Homeschooling, how do I do it all???

The Topic for this week for the Virtual Curriculum Fair is - The Nuts and Bolts: Pulling it all Together!

Sooooo...
How DO I do it all??

First of all.... I don't do it all. 

Homeschooling means choices. Choices of what to do with my time, choices of what subjects to teach, choices of resources to use, choices of how to approach homeschooling.

First thing every day I try and have my devotions. I am not successful every day, but I am really striving to be consistent in this. It is so important that I have devotions daily. I need the spiritual strength I get from reading the Bible, Godly books, and listening to praise music. It gets me though the days and weeks and helps me grow to be more like Christ, which I desperately need. I am so weak on my own.

We use workboxes. It keeps the boys and I organized. It makes me keep up with the boys work, planning their workboxes each day and lets me know what they have still to do before they can get their laptops and be excused to play. On the wall you see our small whiteboard and next to it are plastic pages in which I place the art prints for our artist study.

When the boys are done a workbox they put it on the floor next to me so I can grade/record the work in the school log. I left this photo large so you can click on it to see the details, also, it will open in a new tab automatically if you just click it. I make my own school log sheets so I can personalize them. I don't want to write down the name of the book daily. It is so nice to just write page/lesson information for most of the items each day. Some things I just have to write out, and that is ok, because I have the shortcuts for the other items.

I made my own workbox planning sheet also. I needed some boxes larger than others. Using the free LibreOffice spreadsheet maker I made my own page to fit our homeschooling. I used the same program to make the school log sheets. If you would like to see the details of this you can click it also, it will open in a new tab as well so you don't loose your place here. I use these sheets to plan our weeks. The first 5 subjects we normally do together. Then the boys complete their individual work.

I plan our History and Science units myself. I try to get a bunch done each summer so I am ready for the coming year. This summer I got the Science all planned out but not the History. I got some done, enough to start the year and now I am planning as I go, trying to stay ahead of where we are studying.

To keep on task in my personal life I have yearly and weekly goals. I do the Goal Planning Monday meme weekly. I take my yearly goals and break them down into manageable chunks. To keep track of things for me I use the notebook pages my hubby bought me. I write my weekly goals on the task pages so I can remember, review them, and check things off. I accomplished a lot more this year, doing these things, than ever before. I pray this year will be even better.

Choices....

1. When my children were younger I could not participate in ladies Bible studies at our church. Now I have the time to do that. And, it is only twice a month.
2. When my children were younger we participated in a co-op. Now I don't have the $$ to drive to co-op.
3. When my children were younger I needed our homeschool group desperately. The group has changed over the years and I find that I don't need it as much, which is good since they don't meet my needs as well now and I don't have the $$ to be more involved.
4. We do all our homeschool work at home with books and materials we buy. No online classes or co-ops, no satellite classes, no one else teaching my children. This is a choice we made. Partly it is a money issue and partly an influence issue.
5. We use workboxes because they work for us not against us. They are a tool. We use cardboard boxes and a few plastic boxes that we already owned. Again a $$ issue, but, I like the variety of boxes because I can find a box to fit the books/subject that it is used for.
6. We chose for me not to work outside the home, but to concentrate my time and efforts inside the house, raising our kids and "keeping the home fires burning."
7. We chose the subjects and materials that we felt were best for our children each year. 
8. We choose to serve the Lord and pray for his help daily. Without Him our family and homeschool would crumble.

One of the things I most like about homeschooling is that I can do it differently than my friend and that is ok. She/He can do it differently than I do it and that is ok. There are many ways to homeschool, many philosophies you can follow, many books to read, many subjects to cover and many ways to cover them.

If you would like some more information about how we do homeschooling click on the homeschool label in the left sidebar.

If you want more information about how we use our workboxes click the workboxes label in the left sidebar.

If you have any questions, leave a comment. If you don't have any questions... leave a comment!! lol

This is the last of the Virtual Fair topics. I missed last week's topic due to going out of town for my husband's Uncle's funeral. I hope to make it up this week even though It will not be linked to the others. If you missed reading any of my posts for the Virtual Curriculum Fair here is the list of them all.

• History Chronologically and with Living Books
• Math Using Hamburger Paper! 
• Watching Movies for Language Arts Class...

Thanks for reading...
I hope something was helpful.

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Here are the links for the other participants posts for this topic

Weekly Homeschooling Schedule by Julie @ HighHill Homeschool

Virtual Curriculum Fair: Week 5: The Nuts & Bolts: Pulling it all Together by Leah @ The Courtney Six Homeschool

Our Schedule's Working! by Eunora @ All Things NoriLynn

Homeschooling: How do I do it all? by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest You Are Here

Virtual Curriculum Fair--- Wrap-up Angie @ Petra School

Virtual Curriculum Fair: 5 Ways to Use an iPad in Your Homeschool by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots

A Peek Into Our School Day by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool

A Day in the Life... by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Homeschool and Life: How we get it done by Jen @ Forever, For Always, No Matter What

Homeschooling at My House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

Getting a Grip on Things by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts and Minds

Making Home School a part of LIFE by Cindy @ For One Another

Now Where's That Pencil Again? by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings

Something About Homeschooling I Really Didn't See Coming by Letha @ justpitchingmytent

Curriculum, Kids, and a Frazzled Homeschool Mama leads to Controlled Chaos! by Laura O from AK @ Day by Day in Our World

The Virtual Curriculum Fair – Nuts and Bolts by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Staying on Top of Everything by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

How Does This Homeschooling Thing Actually Work? Fitting it all Together by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Nuts and Bolts: Pulling it all together by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy


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