homeschool organization Archives

How to Use a Homeschool Binder to Organize Your School Year

June 14, 2018 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Have you ever seen those homeschool moms who just seem to have it together? I mean, they have their lessons for the year arranged in advance, their kids’ extra-curricular activities are all planned out, and they keep monthly attendance religiously.

Yeah, I’m not one of those moms.

But, after many false starts, I’ve finally started to get the hang of that kind of homeschool organization. The key? Learning how to use a homeschool binder.

A homeschool binder is a wonderful thing, my friends. In it, I can keep all of our family’s lessons, activities, and plans organized in one place.

If you’re ready to take your homeschool organization to the next level (or just start becoming organized), read on to see how to use a homeschool binder to organize your school year!

Need some tips on scaling back your lessons? Don’t miss our tips for simplified lesson planning!

Disclosure: I am a BookShark brand ambassador and am receiving free curriculum as part of my role.

How to Use a Homeschool Binder to Organize Your School Year

Images c/o: broker / depositphotos

Gather your lesson plans.

Here’s where it gets tricky for a lot of us. You have to actually have lesson plans in order to gather them. Personally, this is one of the reasons why I love BookShark. The lesson plans for the entire year are already written out. Talk about a timesaver!

We’re using BookShark for history, science, and language arts. And all of the instructor guides include 36 weeks of lessons for each of those subjects. I just opened them and collated them by week. Done.

If you don’t have lesson plans yet, don’t worry! You can write down your yearly objectives and divide them up into weeks. As you gather resources, you can add to those notes.

Create sections for each part of your school year.

Use tabbed dividers to section up your lesson plans. You can separate them by subject or by a timeframe (weekly, monthly, quarter, etc.) I find it easiest to keep all the lessons for each subject together by week. That way, I can just pull out the week’s lessons and get started.

On the other hand, if you complete monthly evaluations or quarterly progress reports, you might want to section your lessons by the month or the quarter.

BookShark makes it easy for parents to know what to do each week, because the lesson plans instruct you as to which resource to use and when. But you can always adjust each lesson as you see fit.

Add supplemental resources.

As homeschoolers, we tend to use supplemental resources during the year. A LOT of them. We might have book lists, curriculum guides, unit study ideas, and more that we want to keep up with as we go through the year. I like using a huge three-ring binder, so that I can keep all those things together in the back of my homeschool binder.

My BookShark binder is plenty big and comes with a handy carrying bag, so I can plan lessons on the go. Bonus!

You can always move your individual resources to the specific subject section or timeframe section in which they fit best. But I like to keep mine in the back in a reference section. Whatever works, right?

Do you use a homeschool binder to organize your school year? How do you make it work for your family? Share your experiences in the comments!

Check out these other tips for planning your homeschool!

See more ways to organize your homeschool year on my Homeschool Planning Pinterest board!

How to Afford Homeschooling eBook Download

Homeschooling In a Small Space

September 11, 2017 by Selena Robinson 10 Comments

We’re a family of six. We live in a 1600-square foot house (and that’s including the garage).

One of the major issues that homeschooling families face is finding the space to store their school supplies and we’re no strangers to that problem. As much as I would like to have a dedicated school room, we just don’t have the space or the money to have one. So, like many of you, we just have to make do with what we have.

If you’re strapped for storage room, take a look at how we practice homeschooling in a small space!

Homeschooling In a Small Space

Since our home is packed to capacity (two of us to each bedroom), we don’t have a spare room that we can convert into a “homeschool room”. I’d love to have one, but it’s probably not in the cards any time soon. So, we tend to keep our homeschooling supplies in a few strategic places around the home.

But – a note of caution: It’s really easy to just stash homeschool stuff all over the place. Seeing all that clutter around makes it hard for me to concentrate, though, so I tend to just avoid using the materials at all.

And that’s how I ended up with homeschool “storage zones”.

Our dining room does double duty and serves as our school room most of the time. We have a bookcase on one short wall where we keep the items we use the most. Our anchor charts and educational posters get stored behind the bookcase.

At the top, I keep our school printer, the kids’ microscope, a pencil sharpener, and a three-hole punch. Anything more and it turns into a drop zone for everything we have.

On the shelves below, we keep our homeschool materials according to grade level. Our two oldest children are using K12 this year, so we keep their computers and science supplies on the top shelf.

My two youngest children are still being taught exclusively by Mom, so their books and materials are on the shelves below. My third/fourth-grader’s books are on the left and the basket on the right holds the workbooks and printables for my kindergartner.

The bottom shelf is used for the textbooks that were sent to us for use with our K12 students. As you can see, they sent us quite a bit. I try to keep it separated by grade level, but it’s a constant work in progress.

On the full wall of our dining room, we keep a small chalkboard and a space for our educational charts and posters. I rotate that out, depending on what we’re studying at the moment. Right now, my youngest son is working on identifying the states, so that’s the chart we’re displaying.

This is our curriculum closet, which originally served as our hall closet. It already had shelving, thankfully, so it was a perfect place to put many of our materials.

