" Home's Cool " Tips I'm Loving

  Let the fun begin!!

   ( yes my 4th grader is wearing her Dads shoes and this is what happens when I say, " Just act natural you guys."🙈)

 

  Anyway, we are all pretty excited this year and rearing to go and you know why? Because the teacher is excited and it is trickling down. I hate to say it but its's a true story. I feel there is nothing worse than getting off to a chaotic, scrambled, rocky start in school because it just spreads negative energy to everybody else somehow.  I've done it as a teacher and I've also been the student in such case, neither are fun. However, you can recover, it's not the end of the world but it's easier to just start off right best you can. And this year I endeavored to really start off knowing right where my heads at, and that's a real challenge for me, ( 😜) maybe not for you. 

  So, I'd thought I'd share a few pictures of tips from our home that have been really helping things go smoother at our house. Some of these tips we've done for years now, while others are newly implemented. And please don't expect like the heavens to open up and the angles to start singing because there's nothing grandiose you haven't probably seen done before but it is what's really working wonders for us right now. And besides, I really am finding that you can have all the books on homeschooling success and the organizational steps memorized and 1,000 pinterest ideas filed away and that's good but that's just not good enough. It's about actually applying these ideas or concepts(however small or big) and actually moving forward with it and then following through with it. Trust me, I've fallen down enough to know. But for the sake of those around me, and with the help of the One inside me, I got back up and tried again!!! Praise God!! I'm getting excited thinking about how many home school days He's carried me when I couldn't get my self up,  just like the footprints in the sand poem, He was there. I was never alone.  I'm so thankful!!! And I need carried every single day not just when the storms clouds gather or the seas or rough but every single day. 

    Alright, so I snapped a few pictures here because if you're like me, a visual learner, you like pictures. And listen, there's always room for improvement in our house!!! So I'm totally open to any other good ideas. Email me! Love to hear tips and tricks and how you organize your  "home's cool " :) I do care about encouraging homeschool families anyway I can, even if it's a small, tinsy tiny tip that you can take from here and make your life easier. 

Favorite tips I'm loving: I won't bore you with all of them, so quickly I'm gonna run through my favorites. 

1. I got this tip from a public school teacher and I'm loving it. Glue pompom balls to the end of these markers to keep the never- ending "dry-eraser hunt " to a minimum.

2. Common sense storage for any small things you may have and it's really easy and really free. (  FYI if you're trying to watch sugar, this is our families favorite crystal light flavor. It's so good, the babysitter seriously took a picture of it so she could pick some up for herself and is probably drinking it as I write this! oh and the sleeve slides right off from the bottom for easy up-cycle use.) So we just recycle these things for everything. And they are see -through,  which I prefer anyway when storing stuff. 

3. Got these handy dandy boxes at dollar tree for 50 cents, a 2 pack is $1.00. They fit a pack of crayons perfectly. So "Goodbye dilapidated crayon box that our crayons originally came in and fell apart half the school year later! " ( that was a long title I know, sorry) 

4. Easy dry- eraser... magnetized ( is that a word? ). Ok anyway, if you don't have the fancy boards with the ledge for your markers, you can buy the magnets strips with sticky backs, cut them to desired size but not too, too small and done. We haven't hunted for a marker yet. And it doesn't get lost,  we just leave it on the board. 

 5. Let me just say, this over the door shoe organizer.....best decision I've ever made for our school organization. For around $5.00 I have sanity. Who knew sanity could be so cheap? No expensive trip to the islands somewhere,  nope just this. 

6. You know what, I don't grade every single thing right there and then, so when the children are done with test and quizzes, they go right here in the grade folder pictured below. And school work goes in another folder to be graded and then when Im done grading everything, that goes in the file folder to be filed later. And when I'm able to file that, they go in a cabinet. It's how my brain works, I compartmentalize.  It's important to me to just keep things moving during the day. This also gives me a window of breathing room between teaching and administrative stuff so there is not all this stop and go. And at the end of the week,  I will knock out the paperwork all together. Because my mind ( it's "special" but whatever) can get covered, smothered and scattered like hash browns at Waffle House ok! Especially with teach, grade, score, record, file, copy.....it be gettin' crazy! How's that for good English!  Anyway, I like setting this stuff aside for later, knowing it's organized and waiting for me when I'm ready. 

7. My blue brain is pictured here below. 'Nough said? I like all the important day- to -day stuff in one place with me. 

Well, may this find you well. And homeschooler, teacher, friend I know it's a challenge but "on purpose" take some time to stop and smell that coffee or tea or hot cocoa or apple cider. It may add years to your life just by cutting down stress, that silent killer. "This is the day which the Lord hath made!" for us to rejoice and be glad in:)

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity; I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."     1Corinthians 13:1

Where to get it-

Dollar tree

- three black and white file holders on top of kids bookshelf for extra paper, notebooks and folders.

Target

- hanging file folders on wall

A Work- to- be -done folder and a work -to -be -graded folder for each child.

Walmart 

Over-the-door organizer

Staples 

Moms brain in a binder holds:

- lesson plans

- calendar 

- grade records 

- attendance

- laws for nc 

- field trip plans etc...

- e.o.g results