Search Results for: learning room

In the Learning Room: Year 3 and Year 6 Organization

July 16, 2016

I am going to make an attempt here. To be pithy. Succinct. Abbreviated. One picture. One idea. LOL! I’m not sure I’m capable of limiting my vocabulary in this way. >>>Just.Not.Sure.I.Can.Limit<<< But, I’m seriously going to try.

I finished my Year 3 and Year 6 booklists, term plans, and weekly plans! Happy dance!!! After getting all of the paper stuff finished, it’s time to clean up and set up the shelves with all the books and things needed for the year! It’s a HUGE component to a smoothly running year for us!

PICTURED: The bottom shelf is Year 3; the middle shelf is Year 6. Some people use baskets, bins or bags – I dedicate one full shelf of our learning room book-case for each child. Every CD, notebook and book needed for that child’s term is present on the shelf. All in one place. I refresh shelves in between terms (we divide our year into 3 manageable chunks – 3 terms) so each term break the shelves are wiped down, I remove all the migrant stuff that wandered into the mix, check pens and supplies, refresh term books and off we go again!

One thing I love to use for organizing art supplies for the term are plastic letter size zip folios (pictured on the left side of each shelf). We use Artistic Pursuits as our art program (but this works with whatever you happen to use for art!). Find the materials list and start assembling materials: grab construction paper, sketch pads, oil pastels, sketch pencils, glue – whatever – and throw it in the zip folio and it lives on the shelf!! Having it all assembled means that art is MUCH more likely to be completed during the week…because I don’t have to hunt down an elusive red pastel or an HB sketch pencil!

I know you’re going to ask! 🙂 The little aqua cart in the corner of the picture is our art cart. Ikea RASKOG in turquoise. Love this thing! We don’t have an IKEA near us, so I ordered ours.

That’s it! I’m stopping. Zipping it. Putting a lid on it. I am seriously refraining and holding myself back from adding a gazillion more pictures to this post. >>>WILL.NOT.ADD.MORE.PHOTOS.<<< Because I’m off to work on that top shelf up there in the picture…the one with books piled high! THAT would be Year 10!

Maybe…just maybe…if I can manage to keep my silly vocabulary in check, I can post little snippets like this more often as I progress through the learning room, preparing for the next year! Hope your planning and organizing is going well! Drop me a note if you have a question about something! 🙂

Our New Learning Room – Reveal

March 31, 2015

I confess, I’ve had this post in draft for nearly two months now. In fact, this post is old enough that our learning room looks a little different today than it did when I took these pictures – I unpacked the geography cabinet and have it in place, the toddler got taller so art supplies moved up a shelf…but I think you’ll get the idea! The room is cheery with south facing windows that let in an enormous amount of sunshine. I get this question a lot: “Jen, what are your top recommendations for a learning room?” and my number one answer is always the same – sunshine!

So let’s start with how this room became our new learning room! Remember, that our learning room used to be in our dining room? No? Take a look at these popular posts:

That learning space carved out of what should have been a dining room worked for us – really well! For several years! And then, this year, we remodeled…remember that? Remodeling our kitchen involved reclaiming our dining room as a dining space. And that left us with no learning room space. Which is honestly fine – a learning room isn’t necessary!! But, I did want a little office area, and I did want to brainstorm to see if we could somehow remodel another space just a bit…and end up with a space set aside…a learning room, which for us, is a great place for our books and things to land and live, and a wonderful place to spring from.

And this was the answer…

Our new learning room was originally my enormous master bedroom.

Do not ask me in what universe a bedroom this large is needed?? It was always an enormous waste of space, I lamented. So our solution seemed easy – add a wall and make two rooms out of one huge one! This is how we “found” our new learning room:

And it works so well! We ripped up the carpet on the new side of the room, put down red oak hardwoods to match the rest of the house, and that was about it. Decor? Books and sunshine and a few reclaimed & repurposed pieces of furniture we already had.

I hope the simple layout images will give you a way to visualize what we began with, and how we made a few simple changes to bring our learning room into this space. And, since this post is photo heavy (fair warning!) these overview images might give you a visual bearing as you “look around” our new learning room.

Come on in…let’s start outside the learning room…down the hall, almost in the kitchen…looking toward the new learning room (it’s the farthest door on the right).

This is a good place to start because I really don’t want to give the impression that we’re limited to a “one-room-schoolhouse” feel in our learning room. It’s a room that provides a place for things to land, a space for organization, the place where we typically begin, end, and check back a few times a day…but the kids take their reading and work all over – to the left into our family room, to the right onto the dining room table, behind me at the island, and if the weather’s nice – outside!

I also wanted to show you where our family Feast Table is temporarily located – atop this small shelf. I have more permanent plans for a new liturgical display area in the works, but alas, this is where I set up our monthly liturgical displays and seasonal picture books for now. (pictured above is January’s display) And that sunny room to the right there? That’s the new learning room! Let’s go inside!

Fair warning: my toddler photo-bombs a few of these photos…and totally steals the show! She loves this room, too!

That door you see is the door I just walked through. Immediately inside the room are our two desks and our wall maps. The maps are from maps.com; they’re wallzilla adhesive backed maps. Here is the US map, and here is the world map. {Note that maps.com keeps moving these maps around on their site so that I’m having a hard time keeping active links here for you. If the links don’t take you to the right product, go to maps.com and search: USA New Century Wallzilla Map, or World New Century Wallzilla Map. Also, I find the maps.com search engine is awful – I find google searching those terms takes me right to the page I need on maps.com}

Both are lovely, with overall tones of blues and neutral colors. The maps are completely repositionable- the adhesive is a really good quality, easy to remove, yet holds tight and corners don’t peel – and I love the feel! These maps are actually printed on a fabric-like material, so they’re not thin plastic. They just stick to the wall, and can be peeled off and reapplied again…many…many times.

The two tables are typically used by my younger students (4th and 1st/2nd grade), but they’re not assigned to anyone in particular and are available to whomever is in need.

I thought I’d just stay in the center of the room and keep slowly turning to my right, and if I do that the next thing you see are our pocket doors…the ones I told you about above, that we added as part of our home remodel. Behind them…my bedroom.

Continuing our slow turn to the right is our reading chair (which is so wonderful to have as part of our learning room now! Our chair is actually quite visually assaulting, so I bought a washable slipcover for it and that’s what you see pictured.

And my new desk area – which I like tucked there between the reading chair and a sunny window! I have been working for a couple of months now to really organize my desk area and my planning files (since I’m planning for next year right now) so my files and books and resources look different now, but the basic layout is the same and since I know you’re wondering…

You’ll probably recognize a lot of my favorite things from past posts on our old learning room. I’ll give you a run down on a few of the items on my desk (left to right):

Life planner from Erin Condren – see review here.
Clipboard behind my life planner holds our Morning Basket lesson plans and I keep all three of the kids’ table of lesson plans on my clipboard, too. It just works well right now to have them all in one place. Next year, we may go back to each individual child keeping their lesson plan grid on their own clipboard.
Sitting on my desk is my big lesson planner book. During construction I wasn’t able to print lesson plans so I went back to the old fashioned way of hand writing them all in this lesson plan notebook…and I remembered why I loved formatting and printing lesson plans again! But after construction was over, and I could print again, I found that I really enjoy recording more open-ended learning in this book. My lesson plans have evolved into a one-page table overview of a term of work that I print and keep on my clipboard, and that makes it easy to see at a glance what has been done, what’s next, and where we might have been slacking. But it leaves no room for recording some of the other tangential learning (just as important) – the rabbit trails we enjoy! I journal our Morning Basket read alouds, as well as keeping booklists, goals, seasonal ideas and more in this lesson planner notebook. (*Note that the lesson planner is made to be used in a classroom setting, but I found that only a few pages in the front of the planner were useless, the majority of planning and organizing pages were nicely laid out and enjoyable to use!) I find I really like using this format for wrapping up loose ends and I plan to continue to use this lesson planner in this way next year.
On top of my lesson planner book is my iPad, which contains some of our reading for this year. It was handy to have the complete library of ebooks from Yesterday’s Classics on my iPad when all of my books were inaccessible!
Tissues, cute lamp from Target, iPhone…that stuff…
Above my desk, Rob hung several shelves for me (all of which we repurposed since they actually all came out of my old kitchen!)
I keep my notebooks (commonplace), special reading material, all my files on the smaller shelf immediately above my desk. File folders are from Erin Condren (jolly jester pattern).

A better view of all the little things I keep close at hand each day…and my perennial prayer. 🙂

Shelves above contain other useful books, teacher’s manuals, files for planning, notebooks, art files, and other various sundry items that one usually has near one’s desk. The two Fold-n-File containers come from Thirty-One Gifts and are great for organizing yearly work, next year’s plans and ideas, catalogs, and about a million other things! You can read a detailed review of my desk-in-a-bag which makes use of the Fold-n-File and Utility Tote from Thirty-One Gifts.

Moving to the right again, I keep our term book cart situated between the two bright windows. This is something else I discovered quite by accident as we got ready to remodel and prepared to lose most of our library of books, as well as preparing to lose our original learning room. I found our picture book cart is so useful for holding term books, so it remains in use with the Morning Basket reading on display, and stacked below are the books that our three school age kids use for this term of work.

Turning again, I wanted to show you a little corner of toddler delights. In home education, we have all our children about us, and setting up any learning space has to consider the big kids and the littles!

