So here we are, three weeks into our twelveth year of homeschooling. What!? Seriously I can't believe how far we've come from having 1st and 3rd graders and a 16 month old and newborn. The "babies" are now in middle school and we have a senior and a college student. Sigh! The saying is so true, "the days are long but the years are short." I have had several newbie homeschoolers recently ask me plenty of homeschooling questions which has had me thinking back on the veteran homeschool mommas who helped me when I first started on this journey. Our must haves definitley have changed over the years. With toddlers/preschoolers in the house my must haves were lots of art supplies and magnetic letters. Sometimes I miss those days! So here's our current list of things we use (nearly) everyday. |
#1 Containers for each child
Somewhat of a new must have are my containers with a built in tray. I love these so much that I really do have to resist the urge to buy another one every single time I pass them in the store. I don't need any more than I already have, I just think they are such a brilliant idea. I have one for each of the younger kids where they keep their folders, books, etc and in the tray they have pencils, rulers, Post-It notes, glue, etc that they can find quickly. These sit on our file cabinet in the "homeschool corner" of our kitchen. Easy to get to but their supplies and books are stored away ideally on a regular basis. (Let me emphasis "ideally"...somehow I still end up with books, papers, and folders scattered on my table.) |
#2 Chromebook
#3 Binding Machine
This is where the "nearly" comes in. Of course I don't use this on a daily basis but this has become another of my most favorite must haves. I've used the binder machine for so many things this year. I made books for each nine weeks of school that are divided by weeks and contain all the paperwork the middle schoolers need to complete. Math tests, spelling, language arts worksheets, quizes, and copywork all have been put together to make these binded books. It has made it much easier to keep track of what we need to save. Daily work, like math problems, etc can be done on their individual whiteboards to save us from having tons of paper to throw away and math somehow seems more forgiving and less daunting on a whitboard where mistakes can be wiped away in one stroke. We're also using the binding machine for our newest Bible curriculums, Extraordinary Women of the Bible and Incredible Men of the Bible that will be available on Teachers Pay Teachers soon! The binding machine is another one of those "why didn't I do this sooner" things. I imagine so many things I could have done with it when they were younger. Ahh! But we live and learn and these days we are definitely putting it to use. |
#4 Whiteboards
At one point I had a large whiteboard with an easel but it took up so much space and I never seemed to have a place to store it when it wasn't in use. An "actual" homeschool room with a whiteboard on one wall and chalkboard on another would be so useful but since we have six people (and two doggies) living in our house we don't have an extra room to use for our school room alone. I really love the small whiteboards, we have five of them (although we usually only use 2 to 3 at any given time) We got this set of five on Amazon along with extra fine print dry erase markers. We use them for daily work (as opposed to tons of worksheets), games, Bible lessons, etc. They are so versatile and like my Chromebook they can be easily taken with us if we choose to do our work away from the house. |
#5 Flexibility
Seriously this should probably be #1. After twelve glorious, challenging, exciting and tedious years the main thing I've learned we need to incorporate every single day is flexibility. I can't even begin to count the times I've had some perfectly laid plans gets turned upside down because one of the kids woke up sick or something went wrong, like a broken washer or oven. Life happens when we are in the middle of homeschooling because that's were we chose to school our kids...right in the middle of our real life. So sometimes that means the kids get a lesson in flexibility and how to handle situations as they arise in real time. And sometimes flexibility is even more important when nothing major happened but we realize we are just getting a little stressed or burned out and we need to drop everything and drive to the creek and spend an hour wading in the water and trying to catch crawfish or taking a dessert to a older church member who could use some company. I want my kids to succeed, academically, but even more I want them to learn the lessons that real life teaches...like taking time out to recharge your batteries....or someone elses! |