How do YOU use the CM Organizer

Is it good for the ones who just ‘do the next thing’? My students aren’t very independent yet so does that matter?  I was thinking I would use it as they entered upper elementary.

Mrsmcadell – I think it is up to you whether you use it when they are young or not. I recorded dates in pencil in all their books as they finished the lesson when they were little and that seemed fine. Last year when my kids were 2nd, 5th and 7th I tried the organizer and loved it. I was just entering the next thing as I went along. At the end of the year it was nice to have an impressive record of our studies. I wanted something a little more formal as my oldest is getting close to high school.  I live in an state that doesnt require much by way of record keeping, so I think if I only had lower elementary srudents I would not invest in a formal organizer. In our house school is less formal in those years anyway. It is a tool for mom, so it is totally up to you how you use it, or if you use it at all.

I absolutely love the SCM Organizer. I use it to help plan my next year’s set of living books with the bookfinder. I also use the bookfinder to help me see if a book I’m looking for is in a nearby library. The Scheduler portion allows me to store all my resources even after I am finished using for the year so that another kid can use it the next year or 2 years later and I don’t have to re-enter all the information. I can use someone else’s schedule of a resource if I do not wish to enter all the information myself. If I am particularly proud of the way I scheduled a resource I can share it with others too and satisfy that need to give back to my community. LOL  I have a looping schedule that can get very complicated and this organizer has made it so simple for me to figure out what I need to do that day. (I have family work days and Individual work days based on my husband’s shift work schedule…. when he works, we do family and when he is off, kids do individual work independently.) Now, on the family work I have another looping schedule that rotates through 5 days, but because I never know if day 3 will be a monday or sunday or friday etc. I have to make every resource available everyday and that shows all my resources everyday, but with the custom labels I can dictate which resource is scheduled for which day and then I just go through and close all resources ot needed that day.  So Brilliant and perfect for me. That would be enough to sell me on it right there, but there is more!  If I miss a day or chose to take a day off, I have to do nothing to my schedule and that is a blessing. I tried another scheduler for homeschoolers and if you missed a day then you had to go in and shift the dates of every lesson there after and it was awful!!!  So I would then always just be a day behind and always knowing that I got us off scheduler and I try to double up to get rid of the being behind feeling. No such feeling here….. no judgemental schedule leering at me on a daily basis and whispering how I am behind. This one greets me like a old friend who is happy to see me! LOL If I want to omit something, it is one click. I can make notes, record grades. Then for the end of the year, I can print out a report that shows in detail with notes, grades, and everything they accomplished. It is a miracle I tell ya and hasn’t failed me yet!!   Only thing that would make it perfect would be to be able to upload a picture into the notes. It would be great to snap a photo of the finished project or art masterpiece or even that perfect handwritten piece of copywork that you have waited 5 years to get and have it forever stored with the report.  Now, being in Texas, I have never needed the reports because well Texas is just awesome, but if we move or if God forbid CPS is ever sent to my house, well then I have them. The piece de resistance is the customer service which is so off the charts compared to today’s standards. I mean they have real people who actually help you within a very quick response time and they truly care about your problem and want to help you.

So, now that you know full out how I feel about the organizer…. I use it to schedule my full year. I leisurely enter my resources in while I watch TV with the family in the late evenings. I won’t lie, it is an investment of time to enter everything in and I’m usually done within a few evenings, but then for the rest of the year…….I do nothing for scheduling, but pull it up daily and click what we complete and that is so worth  the few days. It takes me longer to decide on what to use, decide how I’m going to use it, decide where to buy it from to get it the cheapest I can, and to make more room and organize it in my library than it does to enter it in the organizer.

I hope this helps you and for what it is worth, I am a type A person who loves pencil and paper notes, graphs, etc. I also do color coded spreadsheets for everything. So this organizer fufills the scheduler in me, but leaves enough freedom that I can change things and it doesn’t require hours to update the organizer, but usually just a few clicks and we are good. LOVE LOVE LOVE this organizer in case I didn’t make it clear before. LOL

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. God Bless.

cdm2kk I wish you could come to my house and help me!! I hope you and others on this forum are out of harms way in Texas this weekend. Prayers!