I rotate simple toys in and out of a few corners of this room specifically with my toddler in mind. It’s important that she has some “yes” things to visit – her blocks, her books, her toys and silks, her red p’kolino chair. Little things.

The big wall unit is actually something we bought off Craigslist for a song a few years ago. This unit has always “lived” right where it is now, except that it has now been drafted into service as organization for our learning room, and it does so very well!

I keep some natural history picture books, seasonal reading, and some favorite nature reference materials here. Also stored on these shelves are picture books, some of which I set out seasonally or by interesting themes. And then our collection of art supplies and our kiwi crates for craft days …

…which my kids really enjoy! The Kiwi Crates come monthly, with a theme for that month and everything needed to craft (and sometimes do a little simple baking) right inside the little green shoebox sized box. If you’re feeling rather craft-impaired, or just don’t have the time to coordinate crafts but have kids that love crafting, you might consider a subscription to Kiwi Crate! By the way, my teen son really enjoys the Tinker Crates for older kids!

I still use my desk-in-a-bag, especially as I’m planning, and I keep it neatly stored on a shelf here as well.

Inside the drawers and cabinets I keep all of those supplies that are useful in a learning space, but you don’t necessarily want on display – like my printer, which is housed in the bottom right cabinet, and paper, pens, clips.

And that’s really it, friends! Hope you enjoyed the tour! It will be fun to live here, and think more about these learning spaces, changing and refreshing them to meet our changing needs….and share more pictures with you!

Source: eeBoo Counting Birds Wall Cards

You asked: What happened to the Learning Room?

July 13, 2014

I’ve shared with all of you that we are pursuing some remodeling plans. It’s exciting…and daunting.

As I planned our booklists this summer, I kept in mind that our year would need to be flexible and I began to consider ways to stretch outside of comfortable routines and spaces. Earlier this summer, I shared with you that I had to let go of this….

Challenging? Yep. But completely doable, and I enjoyed the challenge! Everything in this space was emptied. Everything…

And our entire learning room was distilled into the most useful, most needed books and things that I planned for us to use for the year upcoming and it all landed….here…

Yes, that’s the picture book cart! Initially, when I emptied the learning room, I moved our few needed books to a small bookshelf in my bedroom, thinking that would be a good transitional solution. However, it only took one day of living our plans out {we began our lessons last week! 🙂 } to realize that while workable, it wasn’t the most intuitive place for those books to live. We grabbed stacks of books and brought them to the table, finished half by lunch, then had to shift and move books for lunch, then bring books back, then re-shelve them…I knew there was a better way. So, I called my Mom to brainstorm, explained my challenge, and within seconds she suggested repurposing the picture book cart!!!! Eureka! So the hat tip for this fantastic solution goes to my Mom!

I know you’re squinting to see the titles of those books {in the above picture}…because I know that’s what I would be doing! 🙂 Here’s a picture for you without all those busy little words and arrows. {Not all our books have arrived yet – so a few books didn’t arrive in time for the photo op.}

Behind the cart (but still attached and a part of the cart) is a perfect place for some of our oversized things…like our Holling C. Holling maps (we’re finishing up Minn of the Mississippi – see Minn up there in the top left?), bluetooth keyboard for the iPad, and a small container of pens, pencils and things we want to keep out of sight and out of reach of little Octo-baby!

I challenged myself to keep only those things that were truly needful on a daily basis and I was determined to contain ALL of those things, like our clipboards, on the cart. I found a place for them on the far right of the cart! We can see them, grab them, grab needed books…and go!

Repurposing the picture book cart works great! {Thanks, Mom!!!!} Living out the rest of the week went so smoothly. Our entire school week can live on the cart, which rolls next to the table, the couch, out of the way in the hall at the end of a day, into another room, or in a closet if needed.

Each new year brings its own set of challenges and blessings. And remodeling our home…during a school year…while we live in it…ouch! That’s definitely going to challenge! Stretching and brainstorming to meet the challenges for this year helps me see spaces and tools in new ways, helps me simplify in considering those things that are essential…needful.

Warning…this post will now be briefly interrupted to share gratuitous and adorable baby shots…

: Please note the crumbs on her face.

: See how much help I have?

So…what happened to the learning room?

It is now our dining space, awaiting it’s full transformation and connection to the kitchen…

…which will include the removal of a wall, pretty new chairs for my kitchen table, and perhaps a couple more functional and pretty furniture pieces for serving.

Now, I’m brainstorming kitchen function – and specifically – I’ve been brainstorming my menus with an eye toward losing my entire kitchen space for a time. And you know what? I think I can do it! I’ve been collecting recipes for my slow cooker and introducing them to my family, knowing that I’ll rely on my slow cooker a lot during this time! The family LOVED French Dip Sandwiches {which I tweaked just a tad}. So…on to brainstorming my menus more! PLEASE let me know if you have some good remodeling-and-living-without-a-kitchen tips! {Fortunately, the builders we’re interviewing are willing to brainstorm creative solutions to keep my washer/dryer working throughout the remodel – HUGE sigh of relief — WHEW!!!!}

Whatever your space challenges might be this year, I hope your planning and new year bring great joy and contentment in living out the ordinary of your day! Those ordinary and small moments are lifesavers and sanity savers in the midst of physical upheaval and turmoil!

Learning Room

: This is the ClosetMaid Horizontal Stackable Organizero we use in our learning room for displays. They can be stacked 2-3 units high.

: Mahar Rectangular Activity Tables – I have several different sizes of this table in our learning room. See more about them in this post.

: Rolling Book Cart in Natural Finish – I saved for several years to purchase this picture book cart for our learning spaces! It has proven itself as a valued piece in our home over and over again. One thing I’ve always valued: wheels! It’s great to move this wherever it’s needed! There are several different style options for a picture book display cart.

: This is the Geography Cabinet we have in our learning room. We found a sale model at Alison’s Montessori.

Learning Spaces – a peek at the learning room re-arranged

March 11, 2009

I mentioned in an earlier post that I rearranged our learning space here in the learning room. I wasn’t completely unhappy with the rearrangement in here, but when I set out Peanut’s new spring books, I felt so bad that his little table was stuck in the corner facing…the wall. So, I flipped the room a bit, and Peanut is still facing the wall…lol :)….but now he’s between the two sunny windows in the room and his table seems much cheerier. Don’t you think?

Moving furniture has a way of recharging the troops, too. A new placement of a table, new light on your work, a new view, all work to energize us and bespeak a certain freshness and newness that is invigorating to all of us! I didn’t do a top of the shelves to the floor re-org…just the furniture in the center of the room and a few of the lower bookshelves. We think it looks lovely…and since I absolutely love peeking at your sunny spaces 😉 I’m happy to give you a look at ours…

You can see our map cabinet and Doodlebug’s little learning toy centers are still in the same place, but the big kids work at the big table and it has been flipped and turned. The children commented that they like this much better as it affords them both a view out the window.

I took Peanut’s corner. 🙁 I miss looking right out the window to see the little Carolina Chickadee sitting right on my window sill cracking a sunflower seed, but I can still se the windows. 🙂 And, I do love looking into the cheery room. I moved my reading basket behind me…up on a smallish table because Doodlebug was doodle-ing too many of my books and catalogs.

It’s good to have a little freshness indoors this time of year when the out of doors beckons so insistently. Hope you enjoyed this little peek in here…and that you are all having a wonderful spring so far! I’m off to do a bit of tidying in some of our other spaces…

The Learning Room Set-Up for 2008/09

June 6, 2008

I finally finished working on the learning room. This is an activity that must be accomplished for me to get any planning done over the summer to prepare for the next year. I’m pleased with the results.

I begin by emptying all shelves – everything comes out of the room and is stacked in the hall. Books are re-grouped by subject. Shelves are dusted. I stand back and envision how I need the room to function for the upcoming year. There’s always a toddler around, so I take his needs into consideration organizing certain materials up higher – like glue and other materials down low – like blocks!

I place furniture and desks first. Then, I look carefully at the shelves around the room. Our Montessori shelves are always down low. I have very little wall space in the room, so I’ve had to get creative and have furniture “float” in the room. This allows me to use the wall space I have for storage and display.

After furniture and shelves are cleaned and placed in the room as I like them, I begin adding back books and materials. The shelves on the wall are arranged and grouped by subject.

A quick word on the content of the room. I’ve been homeschooling from the beginning – so that’s 8 years now. I’ve been a homeschooler in my heart (reading and planning) since before I even had my first child – so that’s 15 years! I’ve been collecting that long. I’ll be at this (God willing) for at least another 18 years, possibly longer if there are more children 🙂 The furniture, books, materials you see around the room have been collected over the years a little at a time, not all at once. The materials are an investment in my children, who are priceless. If you are new to homeschooling, looking at this room would be overwhelming! You cannot duplicate everything you see all at once over the summer. Your husband would kill me! If you find an idea for organization here or in set-up that would be useful to your family, please use it! I’m sharing for that reason. But, don’t be overwhelmed by all you see – this has been a labor of love for me for several years.

Alright…the room…

This is how I’ve set up our nature and science center for next year.