As you can see, this space has to serve as a hall closet AND a homeschool storage space. I corral the household things in baskets and the homeschool things in separate stacks. The row at the top is textbooks for upper elementary grades. The lower shelves hold blank notebooks, lapbooks we intend to reuse, and storybooks we’ll be discussing with the kids this year.

I go through our books and materials every year and declutter the resources we won’t be using anymore. That keeps me from overfilling the closet. (Which is so very easy to do.)

And finally, I use a clear hanging shoe holder on the backside of the closet door to hold writing instruments, flash cards, and small office supplies. As you can see, I have a tiny overbuying problem when it comes to markers.

I will not buy any more markers. I will not buy any more markers. I will not buy any more markers.

I should probably make myself write that 100 times today.

How do you keep your homeschooling supplies from overtaking your home? Do you have any tips for schooling in a small space?

Need more tips for getting your homeschool ready for the new year?

And see plenty of suggestions for organizing your homeschool supplies on my Homeschool Organization Pinterest board!

P.S. You can get homeschooling and parenting tips in your inbox each week when you sign up for our email newsletter!

This post is part of the Back to Homeschool blog hop from iHomeschool Network! Click over to read more tips for making the most of your homeschool space!

Minimalist Homeschooling: Teaching Several as One

July 18, 2016 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

We’ve been talking about minimalist homeschooling a lot lately and I’ve shared lots of tips for scaling down your homeschooling supplies, books, paper, and more.

But what can you do if you’re homeschooling several children? I mean, you can’t really minimize them, right? 🙂

You can, however, minimize the way you teach them and that can make your entire homeschooling journey much, much simpler.

Here are some tips for teaching multiple children in your minimalist homeschool!

Tips for Teaching Multiple Children

Combine grades, if possible. I got this idea from a good friend who is homeschooling three sons. Since she has twins and one child that is one year younger, she’s teaching them all at the same level. When she told me that, a lightbulb went off in my head. After all, I have two boys who are one year apart.

When I asked my soon-to-be second grader if he wanted to learn along with his soon-to-be third grade brother, he said “I don’t want to skip second grade.” Which is fine. But we’re going to do a 2/3 year for the two of them. His brother will get a much needed review and he’ll get a chance to move on a little early. And, best of all, Mom will only have to plan one lesson for the two of them. Win!

Use technology to your advantage. When you teach multiple kids, it’s generally easier to teach some subjects with the kids all together. History, science, and geography come to mind. This is especially true when you want to watch a video, do an experiment, or complete a craft project.

This year, I’m going to use a LOT more videos in our homeschool. Then the video can do the teaching and the kids can write reports about what they learn. Since it’s tough for the kids to crowd around a computer screen, we’ll be using the YouTube channel on our Roku. If I find other things on my mobile device, I’m going to use a smartphone projector so that everyone can see. Simple, right?

Those are a few ways I’ll be teaching multiple children in our minimalist homeschool this year. For more on simplifying your homeschool, check out these posts!

Learn more about planning this homeschool year with my Homeschool Planning board on Pinterest!

This post is part of the How to Homeschool as a Minimalist series! Stop by tomorrow for Day 9: Skip the Overscheduling!

Minimalist Homeschooling: Cutting Down on Craft Supplies

July 15, 2016 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Crafting. I both love it and hate it. I love the feeling of making things with my kids. I don’t love the work of cleaning the mess up afterwards.

Despite this ambiguity, I have managed to amass a collection of craft supplies far larger than what will ever be used during my homeschooling journey. So, like my book collection, my digital homeschool resource collection, and my paper cache, my craft supply space has got to have a minimalist makeover.

Are you drowning in pom-poms, watercolors, clothespins, markers, and other craft supplies? Here are a few tips to cut them down!

How to Cut Down on Craft Supplies

Step 1: Designate a fixed space for craft supply storage. If you think that you really want to continue making crafts with your kids, set up a small space for storing supplies. Don’t let yourself buy or keep any more supplies that can reasonably fit in that space.

Step 2: Do a sort-through. Bring out all the crafting supplies you currently have and spread them on the floor. Let your kids look through them and come up with ideas for crafts and projects they want to make with them. If there are any supplies they don’t plan to use, set them to aside to donate.

Step 3: Make, make, make! Set a deadline for your kids to make their projects, but don’t be strict about it. Ask them when they’d like to make their crafts and then offer a gentle reminder. If they don’t follow through, just set those supplies out to be donated as well. Your kids will probably never miss them. 🙂

Need some ideas as to what kinds of crafts to make with your supplies? Check out this list of beach crafts for kids!

Get even more crafting ideas on my Simple Crafts for Kids Pinterest board!

This post is part of the How to Homeschool as a Minimalist series! Stop by Monday for Day 6: Simplified Lesson Planning!

Minimalist Homeschooling: Digital Decluttering

July 14, 2016 by Selena Robinson 10 Comments

Do you think of yourself as a hoarder? Have you ever watched Hoarders and thought “That’s not me. I would never keep all that stuff.”

