Tristan: organization ques.

Great questions Beth!

All current school books/materials are on one long shelf in the dining room book case.  So you would see the 7th grader’s math, science, art, binder, etc together and her box of science experiment materials.  Then you would see another child’s books/binders/etc. They know that school isn’t done unless they’ve returned their books to the shelf. 

We store books for other years (like Math U See levels we’re not using or history books for a different time period) in boxes in the attic.  If it is an item we will use later in the year like a literature book it gets put on the shelf above current school books.

My written plan for each child is pretty loose, it simply is the year’s curriculum plan with any goals I have for that child.  It is kept in a notebook near my computer, which is where I sit to type up weekly assignment sheets. So if we’ve reached a point where I feel like we need to evaluate where we are in the year, it is all right there.  I do not plan day to day or week to week lessons ahead of time.  I know some people really like to plan out the whole term with which chapters they’ll do week 1, week 6, etc.  That just doesn’t work for me.  Our life is a bit too unpredictable because of Mason’s medical needs.  For example, next week he has an appointment on Monday with the orthopedic surgeon.  I know we’ll come out of it with a surgery or two scheduled but they could be scheduled for next week or they may not schedule for a few weeks.  This will be his 13th or 13th and 14th surgeries in his short 2 years of life.  Add in literally more than 150 medical appointments for him in that time, therapies, and then the general busyness of seven other children and I have had to take very literally the direction in scripture to ‘take no thought for the morrow’, to focus on today and the here and now.  That has spilled over into schooling.  While we have goals and I aim for them and redirect our days to aim for them again when we get off track, I am much more relaxed about strict planning ahead.

I’ve also worked diligently to teach my children to work independently where they can.  That means lessons can go on without me for short disruptions (one or two hospital days in a row) without any special preparations.  However because of my long-range re-aiming at the goals I’m also free to just tell the kids to read their scriptures and forget everything else while I’m gone.  They tend to fill their afternoons with self-directed learning so I know it is a rare day when they won’t find some way to grow and learn new things without my direction.  (We actually do our very best to only do school in the morning, even for the 7th grader, to preserve this afternoon time for interest led learning.) 

Does that help or does it just raise more questions?