The shelves hanging on the wall contain resource and living books and are grouped according to the branch of science they pertain to. The lower shelves always contain and display the current topic of study. For the summer, I’ve set out general nature study items – binoculars, bird watching guides, bird identiflyer, flower press, nature sketch books, collected items and treasures from favorite nature walks, and a few lovely books for summer reading. We don’t do a lot of nature walking during the most intense parts of the summer – it’s just too hot and humid! So, I add treasures that we enjoy revisiting on the shelves. We watch hummingbirds and other birds from our windows.

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Turning 180 degrees and you see the Montessori side of the room – well, the lower half is Montessori. As you can see from the pictures, the shelves are pretty much empty. I don’t leave materials out over the summer with the exception of a couple of favorite activities – Peanut’s scissors, some ABC magnets, math property (+,-,x,/) boxes of equations for summer work. We start the year fresh, with empty shelves and add materials as they are presented. This is to ensure that materials are not abused or mis-used over the summer when attention is relaxed.

The Geography Maps have been a favorite resource of ours! They continue to see use over the summer. In re-arranging, I had to move our collection of globes and cultural materials to the other side of the room. I don’t like it, but it was just necessary. I like subject matter to be grouped together.

My supply cabinet (on the left) will be emptied and re-organized next week. I’ll have pictures up when I finish. The cabinet contains all of our school supply materials, my copier/printer, the CD player, all of the liturgical year material for the Feast Table, etc. I’m not sure if all of that will stay in there after I re-org. The upper shelves to the right of the cabinet contain all of our arts and crafts materials. I have a bit of a weakness there.

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This is where I work. The desk is actually Sweet Pea’s, but I don’t have anything else to sit at, so I borrowed it from her room until I can find a suitable table or desk at the Thrift store to replace it. Behind my desk I keep all of the teacher’s manuals and resource materials I need to plan out the year. On the upper shelves behind me I keep the children’s books for the year. This area still looks a little messy because all of my planning books are set out in bins to be addressed and looked over during the summer.

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And finally, my big purchase for the year…the Picture Book Library…isn’t it lovely?

Um…can I admit another weakness for picture books? ‘Cause this isn’t all of them! The Catholic Mosaic titles are stored elsewhere, and there are picture books upstairs, and in baskets throughout the house, and you might even find a few in the bathrooms 🙂

What do I love about this little library? Well, for starters, it’s mobile. There are heavy duty casters on the bottom that allow it to move up into the learning room, or into the living room next to the couch, or up next to the stairs and out of the way. I love that I can store *most* of the picture books on the lower shelf, and then I can display the featured books for the month/week on the display section up top. It is very sturdily built and well made. All of the children find this irresistible. As soon as I set out books in the display section, they began bringing those books to me to read. I’ve been looking for a book display for the past year in thrift stores, but have had no success. I’m really glad to have this library/book display shelf – it meets all of my needs in such an attractive way!

The back side has even more display room and storage! No space has been wasted!

So, that’s a tour of the learning room. Next week, I’ll organize my storage cabinet, and then begin the planning for the next year.

The Learning Room set up in eager anticipation…

July 7, 2007

I’ve spent a great deal of time in the learning room lately re-arranging, re-organizing, purging, and adding new materials. The shot above is the geography/culture/science area. I’m very pleased especially with how the geography center came out! The science area will need some work. All of my nature materials, and science materials are on the shelf above the wall maps. There is just not enough room here for all of my nature collections. I really need to brainstorm a solution for this area!!!

Here is the geography cabinet with the world map, the 6 continents, and the US map along with the control charts. Below the maps are my continent boxes. I included a box for Antartica even though the only map with Antartica is the world map. The boxes are labeled, and I will have the children color an outline of each continent to laminate to the top of the boxes. We’ll include some plastic animals in our boxes to represent the native animals found on the separate continents, lots of magazine cut-outs of continent flora and fauna, cultural items from the various continents. I purchased boxes that were not large because I wanted them to fit on the lower part of our cabinet – they do…perfectly. On top of the cabinet is our globe, a squishy earth that splits in half to reveal the earth’s core, and a couple of atlases.

Here are the continent boxes up close.

A full view of the geography area. Most of the shelves are empty. I don’t want to overwhelm with too many materials. I will add materials that are currently being stored in my rotation closet as I present throughout the year. The green bin contains a variety of National Geographic cultural maps to be used, and there are some other cultural/geography type reference books. The big blow up globe with the land and water forms is way up high since it tends to be used as a beach ball if it is too accessible.

To the right of the geography center is the math and geography center. There are only a few things out right now for the summer months. I like the clean look! My hanging liturgical year calendar is hanging on my supply closet.

To the right of the supply closet I set up the art and music area. There are a variety of puzzles set out down low for the Peanut right now. And we keep music materials out at all times as well. The art supplies are up higher, out of reach of the Peanut (unless he climbs on a chair.) The shelves to the right of art and music are the language materials. I had no choice but to set out the metal insets since I’m out of storage room in my rotation closet. So far that hasn’t been a problem at all. But, if it becomes too much of a temptation, I may have to find a way to squeeze them into the rotation closet! I set up a work table in front of this area with small chairs for Peanut to fit in. This will be a table that the children can work together on. If they need to work alone, they will be able to use their desk, or spread a rug in the hall.

Here is my nature basket right now. I thought it came out really pretty, so I wanted to include a picture. We’ve been collecting and studying wildflowers since they are out in abundance right now. In the basket on the left I have a collection of our favorite wildflower resource books, a sketch journal for nature journaling, color pencils, and a hand lens. The flower gathering basket is set out with small scissors for cutting flowers. The flower press is below that basket, and my absolute all time favorite nature journal in the whole world, “The Diary of an Edwardian Lady,” is opened to the July page. Though I do not have enough room set up for my nature shelves, I am pleased with the themed basket area. I’ll change this out every month or so as we shift our learning emphasis.

Montessori in the Learning Room

April 17, 2007

A little re-arranging and the learning room gave up enough space for our Montessori shelves and activities. In time (and with more $$ in the budget) we will add more activities. I think this is a good start, and already I see good fruit from this. The children are very orderly here, as compared with the rest of the house. Even Peanut seems to respect this need for orderliness. It’s a mystery to me, because if I had panned 180 degrees with the camera you could see proof that a respect for order is more elusive in other parts of the house. I’ve had the area set up for about 2 weeks now.

Peanut has his mat out and enjoys a “squishy” puzzle. The children use their mats to define a space that is exclusively theirs. An activity is brought out and enjoyed. After they are done, the activity is put away and the mat is rolled up and put away as well. This is working very well for the time being.
The Matreshka dolls were an unexpected hit! Sparkly can’t get enough of them – he likes to separate, sort, arrange, match the design on the top of the doll with the design on the bottom. Peanut is surprised every time he opens one and a smaller one pops out!

The lock box has been a neat addition.

Sparkly really enjoys this activity. There are small nails, a hammer, some shapes (tangram shapes) with little holes in the middle for the nail, and a corkboard. I think it will be very good for his small motor skill development. Since he loves the activity he is inclined to be very patient and persistent – more good traits! I was so pleased to see him gently helping Peanut today. This went on for about a half an hour. I got out the camera after watching quietly.

All in all things seem to be functioning very well. We’re all really enjoying the new activities, and Peanut especially is enjoying having things down on his level so he can be occupied during lesson time.

Toward the Sciences: Considering the Lilies and Setting Their Feet In a Very Large Room

January 25, 2012

I’m often asked, “How do you DO science in your home? Especially in the early years? What do you use?” I can certainly tell you what we enjoy, and give you some ideas, but it may not be the tidy, wrapped-in-a-bow package you’re looking for.

“The child who sees his mother with reverent touch lift an early snowdrop to her lips, learns a higher lesson than the ‘print-books’ can teach. Years hence, when the children are old enough to understand that science itself is in a sense sacred and demands some sacrifices, all the ‘common information’ they have been gathering until then, and the habits of observation they have acquired, will form a capital groundwork for a scientific education. In the meantime, let them consider the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air.” (Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Vol 1, p. 63)

Science in our home is very natural, both in topic and approach.

We read,

wonder,

observe,

ask questions,
and explore.

That’s our syllabus! That’s our scope and sequence! From the early years through high school. {Although the sciences in high school do begin to take on more depth, we continue to approach it in much the same way – reading, wondering, exploring. If you’re interested, you can take a look at our high school Biology notes on our blog.}

Oh dear! I hear your panic-filled thoughts:

Is that enough?

{Yes}

Do they learn anything?

{Oh my, yes!}

How do you know what to cover?

{I set their feet in a very large room – all of God’s magnificent creation.}

Let’s sit down with a cup of tea and chat about nature study: share resources, follow us for a day through our science time, and share some ideas for beginning gently and simply.

Resources:

May I suggest a few resources for you? These resources are my go-to resources for inspiration and information, and will provide a great understanding of Charlotte Mason’s ideas for the importance of nature study {and really, the value of nature study cannot be understated} which lays a rich and varied foundation for investigating the sciences in later years. Perhaps something here would be something for you to consider:

Hours in the Out-of-Doors by Charlotte Mason, compiled by Simply Charlotte Mason – This book is really just a collection of quotes that are applicable to Nature Study, but what Simply Charlotte Mason has done is spare you the difficulty of looking all of these up in her 6 volumes. The quotes are grouped according to topic, and really are an excellent vision of nature study, and its importance in undergirding the sciences.
Science Scope by Kathryn Stout – While I wouldn’t say this resource is necessary, it certainly is a great help for the homeschooling mom that would like help in recording science topics covered, and science topics that need to be covered. The book is easy to understand, simple and straightforward, and covers all the topics of the branches of science, noting the appropriate age/grade for covering a particular topic. It’s one of those books that I really like because you can put it to use the minute you open the cover – you won’t have to read for two hours to get a sense of the book! What I like about the book is that it assumes that topics will be covered again and again, much as one does in a home education setting, with each recurring introduction of a topic going a little deeper than before. Provided in the back of the book is a very easy-to-use checklist chart for keeping track of subjects that have been introduced. I make a copy of the chart for each of my children and keep it in my home education notebook under each of their tabs. Then, every few weeks, I go through the chart and check the topics the child has read about. It’s a really good way to record topic coverage for each child in science.

