Organization

HOTM: What hasn’t worked for you?

July 13, 2008 @ 1:58 pm by Praefish 3 Comments

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As I plan for this next year I need to think through what changes need to be made from previous years. What worked? What did not work? I came across this week’s HOTM meme and decided it would fit right in with my review of previous years and planning the one to come.

The most important thing for me of which I need to let go is the strict schedule. When we first started the journey of educating at home I was determined that for us to be successful (for me to be successful, or seen as successful) we had to have a strict schedule. One that required each subject to be done at a certain time and then be done with our “school” day by noon (as they were young and that was easily accomplished).
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Filed Under: Organization Tagged With: meme

TOG and HST

July 7, 2007 @ 6:25 pm by Praefish 5 Comments

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I’m going to copy and paste most of this post. I was over at 5 Kids and a Dog and I read where she mentioned I was going to comment about how I do this. This being how I input my TOG (Tapestry of Grace) lessons into HST (Homeschool Tracker Plus). Well, I didn’t forget, I just didn’t get to it as quickly as I promised her. Ooops. Sorry, MommaKnows.

OK, on to TOG.
First a few tips and tricks:
I plan what I hope to do/use as a weekly schedule; TOG is huge. It offers way more than anyone can really go through.
Then once I know who/what/where/when/why/how (heehee) I copy as much as I can to save time and finger usage – call me too busy to type it all, or just lazy. Now, I don’t know how much help I am giving to any Classic TOGers because I use Redesigned. For the purposes of this explanation of what I do we will assume everything is from TOG Redesigned Year 1 (TOG Y1).

Last year I had two levels to work with (three children, 1 UG, 2 LG). This year I have three levels (1D, 1UG, and 1LG) so my typing is going to be more too.

With my TOG, I use these subjects:
History (if it’s also Bible I leave it here because I am teaching them from a historical perspective and giving them a Biblical World View. What I have labeled as Bible work for my children is usually verse memorization, catechism, and Bible study.)
Literature (Because I have other literature books included in our literature study, I just add a note to the TOG books that it is used in TOG.)
Geography (mostly TOG map work, but also some other things too like my most-est favorite-est Leagues and Legends book)
Fine Arts (I have a fine arts subject anyway and I just do the same thing here – add a note that it is a TOG activity.)
Worldview (mostly just for TOG stuff, but occasionally I find something else that will work here too that goes along with something we are already studying. This is also where I put our Time Line work. I didn’t want to create another LP for just the time line and I figure seeing the big picture of time is part of a solid worldview.)
Language Arts (I’ll be adding this from TOG this year as I didn’t use it last year. I’m still playing around with this one a bit, but what I think I’m going to do is add the Writing Aids here. I don’t have a copy/access yet so this could change.)
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Filed Under: Curriculum, Organization, TOG

We Start Tomorrow

September 4, 2006 @ 9:03 pm by Praefish Leave a Comment

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We start tomorrow. The original plan was to start a few weeks ago, but life happens. I was just about ready to go when we all got sick and then had some things happen financially that really needed to take the priority for a few weeks. We decided to just wait until the Tuesday after Labor Day to start. I’m feeling a little anxious, but don’t know why. This isn’t our first year homeschooling, but I’m a wee apprehensive with a few things that are new. Honestly, I think I’m just worried about getting behind. I wanted us to start earlier in August so it would be easier to take it slow in November when the baby arrives. Preparations just got put on the back burner and with my personality (very type A) I have trouble starting things without being completely prepared.

It’s funny, I think I have a little OCD in me because I tend to over-organize and that has been my biggest problems with homeschooling – wanting everything to be just right and then having life get in the way of that. ;-P It’s OK now, but it does get to me on some days. And the days it gets to me I just eat chocolate. Chocolate can solve lots of problems, you know. I love having my children with me here at the house, but I have my days of wanting and needing to get out of the house – alone. It keeps me ‘sane’. I greatly miss my Tuesday lunch date with my best friend back in Hattiesburg; that did me a world of good – to get out and breathe the air outside of my house and my own yard, to be around another adult. I like the slow pace of life here in this small town, but I greatly miss having so many things close to me; I don’t like having to travel over 30 miles to get to what I like and like to do and having no one to do it with outside of this house.

But tomorrow we start and life gets hectic until the schedule sinks back in. So, I’m off to do the things I need to do last minute to ‘feel’ ready for tomorrow. Anyway, I’ve got lots to do and to balance for the first day of school and to do my best NOT to create new files within my existing files. Like I said I tend to overdo the organizing. I am still learning when to stop and just let it be. And now I am procrastinating. sigh.

Tootles. (until I need another break)

Filed Under: General, Organization