I have. In fact, one of the reasons I’m slowly embracing minimalism in my homeschool is because I prefer to keep a smaller house with fewer possessions to take care of. When I talk about having too many books or feeling overloaded with paper, I’m really speaking about the amount that feels like a lot to me. To others, though, it never seems like much.

But I recently came to a rather surprising conclusion: I am a digital curriculum hoarder. Over the years, I have downloaded so many homeschooling printables and curriculum helps that I will never use them all. There’s just no way.

And now, I don’t even look at them because I get overwhelmed by it all. Guess what? It’s time to do some digital decluttering.

How to Declutter Digital Resources

Step 1: Organize the digital homeschool resources you have.

Open up the folder in which you keep all of your homeschooling downloads. And slowly start organizing them into smaller folders. Whether you choose to do it by grade level, subject, or type, just get them all organized so that you can see where they are.

Also, if the files have funny download names that include symbols or letters, rename the files to the actual name of the product. That way, you’ll know what they are without having to open each file.

Step 2: Look at your grade objectives and decide which resources you will use for each child.

Use a notepad or an open file on your computer to jot down which resources you intend to use for which child during this school year. If you don’t think you’ll need a specific resource this year but you might use it the next year, store it in a separate folder.

If you think you won’t need it for several years, delete it. By the time you need it, you’ll probably have found something more up-to-date.

Step 3: Do a purge at the end of the school year.

When you’re wrapping up your school year, take a look back at the resources you used. Did you love them? Keep them for the next child! Did you never get around to using them at all? You can probably delete those. If there were any that you were on the fence about, toss those as well. And make sure that every resource you get going forward is one that you really want to use.

Need help organizing your digital homeschool resources? See a simple way to do it with File Explorer!

Get more ideas for organizing your homeschool on my Homeschool Organization Tips Pinterest Board!

This post is part of the How to Homeschool as a Minimalist series! Stop by tomorrow for Day 5: Cutting Down on Craft Supplies!

How to Organize Digital Homeschool Resources

June 19, 2015 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

As a second-generation homeschooler, my heart belongs with paper books, planners, and notebooks. (There’s just something about the smell of paper and erasers in the morning.)

However, I have seen the need to jump into the digital age and, as a result, I am now the proud owner of a TON of digital homeschool resources. A ton.

But here’s the thing: If you can’t find anything on your computer, then all of your resources don’t really do a lot of good, do they? 🙂 So I came up with a simple way to organize digital homeschool resources, which I’m sharing with you today!

How I Organize Digital Homeschool Resources

Here’s my big secret…

….

…..

I use Windows File Explorer.

That’s it!

It’s really, really simple, but it really, really works. Here’s how:

I have my digital homeschool resources organized by the type of “school” to which they belong: Elementary for PK-5, Middle for 6-8, and High for 9-12 – just like in public school. I also have a separate folder for Planning, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Within each “school” level, I have items separated by grade level. For example, my “Elementary” folder is organized by specific grade. Then for things that aren’t really grade specific, I have individual folders such as “Foreign Language”, “Unit Studies”, and “PE“. I also have a few general subject folders that include resources for several grades.

Within each grade-specific level, files are organized again by subject. This is a look at my second-grade folder. So when it’s time to plan second grade, which I’ll be teaching with Roo this fall, I can just browse through the folder for each subject and plan from there. Much, much better than stockpiling resources and then forgetting about them until a year or two after the grade is finished. (Been there, done that.)

Now, my “Planning” folder is organized a bit differently. I am a total homeschool planner packrat. I have all kinds of planners on my hard drive, so they have their own folder. Then I have a folder for “Notebooking”, one for “Clip Art”, and another for “Teaching Tips”, because those make up the bulk of my downloadable resources that are not directly for the kids to use on their own.

As you can see, I also have two other folders: one for the 2013 Omnibus and another for the 2014 Omnibus from iHomeschool Network. I was thrilled to be a contributing author last year and I’m looking forward to sharing in the sale again this summer.

I mean, look at all those wonderful resources! Whenever I need a homeschool pick-me-up, I click open one of those folders and just read and read and read. 🙂

How I Store Digital Homeschool Resources

Of course, sorting and organizing all of my files won’t matter much if my computer crashes. So, I use a couple of methods to keep my digital homeschool resources safe.

First, I store everything on my computer and on a USB flash drive. I usually have to get one with a decent amount of memory, because I am an admitted digital curriculum hoarder. 🙂

In addition, I back everything on my computer’s hard drive up once each week onto an external hard drive. I like Seagate’s portable external hard drive, because it’s super easy to use and I can take it with me if I go out of town. (Really, it’s so easy to use that I kicked myself for not having gotten one earlier.)

And that’s how I organize digital homeschool resources! If you have any tips or suggestions to share, please do so in the comments!

Ready to get a handle on your homeschool this year? Check out these posts!

Get more tips about how to plan your homeschool on my Homeschool Planning Pinterest board!