Eve Anderson’s Teacher Training Tools {Nature Study edition} – This is a DVD which can be purchased alone or as part of a 3 volume set. {The 3 volume set also includes Picture Study and Narration.} These DVD’s, which offer Eve Anderson’s insight, are immensely helpful if you are implementing a Charlotte Mason education in your home.
Reader’s Digest: North American Wildlife (pictured below in this post) – If I needed a field guide and had limited space and just needed one, basic, good book to get started, this would be it. It covers animals, plants, insects, wildflowers, trees. The images are wonderful, quality detailed illustrations, and there is just enough information to learn a little about the object you may be looking up. {Note: there is an updated version of this book, but the updated version is the same as the edition I linked to, save a different dustcover. Save yourself a little money and purchase the older edition, used!}
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock – This is a standard in Charlotte Mason homes, and it’s easy to see why. It just contains so much information about the natural world! Different homes probably use this in different ways, and there may be some of you that really wouldn’t find this useful in your home so consider it carefully. {Images are black and white} I’m mentioning it because it has been on our shelf from the beginning and we often look things up in it. We use it as a reference book mostly, and really enjoy the poetry that is often included with objects. Be sure to check out the Handbook of Nature Study blog – what a treasure of ideas and helps for approaching nature study.
Nature Friend Magazine – We’ve had a subscription to this magazine for 9 years. That about says it all, doesn’t it? Whether you homeschool or not, do consider this magazine. You and your children will delight in reading it together, sans advertisements. If you have older children (10+), consider the optional study guides that come with the magazine. I don’t think the study guides are useful for littler ones, who do enjoy the articles and reading from Nature Friend, but they’re fantastic for older children!

Here are a few posts I’ve written chatting about our favorite living science:

The Way Things Work: Boy Meets Machine – still one of our favorite science years ever!
Learning About Ducks….and Discovering Smithsonian’s Backyard
Elementary Living Science Resource – the Glenn Blough books illustrated by Jeanne Bendick (favorites! We’re reading through this series this year for 2nd grade science and are delighting in the books and ideas to explore!)

A Day in the Life:

Would you like to see a day of science unfold? There was nothing extraordinary about this day – it played out very naturally. The only thing “planned” was to read 2 – 4 pages in our current science living book, Wait For the Sunshine.

After reading about the underside of a leaf, Peanut wanted to see the little openings on the bottom of a leaf. He wondered if he’d be able to see them. It’s winter here….so we’re a little short on fresh, green leaves. I got out our basket of nature treasures which always contains a few leaves the children have collected and we flipped one over and took a look.

And he saw them! There they were! Just like our picture book said! It was a thrilling discovery, and he made it all by himself! We read about it, and he wondered aloud, asked a question, and then we explored. And there it was! Connection! All his to claim!

It didn’t take long for my science passionate kid to pick up on the fact that we were looking at things with our little pocket microscopes so he sauntered into the kitchen, too. Both boys were so thrilled with the mysterious small world they could see through their microscopes, they started pulling random objects out of the nature basket to inspect.

Like this Aristolochia Swallowtail butterfly we found in our garden last summer. The detail and pigment of his wings was extraordinary to see through our pocket microscope.

Pictured under our butterfly {above} is the Readers Digest North American Wildlife book I mentioned to you above in the resource suggestions. I wanted you to be able to see an example of the detailed illustrations. This is the book we used to identify our butterfly.

And the boys really enjoyed looking at the structure of this object under their mini-microscope. This is a Praying Mantis egg sac – an oothecas. Each fall, the female praying mantis secretes this papery substance in a bell shape on a twig somewhere and inside it she deposits hundreds of little praying mantis eggs. In the spring, they hatch and dangle down in long strands. We can find these all over our gardens and woods. If you spot one, liberate the twig that is holding the oothecas from its bush and bring the twig somewhere near a window you watch regularly. If you watch closely in the spring, as the days begin to warm, one day you may see hundreds and hundreds of little mantis hatching! It’s an amazing sight. DO NOT bring the oothecas in your house if you find one…..lest you have hundreds and hundreds of baby mantis hatching in your home!

A quick word about our pocket microscopes: we have two Carson MicroBrite Pocket Microscopes (also available at my favorite store: Lee Valley). These are very inexpensive little tools, but so worthwhile in your nature study stash!

The pocket microscopes were a Christmas gift to the kids, and are used frequently here. They are sturdy little scopes, easy to hold and operate, and give an amazing visual quality image! No blurriness or frustration because you can’t see something clearly. They’re quite small and take up hardly any real estate on a shelf, or in a bag if you’re taking them out in the field. This little tool is fantastic! There is a small light in the scope that illuminates the object for better viewing, and the scope even allows you to fine tune the focus. If your science budget is tight, and you’d like a microscope, but can’t choose, and can’t really afford one….spend $10 on this little item! You’ll be able to magnify between 20x-40x, which is really quite amazing and perfect for young naturalists! The pocket microscope comes with a handy little stand {which also doubles as a foundation for viewing a slide} so that they can sit on your nature study shelf to be at the ready when an object is in need of closer inspection.

Taking a Nature Walk:

Really, my friends….you do not have to be a botanist or a trained naturalist to enjoy a nature walk. {But you will become a naturalist if you walk in the out-of-doors enough!} Don’t overthink this! Just let yourself be a child again, look at nature as a child – with wonder! Walk outside….in your own yard, around your own gardens. Enjoy the delights of God’s awesome creation. Ask questions and let them linger without answers if necessary (this really is ok!). Observe…really look at that little creature, or the way that plant twists up from the ground. Learn to look for answers in a few good resources on your shelves. Here are a few simple ideas to get started:{and just to show you that you don’t need a professional camera….I give you the ever-portable option….the phone. All of the following pictures were taken with my iphone4!}

Try to walk once a week

Walk primarily in your yard, neighborhood, gardens, or woods. Many people think they need to go on a full fledged hike to call it a “nature walk”. Not so! Your humble flower beds will provide an abundance for you to study! Take occasional hikes to special places, but enjoy the ordinary spaces around your home!
Get to know the seasons! Adopt a tree or even a bush, and make seasonal visits to it. Sketch it. Observe the seasonal changes.

Create an inviting yard and garden that wildlife will want to visit. A wonderful book for learning more about this is Bill Merilees’ Attracting Backyard Wildlife: A Guide For Nature Lovers.
Don’t become encumbered in deciding what to bring, or how to carry it all….just bring water, and your camera, and enjoy.

Give yourself permission to walk without an agenda! You don’t need a lesson plan or outline for this. Just go outside! Challenge yourself to see something unusual, something new. A treasure!
Get to know your birds!

In considering the lilies, we model the skills needed to observe, ask questions, experiment, understand, and explore in more formal ways in the sciences. We set their feet in a very large room….

“We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. ‘Thou has set my feet in a large room,’(Psalm 31:8) should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul.” (Charlotte Mason, Volume 3, p. 170)

A Little February Check-up and Freshening in the Learning Spaces

February 16, 2011

Well, it’s February! You all know what that means, don’t you? Time to review the year thus far, do some brainstorming, reflect on current challenges and needs, and make a few changes to let in a little more light. Time to focus and rejuvenate! Rather than turning your thoughts to what hasn’t been done, what is left unfinished, areas of home education that you find yourself or your children lacking — why not instead focus on the positive: what you can do, areas you can change, brainstorm, rearrange, and accommodate to fit your family better.I assess our progress periodically because children and home education are never static – children are growing, maturing and changing. Family sizes expand and family needs fluctuate. This doesn’t happen once every 2 or 3 years – this process, these changes happen in the every-day.

While I am open to freshening, brainstorming, flexibility and changing in some areas, there are a few areas that are fixed, like points on a compass. These fixed points keep us moving in the right direction! They remain consistent in our home education and provide security and a strong and steady rudder.

