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Year Round School & The Organizer
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This question may not be easily answered, but here goes anyway. We, in the past, have had a school year that went along with public schools for the most part. We have always taken off from mid-May through the first of August. This year I want to continue some type of schedule year-round because I am sick of feeling “behind or too far ahead”. My original plan for this year is shot…..however, I have kept up with all we have done by typing up weekly schedules and filling in what we have done each day. I have no real plan for the future. I know what subjects need doing and what resources I will use to teach those subjects, but I have not written out a plan to complete a certain amount of work in a certain amount of time. I did set up a file folder system….but it did not last because we would get ahead in some things and behind in others. I kept shifting folders and re-organizing papers…UGH!! So, I have found that we do not work well with a “planned system” LOL I had already figured out that a planned teacher’s manual did not suit my fancy, but I know we need some type of organization and way to keep up with what we have done without feeling bound to a system. We have no regulations in our state. We just turn in an intent to homeschool post card at the beginning of the school year, so that’s not an issue.
Now for the question….would the SCM Organizer be helpful to me in that it would keep up with what we are doing, tell me what we should do, but not make me feel like we are on a time clock? We sometimes do 2 or 3 math lessons a day, we sometimes skip lessons in language and spelling, we don’t do every problem in every workbook they have, we spontaneously do art projects and nature studies. We sometimes take a week off because Dad has that week off or he is preaching a Gospel meeting out of town and we want to go with him. We attend several lectureships every year and they are spread out all throughout the year. Our vacation time is sometimes spur of the moment.
I just really do not want to waste anymore time planning when I know we will not stick to the plan in the long run. Help please 🙂
I think that it would, just because once your resource is entered all the way, (meaning through all the lessons, units, whatever you are doing in math, etc.), the Organizer lets me finish 4 chapters of a science book, or skip that lesson, or we only worked on this today and it adjusts the whole thing everyday until you mark it finished. That’s the feature that first drew me to it… it adapts to me. You do put in the scheduler what days you want to do something, but you can change those at anytime to be more practical for the way your term or year is going. I just like knowing that it is easily accessible to me, in one place, and I am not constantly erasing the daily/weekly/plan.
I decided what topics and resources (books, videos, etc) we were going to use for the year. I then took a chunk of time to enter them into the computer, (using a paper calander to make sure that my days were pretty balanced for the week). I have to admit that a lot of my stuff I had to hand put in, but the great luxury of that now is that I can get our daily schedules and know in my heart that we are making actual progress to my yearly goal without all the seconding guessing and irritation I had before in trying to keep some sort of records (mostly for myself). HTH
It also adapts easily to adding resources as I find new ones. =)
would the SCM Organizer be helpful to me in that it would keep up with what we are doing, tell me what we should do, but not make me feel like we are on a time clock?
You’ve just done a great job stating one of the main goals of the Organizer. 🙂
I also have to say that the organizer is PERFECT for this. You enter in that you are using such-and-such book (and list the lessons/chapters/whatever (divisions) for it. It will bring up the next one on the days you say you want to use it. Whenever you work on it, mark it as Worked on. When you Finish it, it will bring up the next division. No pressure, no deadlines, nothing special to do if you take a day off, or whatever. You can also setup to start the next book when you are done the one you are using. So you can say you want “Math Book 2” to start when you finish “Math Book 1” – and it works pretty seamlessly.
Hope that helps!
🙂 Well, after your comments and watching YouTube I can see how this would really relieve a lot of my stress!! Now I have to talk my husband into paying for this perfect planner….LOL! I tried the free trial a while back, but did not continue it after the trial because we were trying to save money. However, at that time, I was really not aware that we had such “issues” with organization or planned systemsLOL!!. I have tried several different things: file folder system, other online planners, workboxes, typing up my own schedules, etc. None of these things have been what I thought they would be.
Maybe I can sweet talk him 🙂
We’ve added a lot of features and streamlined things over the last year. Let us know if you need a new trial and we’ll reset it for you. (That goes for anyone.)
That is pretty nice of you Doug!
Just thought I’d mention one of the ways that I’m using one of the new features, in a way some people might not think of…. the ability to change the order that divisions are used in a resource.
We have finished all the cursive letters, and are doing copywork. Most of the days of the week, we do copywork from various letters – but I keep an eye on letters that need more work.
So, I made a resource with 53 divisions… one for each letter of the alphabet (lower, and upper) and a “placeholder”. When I note that there is need to practice a letter – I move it up in the list of divisions in the scheduler. If I notice several letters, I can move them each up. The placeholder is right after the last letter I know needs work.
So, the letters go a, b, c, d, e….. when I first scheduled it (for weekly review of letters.)
The first day of copywork, I noticed a need to work on… say “y”, “G”, “f”. So I changed the order of divisions to
y, G, f, placeholder, a, b, c, d, e.
The first week we practiced y
Then I noticed a need to practice S and q
so I changed the schedule, and it is now y [already done], G, f, S, q, placeholder, a, b, c
and we just keep going. If it comes on the scheduler and says “placeholder” – I know we don’t have to practice any letters that day, and can do regular copywork.
I realize I could probably have had a simpler resource, and just put the letters in the notes… but this way I can keep track of several letters for the future practice.
I school year round, too and have used the Organizer for 3 years now and it is the best 9.95 I spend a month-even my husband notices!
I feel no pressure from it whatsover. I do set out a plan at the beginning of the year, but due to my husband’s chronic health problems, I must adjust monthly; I am very thankful for the flexibilty. Also, over 50% of my books come from the library, so I enter them as the year goes along, so there’s flexibitly there, too, because I can enter them them as I receive them from the library. I print out a daily schedule for myself (family) and the chidlren and they check things off and that’s it!
I think you’ll really love it once you get into it; it will make your day smoother.
Rachel
Wow! Thank you for the offer, Doug. I would like to start a trial again, but I want to wait on it a bit. We are in a busy time of year right now and I don’t think I would get to really experiment with it like I want to right now. It may be a few weeks…. 🙂
I will give you a heads up when I am ready. If that is okay.
Thanks again,
Amanda
Just another thumbs up for the Organizer! I started using the free trial about 3 months ago (I’ve lost track) and I absolutely had to sign up because I had abandoned my other “great” way of planning/keeping track since the Organizer was making life so much easier. I would never go back to my old way…now I suppose if money was super tight and I just couldn’t squeeze out the $9.95 a month then a paper planner would just have to do (and it would), but because we can afford the $9.95 then we’re using it!
It has freed me from having to remember everything and from having to mark down/write down everything for 3 kids that I don’t want to forget, but don’t have time to get to. With the Organizer, I can forget to mark things Worked on or Finished today, but do it the next day instead, but I don’t have to remember “what” we may have used cause it’s already in the Organizer. Whew! What a relief for me…no kidding. There’s so many more benefits, but I have a headache, so I can’t think right now.
This year some of the very best updates for the organizer have been rolled out – I have a very haphazard schedule due to a myriad of doctor’s appointments, so my days are always different and we tend to have a go with the flow attitiude. One of my favorite newer features is the way you can now select only certain chapters of a book, that is such a good thing, because there are many books where we only want to touch on a few chapters – so Doug and Sonya, thanks for that it is amazingly useful and I imagine for all those with lots of years left to go, it will be a huge improvement. The organizer is worth every penny, even if I have to give up something else. Linda
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