Week's End- March 17, 2012

This weekend was my scheduled time to do our school progress check- in. I have this scheduled three times a year, and have.....

*Wait, before I go further, I must post a disclaimer. Mama's dependent upon organization. I have charts for my charts, forms for my forms, and a pie graph depicting what percent of my organization is in forms, charts, graphs, or 'other'. This post is a reflection of that. *


....forms made up so I can simply fill in the blank and answer the questions I have laid out for myself. (Gracious, that sounds obnoxious.)

Saturday, I sat down to do our weekly planning and progress check in. I do the check in quarterly. Frankly, I am just tickled. We are on track to be finished with our basics by the end of July. Dante will finish his K work at the end of April and move to G1 work. He is a bit behind in reading. No, I take that back. If he were in the public school system as it exists currently, he would be "behind" in reading. If he were in the public school system when I was in it, he would be ahead and would be playing and napping in Kindergarten. Which is what he does at home, and is what he needs to do. The point is that he's doing well.

Alli is doing quite well, also. I think she is needing some more 'friends time' than she is getting. We took the winter off of all co-op type activities. While she has still have several other activities regularly, she seems to need more. She is a very social creature, unlike her brother who could stay in his room with his legos indefinitely. Thankfully, we start the spring session of co-op in Greenville in about three weeks. We all will benefit from this. It was good to take the time off, but it will be great to get back!

I had hoped we would finish by the end of July as we anticipate moving in August. We will take all of the move time off, used as a summer break. Reading and math review will still happen in the evenings. This helps to keep the rhythm and routine going.

It was incredibly satisfying to fill in my progress sheet, hole punch it, and file it away in the 2011-2012 binder. I love that I have the information in an easy access spot, and can reference it for lesson planning.

Wishing everyone an organized homeschool,
Erin

Ode to My Closet

Once, you were stuffed with clothes
some delightful, some spiteful I suppose.
And the laundry would double
Increasing my trouble
at finding peace and repose.

Well, what is one to do?
When quite clearly and so nearly
each shirt
must match
each shoe?

"Purge!" said I with determination.
So then commanded my station
and sorted sweaters, shirts, and pants.
"Be gone with you!" I cried.
"In this bag you will hide!"
Then in my closet, I did a dance.

Yup, I finally realized that finding the magic laundry system was not the problem. The problem was having too many clothes to manage. And this applies to 4/5 of my household! No wonder I couldn't keep up! Inspired by another blogger, whose name and blog I of course can't now remember, I realized I needed to drastically downsize our wardrobes. I've completed my closet and Alli's so far. I will finish the boys' sometime this week. I'm not sure how many of each item I kept. I think it was something like this:
7 pairs of bottoms (skirts, jeans, etc.)
9 tops
4 shirts for layering (we have cold winters and live in a very drafty house)
3 sweatshirts
5 sweaters
a couple dresses for church
3 pair jammies
1 pair grubby clothes
4 pair running clothes (me), dance stuff for Alli

That looks like a lot, but was still a significant reduction in our clothing. I filled three large garbage bags between my clothes and Alli's. While I'm not getting rid of them now, if I find we really don't need anything I took out, I will pass them along.

Here were my reasons for doing this:
1. I couldn't keep up with laundry.
2. I re-evaluated my reasons for having all of it to begin with and found those reasons were not valid at this time.
3. I was constantly fighting the clothes battle- keeping it washed, picked up, folded, organized, and put away.
4. I want to wash less clothing so I save on all the costs associated with laundry- environmental and otherwise.
5. I'd like to start line- drying again. Fewer clothes might make it more doable.

This seemed a bit overwhelming to me at first, but this was how I did it. I'll use the same strategy in the future.
1. Identified 3 pair jammies
2. Decided which bottoms to keep.
3. Decided which tops, sweatshirts, sweaters to keep to coordinate. I pretty much made sure the tops could be worn with at least 3 different bottoms.
4. Found layering shirts to go with tops and bottoms.

It wasn't too painful, but that may have been because I was still numb from doing (pre- purge)laundry for three days straight. : )

Anyway, that is my VERY exciting closet news. I'm thrilled.....I think I'll go pick out clothes for tommorrow. Or maybe just dance in my closet.

Blessings,
E

The Math Manipulatives Are On The Floor...

All over the floor, actually. My sweet Kai emptied out the (very cute) storage basket that held said math supplies, interspersing them with our still- unopened Christmas gifts. He topped that with our basket of completed school work. Of course, this was the year I used the most sustainable wrapping I could think of. I used brown paper bags with handles and wrote people's names on the tissue paper so the bags could be re- used. These brown paper bags are open on the top, so my family will now be gifted with their intended present plus dominoes...or Math-U-See blocks....or clock faces. I can see it now, "Yes, Uncle Howie, we do love you, but that is not really one hundred dollars....No, see, right here, it says, 'school money' ". At least I know where the 1000 cubes are. They were too big to fall in the bags.





Now, it has occured to me that I could go through each gift bag and take the math materials out. But you know what? I think I won't. I'm a bit sleep -deprived, I'm still in a funk over this year's Christmas (see previous post), and this may provide a laugh once it is gift exchanging time. Plus, I just purged our closets, and I wouldn't want my chaos v. organized balance to tip too far.
More on the closets later. It is really VERY exciting and requires its own post. I'm so excited that 'later' may be in about 15 minutes. Cheers!