The points of our home education compass:

Living books – Again and again we return to living books as the vehicle to communicate a generous education. The author of the living book communicates ideas and thoughts in a compelling and literary way. What a load off my shoulders this is! This removes burdens from me and lightens my load! Handing my children a feast of living books over the years means they have been exposed to many different thoughts and different manners of expression. Their own ability to communicate is increased and broadened because of this growing exposure to noble thoughts.
An atmosphere that is orderly, inviting and welcoming – sunshine is a must! I like our spaces to work for us, rather than the other way around. In fact, I’d say it is imperative! Therefore, the pictures you will see below reflect how our family works at this time. Spaces change and are re-ordered when needed in order to meet our changing needs. We’re blessed to have a room to use as a central hub in our learning spaces – this isn’t necessary, but it sure is nice!
The discipline of good habits! My wise pediatrician (a homeschooling dad of 6) once told me, “you can’t teach if they aren’t teachable.” It’s a very simple statement, but there is a great deal of truth there and I was grateful for the wisdom. Good habits – offering attention, being honest, obedient, tidy, exercising basic manners – assist the day in a way that is indescribable. No matter the curriculum, book, approach, space, or tools brought to the table, if a child is not in possession of some basic habits your days will be unproductive and unhappy. It’s just the truth of the matter.
Eyes always open to wonder. Mine and theirs! Education may take place here in our learning room, or in the out-of-doors, or at the farm, or the supermarket, or, or…. I don’t need a syllabus or a teaching outline to appreciate and foster learning in the simple everyday moments that line the days. What I do need are the eyes to see these moments, the discipline to engage and be in that moment, and the ability to be as a child and wonder aloud. Eyes open to wonder.

Those are my fixed points. Notice that there is not a curriculum listed. You do not have to spend a dime on anything I listed if you want to try to incorporate an idea here into your homeschool – living books can be obtained from the library (Penny Gardner offers some wonderful book lists if you need a starting point). You can work with what you have in making your learning spaces as welcoming and orderly as possible, and time and consistency yield dividends in forming habits. You can open your eyes to wonder right now, right at this moment! Go wonder aloud at something beautiful. Do this right now if you are experiencing homeschool burnout.

Keeping the points on our home education compass in sight, and entrusting each day to God asking His guidance, wisdom and mercy in all, I can enjoy this journey all the more! I know there will be joys and rewarding moments as well as challenges and trials, and there are. Without fail. I trust that I can do all things through Christ. And I can make use of the tools God provides and brainstorm challenges!

Brainstorm WITHIN…

within your resources…
within your budget…
within the books on your shelves…
within your spaces…
within the tools you have right this moment…
within the Sacrament of Matrimony – your husband is your best ally and your most valuable resource for brainstorming!
within the gifts God gave you…
within your limitations…

….and challenge yourself to find solutions that are INTUITIVE and make sense to you, in your family, and meet your needs. Gather ideas like a bouquet of flowers and have hope!

The past few weeks we’ve been closing out our 3rd term of work and preparing for our 4th and final term for the year. Unbelievable! Wasn’t I just planning and preparing for this year? It seems like that was just a couple of weeks ago?

Some things have worked out so well this year, and others we’ve learned from and made some adjustments along the way. I’d like to do a few future posts reviewing some of the ideas and books that have worked well for us as well as those that haven’t. (Check back for them!) After making a few changes on paper it was time to address the spaces here; our family is growing and maturing and our spaces need to reflect those needs.

My 9th grader needed space of her own…

…my 5th grader and 1st grader enjoy being together and working together on some subjects…

…and my 3 year old is enjoying some work of her own.

It was time to make adjustments so that our spaces were again working for us, assisting the days.

I am constantly amazed that the most popular post on this blog, the one you look at most frequently and comment on the most (both on the blog and through email), is A Detailed Look Through the Learning Spaces. LOL!! Really? Our learning room post? I remember writing that….and I almost didn’t post that monster!! But, it seems clear that you continue to enjoy that post and enjoy looking there for ideas you might use in your own home, so I’ll share again with a few new ideas for you!

We began our year with my 9th grader and 5th grader sitting at one common table, but about 12 weeks into the year that no longer seemed to be a situation that would foster harmony and productiveness. You know what I’m sayin’ don’t you? So, the 9th grader now has her own workspace.

She enjoys the space here though she has other work areas in different rooms of the house…some of which allow for more quiet than others. On the shelves above her table are the liturgical book collection. The very top shelf holds catechisms, some religion and apologetics books and other Catholic resources. The middle two shelves contain the liturgical year reading collection. You can see the clip-on book supports used to divide up the books.

The bottom shelf is a shared space – on the right are our most frequently used liturgical year resources and on the left are my 9th grader’s books. She also keeps some books in the basket on her desk. Because she needed a small shelf space to hold calculators, clipboards, pencil sharpener, etc, I *liberated* an 8 inch deep shelf from another room of the house and used it as the lowest shelf. You’ll see that I’ve done this under one other set of shelves in the room, providing a shallow storage space under the larger wall shelves. It’s handy and useful.

So….let’s re-center. Walk with me to the other opening just across the room and you can get another sense of the overall room (which, if you remember, is actually supposed to be a dining room which we have given a new purpose)…

That’s my desk there in the center of the room. There on the far right is our science and nature study area. Our supply cabinet is directly behind my desk.

I held my breath, closed my eyes and opened the doors to take another picture for you of the interior of this cabinet. Sigh. So much lives in here! It’s clear I need to turn my attention to my cabinet and do a little purging and re-organizing now that the room is tidy and fresh!

Above the cabinet is our collection center, mostly science and nature study materials and treasures we’ve collected. High spaces are great for collections that are enjoyable, sometimes visited, but don’t see everyday use.

The laptop work area is behind my desk to the right of the supply cabinet.

These pictures were taken on different days, so you may notice some differences (look above…the big basket on the floor containing the books that have been completed during the 3rd term is missing.)

A word about computers as a tool — they are just that — tools. They are not evil in themselves, though they can be abused and over-used just like any good tool. They can also be applied and used judiciously and wisely, aiding the process of home education greatly. I keep them near me to ensure that they perform as the latter, as tools in use for the good. One laptop was purchased used (but with warranty) at a local computer store so be sure to check used options if you are in the market (the other laptop was gifted to us). In our home laptops fit our needs best because they are 1) portable 2) lightweight 3) fit on my desk, a child’s desk, a lap, on the kitchen table…with ease 4) have a lid that conveniently flips down when they are UN-available or not in use 5) take up very little overall footprint. Things our laptops do not do: 1) travel to bedrooms…or anywhere without permission 2) live permanently on children’s desks 3) surf the web without restraint (we have parental settings on the highest restriction on one of the laptops) 4) substitute for books. There. Stepping off my soapbox. 🙂

Above the laptops, on the shelves you’ll find our collection of nature study and science books. The basket on the lower shelf there contains our Morning Basket of work as well as some of our most frequently used resource books:

The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun (revised and updated edition here)
Victorian Family Celebrations by Sarah Ban Breathnach (now published under the title, Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions)
Famous Paintings, reviewed by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (These treasures are being used for picture study this year!!! There are 2 volumes in the set)

To the right of our Morning Basket are our favorite field guides of which we have some absolute favorites that we return to again and again and again:

Reader’s Digest North American Wildlife
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (make sure you get the book with the black cover – the new version with the much prettier cover is abridged.)
Attracting Backyard Wildlife by Bill Merilees (out of print, but wonderful if you come across a copy)

To the right of the laptop area and science/nature study books is our science and nature study resource area. We keep engineering projects on shelves here (like a new-to-us set of Capsela motorized construction toys which used to be my brother’s and is now enjoying renewed play…by the way, you can still find these sets on ebay) , a few nature treasures, experiment kits (from homeschool science), and a variety of other resources and tools for further studying and understanding science and the natural world. Organizers like the blue cardboard mini-shelf are great for organizing small collections like microscope slides that need only a shallow amount of space. They’re not very heavy either which makes them ideal to sit on an existing shelf. These could organize a number of collcections very well!

Back to my desk….

This is the top of my desk. I’m pleased with a few small changes I made to it. I sorted and resituated some of the files in my file basket that weren’t being used too often and made enough room for my dictation books (Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason), math answer keys, logic books, and other useful, small books. Very handy! That’s my favorite Catholic daily planner just below my file basket. I use this planner every.single.day! There is a stack of reading books on the other corner of my desk. To increase our daily exposure to great art, I ordered the 2011 Art-Page-A-Day calendar and we really enjoy it. (HT: Satori Smiles) I should mention that not every piece of art is for innocent eyes, but I’ve only found a couple of concern. These images will make fantastic art project work after the year is complete!

Turning to the other side of the room you can see our hanging maps – you remember those, don’t you? We’re moving into the area I set up for my younger learners.

Isn’t it amazing the difference between the morning light (picture below) and afternoon light (picture above)?

This is a little area set up for Doodlebug with favorite puzzles, magnetic letters, games, and paper. Something I found recently that both my little people love are Alpha Magnets – there are upper and lower case. What I enjoy is that the vowels are red and the consonants are blue just like our Montessori moveable alphabet. (NOTE ** I can’t find the same sets to link for you. The lower case set of red vowels/blue consonants is the correct link, but our upper case also has the red vowels/blue consonants – only in capital letters. Not sure why I can’t find them to link them. We found ours at a local school supply store.) Here are some new games that my littlest learners enjoy:

To the right, in that small bookcase, is our collection of geography books. I’m thinking of relocating them nearer our map cabinet…but for now…here they are.

Above the small floor shelf is our rainy-day shelf of Dover coloring books, Folkmanis finger puppets, and back issues of our favorite magazine, Nature Friend (which all the children enjoy re-visiting). Our logic games and Zome building tools are here as well. Here are a few other *new* favorites (that weren’t in the last post):

An old stamp and coin collection – these are really enjoyable, and a wonderful way to learn about history! Ask grandparents about these – they may have a collection they don’t mind loaning out! Our coin collection is one that was collected by 2 generations of paternal grandfathers and loaned to us. The stamp collection belonged to me and has been merged with one that my husband started when he was a boy. Our kids are enjoying adding to it!
All the Knots You Need: An Illustrated Guide by R. S. Lee with accompanying ropes for practice
The Spiral Draw Book

This is the little work area set up for my 3 year old. The small table tucks in nicely here and her favorite Babybug and Ladybug magazine collections (both found as a used set of back issues) can be kept on her table. This is a cheery little spot for her to work….with friends. 🙂

Next to the little work table is our map cabinet and I’m excited to share two more games we’ve really been enjoying!! We enjoy these so much that they live on top of our map cabinet so we can play them when we have time.

