, especially,
while they're forming the habit of remembering to do it.
- Do you have a different page
for each day of the week then?
- I try to get it all on one page.
So there may be five squares on the page
with little bitty check marks, or columns.
It's looked different over the years.
- Okay, all right, for sure.
- So my younger children they have chores
listed specifically.
Brush teeth, get dressed,
make up your bed, you know, eat breakfast,
whatever those morning chores look like
are specifically listed,
but for my older kids I may just have morning chores,
just so that they can check it off
to where I know they did it.
I may not even have to ask about it,
but because I can look and see that they checked it off
we both know what it is.
- They know what was all included in that, yeah.
- Right, which is great,
that's ultimately what you're going for.
- Yes. - You want those habits
to no longer have to be specific for that,
so I'm like you I have one...
Our dining room is our school room,
so I have a bookshelf that I keep all our resources on.
I find that that works the best
versus having everything I own
in regards to homeschooling on that bookshelf.
- Yeah. - Simple is more, honestly.
The one bookshelf has everything all five kids need.
I keep my resources completely separate.
That helps with confusion,
and them getting things that I don't want them to get yet,
or things where I always know where my things are
'cause I need to be responsible for the things, too.
- [Sonya] That's true, yeah.
- So I kind of keep that separate.
- Now you guys are on the go a lot.
- Yes, ma'am.
- Where I, usually, we do homeschool when I'm home.
If I'm traveling I don't try to do schoolwork then.
I can do that because my youngest is 20,
so we don't have to get a certain number of days in anymore,
but you're on the go a lot,
and you have to get those days in.
- Sure. - So, how do you do that?
- Well, that's a great question.
I think knowing where all my supplies are
for the day's work is crucial.
If I'm having to hunt the house of where I left things,
or where the children left things that's cutting into time
that we could be doing something else,
or, you know, getting out the door kind of thing,
so I think knowing where things are is like rule number one,
and just like we expect our children
to put their things away
that carries over into school things as well.
That's kind of where I start,
so if we have to go to my mom's,
or if we're running out for nature study or ballet,
or whatever the activity is
if I know where the stuff is I can grab it.
- Now, let me back up one step
when you say know where it is
that doesn't mean remember where I happened to leave it.
- Correct.
- That means everything has a place.
- Yes. - Okay.
- Yes, in the early years we did workboxes,
and how that I feel like is benefiting us now
is if my child goes to their workbox,
and gets their nature notebook out
then when they're done it's gonna go back in that workbox,
so each workbox has an assigned subject,
or book that goes in the workboxes.
We have graduated out of the workboxes and have a shelf,
so as long as the kids remember that habit
of putting it in its place then I know where it is.
- Yes, that helped to train them.
This is where it belongs.
- [Laura] Yes, correct.
- I put it back there, makes sense.
- And, again, it helped them be independent.
- [Sonya] Yeah.
- If they can go get what they need,
and use it and put it back,
I mean, that's an amazing accomplishment
versus like who did that, or where did they leave it,
or what did they do, for sure.
- Yeah, all right, so on nature study days
I know you've got some great ideas
for how to organize the nature study stuff.
Do you want to go ahead and share those?
- I will be glad to.
First of all,
nature study is beautifully scheduled in our week,
but it's really hard to make it happen a lot of the weeks.
- Yeah.
- And half the battle is nature study day
where's our notebooks, where's our pen,
or where's our pencils,
or whose got a backpack, you know,
it's this mad rush of where is it all at,
what do I need to gather?
So a simple thing I have implemented is
I keep it ready to go at my back door.
So, yes, nature study is in our schedule,
but if it doesn't happen on that day,
and maybe it happens on a different day
it's home in its spot to where we can grab and go,
so I have a little nature tackle box,
and it's great because it has bottled water,
and cups for water coloring.
It has our magnifying glass, our tape measure.
It has pencils, a pencil sharpener,
First-Aid, it has some Band-Aids.
- Oh, smart lady.
- Some spray, disinfectant, wipes, we got it all.
So I keep it kind of small,
and I have a quilt that I keep in a bag, too.
That way I can grab my tackle box and my quilt,
and throw it in the car and we're out the door
versus spending 45 minutes gathering up supplies,
and then I'm like I'm over it, no nature study today.
- Yeah, it's so easy to throw up that resistance,
and you have to make it easy on yourself,
or you're gonna take the easy route out.
- Set yourself up for success.
- There you go, yes, yes.
- By having everything in order that you can.
It's really hard to get in that habit for a mom, teacher,
because when our children see those habits in us
it encourages them to be responsible
for their things as well.
- Yes, yes, that's very helpful.
Well, what about you?
It's your turn.
We'd love to hear how you organize your books,
and materials for your homeschool day,
so leave a comment and let us know,
and if you have a question you'd like us to discuss
feel free to put that in the comments, too.
Let's get your questions answered.
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Thanks for joining us, I'll see you next time.