Trying to decide about organizer

Hi Karen,

First, remember that the organizer is more of a final step once you’ve figured out what you want to cover. It is your day to day planner. I highly recommend Sonya’s book – Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education – for the actual planning. It is a FABULOUS resource and would be useful for any homeschooler who doesn’t use textbooks as the mainstay of their homeschool. You can also learn more about the planning part from Sonya’s blog. 

Now, once you’ve done your planning from the Big Picture down, you’re ready for the CM Organizer, which for us is the BEST $$$ I spend each year. I am stressed when I see unchecked boxes on a handwritten schedule or when I have to rewrite everything. This way, it just keeps popping up until it’s done. At this point, you’ll have done the work of breaking your resources down into terms and then weeks and then days and it’ll be simple to plug it all in. A few things I’ve figured out that work for our family. . . 

• For things like piano practice or chores, I use “Month” Divisions. We click worked on each day until the end of the month and on the last day we click finished.
• For things like math, it’s usually already broken into lessons, so we use that for divisions.
• For most of our books, we use chapter divisions, but for leisure books that I don’t keep track of how much is read at one time, I’ll enter my own resource w/ no divisions and we’ll just click worked on until finished.
• For things like games or projects that we do frequently, but not on a scheduled basis, I enter w/ no divisions and schedule for Saturday. That way we have it there, but not in our way. 
• For library books or just great picture books for my littles, I have a resource called great books w/ lots of divisions titled, “Book”. I don’t enter the books here, but use the note feature to record the book.. I do the same thing for nature study entries. 

Anyway, that’s how it works for us. 

Blessings,

Christie

I have the organiser and though I do not use it as it is meant to be used, I love it and will continue to use it.  With illness and various things this past year our schedule was way off track – and so the organiser was not regularly ticked off etc – however the benefit to me was great, in the sense that there was always a reminder of where we should be, books we might use in my resource list etc.  If it is affordable to you – I think it is a wonderful resource.  We are still dealing with illness, but I hope our new school year will allow us to use it more as it was meant to be used – I love that I don’t have to erase and start again.  Example would be that had I last year written out my plans and lesson plans, I would have had the most frustrating time when my daughter fell ill in November.  She was in and out of hospital and is still ill – so with all the appointments and hospitalisations the schedule went out the window.  While she was in hospital she did read, but did not tick off the organizer but I knew the work she did and could see what she was supposed to do.  So I closed out things that were finished and the rest just sat there, and waited and is still waiting for us to do.  No erasing, no frustration – it is perfect for life’s hiccups.  Just a thought for you.  Linda

You enter the resources you want to use and how many days of the week you want to use them.  In the notes section you can put something like – read 2 chapters today and narrate) or whatever you want them to do – then at end of day my kids come in and check off what they have done.  The next day the organizer shows the next chapter or part you need to use, and you can add another note or just let them know what you expect.  The beauty is that if you don’t get to the resource, nothing happens it just shows up the next day – so you have no erasing or worries.  I used the SCM Planning ebook to set out my main ideas and then added resources to my account, either my own or ones from the bookfinder.  I have loads of books in my resources list that I may or may not use, they are in there as I get them to save me time.  It is quite flexible and does nice reports of what you have done, so you don’t forget what books you have used.  Hope that helps – blessings Linda