Bananagrams – which I think everyone in the world except me already knows about and uses! LOL!
Sumoku – a fantastic math game! Your student needs to have a good understanding and knowledge of multiplication tables to play this game, but the game will stretch their knowledge and build their speed and ability to think of multiples of a certain number. Highly recommended!

Above the work table and map cabinet I’ve relocated most of our art supplies.

You can check out the links for almost everything on our art shelf from the detailed learning room post. I did add a set of Prang metallic markers that the kids really enjoy – especially the boys that are enjoying illustrating medieval armor! The metallic markers are in the glass jar second from the right.

Just below the art shelf you can see another of those shallow shelves which contain activities for my younger students.

Swinging around a little more is the boys’ work table. It has been a good thing to pair them at the same table and allow them to work together on projects. This year has been a little bittersweet in that respect. My 14 year old is now working independently, on her own projects, schoolwork, and passions. In days past, she and my 10 year old would happily work together, but it’s time for her to stretch out further on her own and for the 10 year old to work with his younger brother just as his older sister worked with him. It’s been a time of change in that respect, so the tables moving around and seating arrangements changing is reflective of that new season in our learning spaces.

And finally, I have a solution I’m thrilled to share with you! We hung our folding table-top art easel and now it is so accessible while still being off the floor! I’m thrilled!

We had been watching for this particular table top art easel for some time because it is compact and doesn’t take up a lot of space. Once a year, Michael’s craft store offers all of their art easels for 50% off and when they did, we jumped! If you’re in the market for an art easel, ask around to see if there is a time when local craft stores offer them for sale!

I felt our art easel didn’t really have a home. Even though it is relatively small, it’s still awkward to store. Once it is stored it is out of sight and rarely used. I asked my husband to help me come up with a way to hang it on the wall. My requirements – spend nothing and have it look nice, be functional, and sturdy. Rob went into the garage and came in with a simple leftover L bracket from another project. He mounted it using wall anchors because there wasn’t a stud in the center of the wall…and you must know how I feel about symmetry, right?

Perfect! The handle easily slips over the bracket and the horizontal length of the bracket means it won’t easily slide off. The weight is supported by the vertical length of the bracket mounted to the wall so it’s nice and sturdy.

And that is it!!! I CANNOT believe I just put together another ridiculously long learning room post! LOL! Hope you all enjoyed!

Learning about Ducks…and Discovering Smithsonian’s Backyard

December 3, 2010

We’ve really been enjoying some wonderful non-fiction science picture books and I thought I’d share them with you! I have long been a big fan of the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series of books. They’re engaging and a wonderful way to introduce elementary science concepts. I have collected several of them over the years; I began to wonder if there were any other non-fiction picture books that could match the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series for content and engaging quality of writing…and I found one!

As I was searching for some picture books to help us learn more about our family friends, the duck family (which we believe could be a cross between a Mallard and ?? some other duck)…

I came across a Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out Science book that I knew would be wonderful – Ducks Don’t Get Wet. It was not a disappointment!! I also took a chance on a new book I found – Mallard Duck at Meadow View Pond. I was thrilled with the content…and the illustrations! Oh my! If you love engaging, bright, beautiful illustrations as much as I do, you will really enjoy this series of books! I was so thrilled, I found several more books in this series at very inexpensive used prices! The entire series is wonderful!

All of the Smithsonian’s Backyard books are written in the same manner – through a story, a particular animal, insect, or bird’s life is shown – his home, eating habits, how he behaves, etc. There are no fictional names or characteristics attributed to the animals, insects or birds in this series, they are portrayed just as they might be found in a child’s own backyard. This series very simply invites wonder in the excitement that one might spot a chipmunk or a ladybug or even…a skunk!

The Smithsonian Backyard series is written and developed under the direction of curators for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Each book is authored and then submitted to a Smithsonian curator for review. As I mentioned, the illustrations are lovely – full page spreads, all color, highly detailed and lifelike! On the last page of each of these books is an additional little paragraph about the particular animal, bird or insect discussed in the book, followed by a simple glossary of terms that were used in the book, and something else I have found very interesting – “Points of Interest in this book”. In “Points of Interest…”, you’ll find page numbers next to interesting objects that are illustrated within the story. You might find a list including wild mint, jack-o-lantern mushrooms, a great horned owl…but you can be sure you’ll find some surprising and interesting things you’ll want to revisit just a little more closely.

I’m certain these can be found at the library, but if you’re looking toward purchasing the books, you might check to see if you’re getting the smaller size version of the book or the larger size. (Please note my mistake in the diminutive little version of Mallard Duck at Meadow View Pond – pictured above…all the rest of the books are larger and I much prefer the large versions.)

Many of these books originally came with a small plush toy of the animal discussed in the book, and if you purchase a new book you might still be able to take advantage of that. I, however, did not want any more small plush creatures coming to live in my home…so I was happy to search for just the used books sans plush fluff! LOL!! Actually, we have a large set of folkmanis finger puppets that we just adore, and several of them work wonderfully with the stories if the children want to narrate through a puppet show!

We have really enjoyed these books! My almost 3 year old asks for them over and over again, but I’d say that they are probably best suited for ages 4 – 10. If you haven’t discovered these yet, I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Refreshing the Learning Spaces

June 15, 2010

As promised, I’m here to give you a glimpse into our year-considered. There is nothing that gives me more delight than this time of year! The plans are carefully considered, and books are delightfully arranged in baskets, on shelves, and in stacks, inviting all to look closer…to step inside. The learning spaces are freshened and updated, and children are eager once again to embark on new adventures. Does it sound overly romanticized? I don’t mean for it to sound that way, but I am unapologetic about my love of learning anew through my children’s eyes. It is a joy! So this isn’t an inaccurate impression of the atmosphere in our home right now! We are eager, the children and I! It is a time full of potential treasures to be uncovered within the covers of those books!I thought today I could give you a peek into the learning spaces for this year. I offered a ridiculously detailed look last year (LOL!), and your response was amazing – so I know you enjoy peeking in! Though our room is the same, and the sunshine is always streaming in, the children and I enjoy a bit of re-arranging and freshening so the room appears a little different. It helps with the transition, and making a clear impression that we have moved on from one year to the next.

Looking in and around the space…

You recognize it, right? We just moved a few tables around. See how something small makes such a big difference? And the kids get so excited with a little freshness like this – a small thing like putting a table in a new position or area translates into some excitement!

Above is the view looking in from our long bowling-alley hallway. See that big open entry space over there on the left? The one in which my map is hanging…get ready…we’re walking over there next and looking in from that opening standing next to the picture book cart…

Bright today, isn’t it? Very nice! You can get a good idea of the overall room from here! If you’re new, I should let you know up front that this room is a reclaimed dining room. We did the best we could with it. Drawback: I have no formal dining room which I sometimes miss! Benefit: It’s one of the sunniest spaces in our home, central to everything…kitchen, laundry, play areas. It makes living the day much smoother being here in a central part of our home.

Books are arranged in ways that help our family make use of them. I group by subject matter, and then further sub-divide from there. We’re blessed with a number of wonderful books, many of which I inherited from my mom’s homeschool library! In order to be a good steward of these resources, I think it’s important to keep them organized so I can put my hands on a resource immediately!

You’ve seen my storage cabinet if you’ve looked through last year’s Learning Spaces post. Being in a dining room, I have no closets for storage and there are just some things you don’t want everyone to see! How I love my storage cabinet!!

Now, for the next picture I’m going to move to my left again…look above….see that area just to the left, where the little blue table and my desk meet? That’s where I’ll be taking the next picture from.

This looks out through our room, through the hall, and into our living room. See those book cases there on the back wall of the living room? Those contain my treasured living history library, grouped by century, and sorted within that. My shelves are too small, but I’ve decided that I shall have to be content this year…so I had to group and arrange creatively! It worked! I made more space!

Let’s look at the spaces for the little people!

This year, I put the little table right next to my desk. I like being very close to the littlest people! They have a small basket of favorite poetry books on their table right now. You can see their picture book cart is near them as well!

The large blue chair you see parked under the side of my desk is our *meeting* chair. The big kids meet with me once a week and review our plans completed, the plans upcoming, and discuss ideas for improvements, projects, and needs. It’s a great way for me to offer and receive feedback from my older students. With 4 in the learning spaces, it’s all about managing time wisely!

The Doodlebug, who is 2 1/2, LOVES to be read to!! And, she of course loves to draw! Peanut, my 5 1/2 year old is just beginning to read. Many of the things they use during their day are contained on the shelf pictured below…

Doodlebug’s day consists of lots of time for play and she is read to…a lot! Peanut enjoys some Montessori work, lots of books, and art and music time! It’s gentle and generous! A perfect combination! I know you’re wondering what I’m using…I’ll talk more details about the specifics in a future post. 🙂

If you are sitting at the little blue table and look to your left, this is what you see. This is our smallish geography center with our map cabinet and our puzzle maps of the seven continents.

To the right of the map cabinet is our humble collection of favorite geography resources. There are several living geography books here, as well as our favorite National Geographic Collegiate Atlas of the World. I get so irritated with inadequate atlas’!! For example, some student atlas’ have just a couple of detailed maps of a region. This is so irritating if you’re reading about an area and can’t find it in an atlas! And, I intensely dislike twaddly atlas details – like silly little graphs of useless information. It’s a small pet-peeve (which, upon re-reading what I just wrote…seems not-so-small. LOL!!!) I hunted and hunted for an affordable, accurate, detailed, and lovely atlas. I’m very pleased with the National Geographic Collegiate Atlas. It fits on the shelf nicely, and contains a great number of details within! If you’re looking for the creme-de-la-creme atlas and you’ve got lots of space – look no further than the National Geographic Atlas of the World 8th edition, complete with “Ehlermann binding, which enables the atlas to open completely flat so that no information is lost in the center”. For the rest of us, the Collegiate works great, thank you very much!

Onward…

A friend shared these alphabet rummy playing cards with me, and I fell in love with them! So, I used double sided sticky tape and split up the cards, hanging the 26 letters for Peanut to see. They’re pretty. 🙂 If I hadn’t been so blessed as to be gifted these pretty botanical alphabet cards, I was considering these lovely Letters Flash Cards done in a traditional/vintage style for hanging and displaying. Wouldn’t they be great?

Here’s the art center! Still so fabulous for us! Not sure if the little basket of finger puppets was there last year, but the kids do enjoy those!

Thought you’d enjoy taking a quick look at my desk before we head over to the big kids’ work area and the science and nature spaces!

I am always inspired by Edith Holden, so I keep a copy of the Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady out and open to the right month. A friend recently shared that there are a number of other books inspired by the style of the Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady and I was astonished…and drooling – had to share!

Here’s my diminutive, but helpful little file basket. I keep important papers here – notebooking pages, lesson plan outlines, home learning notes masters from Small Meadow Press, ideas and inspiration, weather study worksheets, etc. It’s a place for those things commonly used to land and be at my fingertips.

My new notebook for the year…decorated and assembled! I love blue! (If you’re interested in more about making pretty notebooks, check out my other notebook post and planning in pretty notebooks.) My inspirational quotes this year are again from Charlotte Mason:

The Life of the Mind Grows Upon Ideas
~
Be inspired by an Idea.

…and I had leftover paper to cover my little steno note book! Perfect…and charming!

Now…don’t you want to go refresh your notebook planner? Pretty scrapbook paper and a 3 ring binder is all you need to get started! You can print inspirational quotes and verses on your home printer!

Alright…here we are in the big kids area. We sort of alternate each year between having tables floating in the room…and having them up against a wall. The nice thing about mounting brackets with adjustable shelves (above the chair rail and wainscoting in our room) in a space is that it leaves the lower half of the wall free to accommodate small shelves or…a table underneath. What makes it even more convenient is that located on the shelf above the table…are all the books and supplies the older two children need on a daily basis.

Before you ask…let me explain the difference between the books on the shelf and the books in the baskets.

Shelf books: These books are used throughout the year. Each child’s Book of Centuries is here, as well as their copywork notebooks, nature journals, and other notebooks. My 9th grader has some books that look an awful lot like textbooks on that shelf. Please don’t tell anyone! LOL!!!

I also found room for an electric pencil sharpener, and the favorite markers and color pencils used for daily nature observations/journaling.

Basket books: These are living books used during the current quarter of work (except for that one 5th grade math book that I see I forgot to move up to the shelf…hmmm…mental note!) Many times, we read only a portion of a book for a quarter. Details on what’s in each of these baskets soon!

Now turning to science…which received a total overhaul!!

I had to rearrange the offerings in my science area in order to make room on some higher shelves for chemistry and biology equipment and supplies for my older students…that my younger students could.not.get.to. Rearranging meant taking over the top of my supply cabinet for experiment kits & storage.

I thought it looked nice to display a few of our collections in these clear jars…and they camouflage the stacks of kits behind them…well, ok..they camouflage them somewhat. The inexpensive plastic containers were just sitting in my pantry unused – so I drafted them into service!

This is the new science area. It’s really very similar to the set up we had before. Another broader view of the entire area…

…with all of my living science books, field guides, reference books, etc.

Here are the Doodlebug’s little shelves. We finished up our little butterfly theme and this area needs to be freshened with something new!

So that’s it! Our happy little learning spaces freshened for the year. If we’re not in here…you’ll probably find us out here…

…visiting with this little fella!

We’re ready to roll here – we start our lessons again next week! I know many of you are just starting your summer break though! I hope your summer is refreshing, joyful, and leaves you invigorated as you anticipate the year ahead and the gift of learning through your children’s eyes!

A Detailed Look Through the Learning Spaces

June 17, 2009

*NOTE* This post reflects our learning spaces in 2009. Since then we have remodeled. You may be interested to check out the new learning room here.

I’m offering you the VIP tour today. I took lots of pictures ’cause you all asked…and I do so love getting ideas from each of you as we peek through these digital windows into each others spaces for ideas and inspiration. If there is something unique or helpful here, take it. I took lots and lots of pictures. I tried to imagine what might be unique in my spaces…a small area or vignette set aside on a shelf, or a simple but creative solution I finally figured out. I tried to show you those. My goal was to look on my spaces with fresh eyes and really see those things that I am accustomed to looking past because of familiarity. Hope you enjoy the tour!

The first pictures are just some whole-room pictures…stepping waaaay back and looking in so you can get an idea of the overall. I think I’ve said this before, but this is our dining room…re-purposed for our learning spaces.

You can get an idea of how deliciously sunny our space is in here. It is quite warm and inviting which I love. I moved my desk back to the sunny side of the room. I moved to the other side of the room for a few months, but decided that I really, really missed the way the sun danced across my desk in the afternoons…I’m much happier on the sunny side of the room!

Tucked in the corner next to the window is a small workstation for me. It is nestled between the art center and window. I keep my laptop on top of my file center. In the top drawer I have things like CDs with my favorite Notebooking Pages, Blackline Maps, and some of my other educational CD collections I’ve collected over the years. I keep a medium sized journal with a pink quilted cover and a collection of favorite stationery in there as well. Lastly, a small collection of post card sized art prints for seasonal displays round out my top drawer.

In the bottom drawer is my collection of files for the year. I keep them organized by month. Each month gets two folders – one for seasonal plans and one for liturgical year plans. I keep themed material in my files – artwork for the month, craft ideas, prayers, field trip ideas, picture book themes that coordinate with a season, holy cards for saints feast days, etc. in the appropriate files. Then, when that month arrives, I pull out my files and I have plans in hand for the upcoming season as well as art for the Feast Table display. I do have extra individual files for each of the liturgical seasons of the year because some things just make better sense to organize and keep that way. In the back of the drawer there are some files containing masters of various materials I want to keep. I keep my favorite Peterboro file basket (side note I bought my basket on sale and don’t see it on their site anymore, but if you’re interested it measures approx 14″ L x 8″ W x 7″ D) on my desk to hold the monthly or weekly files, record keeping files, ideas and brainstorming files…delicious files. It works well to have a file system for organization as well as a more immediate and at-hand place for living out the ideas contained there – the basket on my desk is my solution.

Now, on to the…

Art Center:

I did a lot to overhaul these spaces. They were working for us to a degree I suppose, but when I asked the children about the art spaces, their one comment was that it was hard for them to find what they needed, and if they didn’t see it, they tended not to use it. I’ve seen several of you use glass jars for storage, so I got out my collection of Mason jars. The children and I are so thrilled with the result. It is a visual feast, and everything is right there to see and choose from.

I made use of another lovely glass storage item found very inexpensively…the desert glass. They are perfect for holding smallish art supplies like oil pastels and tiny markers…

The bottom of these small desert glasses allow for easy grabbing, lifting, and transporting to the table. Perfect!

I’ll start describing some of the items I have on my art shelves:

**Beeswax for sculpting projects (edited to note how much the children are enjoying Prang non-drying modeling clay)
**Lyra Aquarelle Gel Crayons
**Oil pastels
**Fibracolor fine tip markers with stand
**Rexel Derwent Watercolor pencils
**Prang color pencils (in fact Prang’s entire selection is inexpensive and good quality – I much prefer them to Crayola for my littles)
**Lyra color pencils
**Prismacolor watercolor pencils
**Prismacolor sketch pencils
**Prismacolor dual tip markers
**Set of clay shaping and working tools
**Collection of paints – Lyra watercolor set, acrylic paints and Grumbacher watercolors (which we love!!!)
**Paintbrush collection
**Basket of glue (Modge Podge is our favorite!)

My set of inspirational crafting and activity books:

**Papier Mache for kids by Sheila McGraw
**Pioneer Crafts by Barbara Greenwood and Heather Collins
**Mothers and Daughters at Home by Charlotte Lyons
**Traditional Country Needlecrafts by Sue Millard (out of print, but available used)
**Victorian Family Celebrations by Sarah Ban Breathnach (which is now sold under the title of Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions – our copy is a FAVORITE BOOK!!)
**Tea and Luncheon Manual by Amy Hansen (Little Flowers Girls’ Club)
**Tea and Cake with the Saints by Alice Cantrell
**Child’s Play by Leslie Hamilton
**In His Image by Mary Gildersleeve
**Mondays With Mary by Meredith Henning (another FAVORITE BOOK!!)
**Little Flowers Girls’ Club – Ecce Homo Press (not specifically a craft book, but has many craft ideas so I keep it here)
**Little Flowers Girls’ Craft Club Companion by Karina Fabian
**Pilgrims of the Holy Family by Kerry and Nancy MacArthur
**Fun Physical Fitness for the Home by Sono Sato Harris
Not pictured:
**Learn Lacecraft by Audrey Vincent Dean
**See and Sew by Tina Davis
**Sewing With St. Anne by Anne Cantrell
**The Anne of Green Gables Christmas Treasury by Carolyn Strom Collins, Christina Wyss Erikkson
**Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts by Tovah Martin

Next to my craft books I keep a collection of some of our more frequently used craft supplies in clear plastic bins. These are by no means the entirety of my craft supply collection. I have here:
**yarn and string
**felted wool
**sculpey clay
**holy cards and religious image cards collected and used for liturgical year projects
**ink stamp pads…of which I have an embarrassing amount…but little hands love stamping! 🙂
**paper punches
**a toolbox full of different wooden backed stamps for ink stamping (this is just out of picture) – I have learned that children love stamping images and coloring them as part of decorating a card or an art project…so pull out all those nice stamps that you never have time to use anymore and set them on your kid’s art shelf. They enjoy them so much!

Now on to the shelf below with more art supplies…

I’ll describe what I have set out moving from top to bottom, left to right:
**small basket containing inset paper and our favorite “how-to” book of drawing and sketching (more on that below!)
**3 boxes – one for each of the drawing age children. They are labeled with their names and contain the square inset paper sketches very nicely.
**carousel of fun scissors
**basket containing erasers and sharpeners
**beeswax crayons
**our favorite electric pencil sharpener (a Panasonic Auto-Stop, Model #KP-310…I can’t find them anymore
**a HUGE stack of scratch paper from Grandma’s volunteering at the pharmacy. This paper is slightly larger than the inset paper though still square. It’s a good size for little hands.
**blue bin containing a few favorite coloring books and sketch books
**watercolor papers of different sizes
**transparent papers for paper folding projects and a tray of origami papers with instructions
**bin of wool felt sheets
**cutting board for projects
**bin of stickers

I’m certain I’ve mentioned these favorite papers before, but just in case…the Metal Inset Paper from Montessori Services is one of the best all-round GREAT supplies for us. We make mini books out of them, use them for our sketch lessons with Bruce McIntyre’s Drawing Textbook (which I cannot recommend highly enough!!! Looking for something simple to teach your children to draw? Something that would work for any age from around 3rd grade on up? Something that doesn’t break the budget? THIS IS IT!!!) Those little square papers are great for so many things!!! Including their original purpose. 🙂

So, that’s the art center! It’s quite cheery to look at, and the children have already involved themselves in many art projects since it has been rearranged. That tells me I must have done something right!

On to the…

Nature Center

This area has been so usefully set up this year, that I left it pretty much alone. We love using a shelf as a seasonal display. I set up a small seasonal vignette on one shelf – a few beautiful autumn leaves, a collection of painted wooden eggs with our bird collection, anything seasonal. I always keep The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady open to an appropriate page for the month. The children don’t always check it, but I do and it makes me happy to see it. Her lovely sketches of nature and animals are simply refreshing. If you don’t have this on your nature shelf, consider it! I receive about as much pleasure setting up the seasonal display as my children have in rearranging it! lol! 🙂 The display invites investigation!

All of our nature journals and science and nature books are above the seasonal display. I keep them organized by topic so they are easier to set out in display by theme as we study.

Below the seasonal shelf is the shelf I set up to coordinate a science theme or topic of study. We’re jumping around a little this summer. The main theme is COLOR – we’re talking about the breakdown of colors – primary, secondary, and tertiary. Along with COLOR, we’re discussing prisms, and everything rainbow.

Below our primary study of COLOR, I’ve left out some books on Astronomy as we’re still finishing up that study…or at least I’d like to think we might finish it up. Or, maybe I’ll just set it aside until next year. 🙂

And, for the Peanut, it seemed the appropriate time of year to set out seeds and plant picture books.

Of course, Doodlebug’s puzzles, block baskets, and basket of silks are down lowest.

New this year is this display shelf that you see above. This is…ahem…a shoe organizer unit. I removed one of the dividers so I could stand up taller books. There were some science and nature study resources we were accustomed to using regularly, like our field guides, the Bird Identiflyer, and binoculars. Those tiny little niche’s below seemed custom made for some of our favorite Folkmanis puppets, so I’ve added them so they can peek out. They are a favorite of the Doodlebugs! And, who could resist yet another display surface???? 🙂 Can you tell we love our birds?!

Geography Center and Doodlebug’s Spaces:

This area is still under construction somewhat. Those are Doodlebug’s shelves and activities there on the left down low. My geography center with our continent boxes, maps, and globe is here. The baskets on the shelf above contain the older two children’s reading and work for the summer. I’ve started setting some of Sparkly’s work for next year here so I can do some planning in the next couple of weeks.

Math manipulatives are on the shelf above their books and my idea was to put some more shelves in that big empty space you see there (3rd shelf up that has only the one wicker basket on it…horizontal surfaces don’t remain free very long!!!) to create some storage for our golden bead Montessori material that the Doodlebug definitely doesn’t need access to.

I’m sorry this picture isn’t so great, but these are Doodle’s shelves. She has a few Montessori activities set out that she loves – some pegs and Lauri pieces, a basket of wooden HABA toys, a wooden box with different closures on it (she loves this!), magna tiles, and soft, squishy blocks in the bins down low. I’ve been changing the things out on her shelf in here regularly. It makes a big difference in how “investigative” she is in the other parts of the room! 😉

Peanut’s Space:

Isn’t it lovely? I love creating little spaces for my little fella! And, he loves to investigate them!

I’ll start with the shelf on the wall and then move to his little table.

The big basket there on the left contains a myriad of picture books. This basket is just a collection of books that I’ve pulled together to do a little planning – I don’t **plan much for Peanut at all – we’d rather just read what strikes our fancy most of the time, but he’s starting to ask for a little more, so I’m just considering gently all these fancies…

**He loves his collection of little wooden animals – and I keep them set out for his use. We love to set out the little squirrel from this set when we read Sara Squirrel and the Lost Acorns. This is one of our favorite picture books, “…a tasty mushroom, a crunchy leaf, a juicy berry, and acorns for me.” And the collection of wooden animals we enjoy adding to from time to time.

**I keep a small stack of the colorful inset paper on his shelf for him.

**I keep his devotional/read-aloud books there in the corner on the right. These are a part of our morning inspiration basket time. I’ve just been gathering the morning reading books for next year here for now as I consider my planning. Always featured are the Angel Food for Boys and Girls series by Father Brennan.

**On his table for the summer we’re focusing on counting and numbers so I have set out 1 is One by Tasha Tudor, a set of dominoes for counting as well as some wooden tiles with numbers written on them. In his basket of books I have set out our favorite summer reading –
::Summertime in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
::Summer Story by Jill Barklem
::Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the New Dotted Dresses by Maj Lineman
::Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the Strawberries by Maj Lindman
::Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the Big Red Hen by Maj Lindman
::Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the Three Kittens by Maj Lindman
::Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
::Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
::Small Acts of Kindness by James Vollbracht
::Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin
::Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin

So that’s it for my little guy. Doodlebug is joining him more and more in the little chairs there…so it will soon be time to consider her as I place things about on the little table.

Storage for the Learning Spaces:

I really wanted to show you my storage cabinet. It is a very valuable item in here. Because I’m in a dining room, there is no closet for storage and there are some things you just don’t want taking up space on your shelves! For all those items, I’ve found a home in here:

We bought the cabinet at Lowe’s a few years ago. Rob built it and though it is quite sturdy, he anchored it to the wall with L brackets – it’s goin’ nowhere! I’m opening the doors for you for the first time….

Sheesh…what’s NOT in here??? 🙂 I like keeping my copier in here, as well as the CD player. There are lots of school supplies in here – pens, pencils, paper, folders, more paper. The bottom left contains all my other crafting supplies. There are often tiny collections of this and that. I purchase very inexpensively small brown paper bags – like you’d pack a lunch in – and put the little groups together in the brown bags. I write the contents on the outside of the bag. You could certainly use ziplocs, but brown bags was what I had on hand, and I sort of like the look of paper. Ziplocs are useful, but they seem to look so cluttered once you dump them all together.

Hanging a map with little wallspace:

This challenged me FOR YEARS!!! If I have shelves on my walls, I don’t have room to hang a wall map, which I practically cannot breathe without. I am certain this is not the solution my husband would have gone with, but he’s pretty easygoing about it! So here’s how I did it…

First, I used 2 laminated maps – one of the US and one of the world. Rob cut two small strips of lathing (is that how you spell that?? it’s a little strip of wood about 1 1/2″ x 1/2″) the length of my maps. I covered the edges of the top and bottom of the maps with white duct tape to give them some extra strength and rigidity and then used the staple gun to staple the two maps to the wood strip. I covered the staples with another covering of white duct tape so that the staples don’t show. Next I used self-tapping cup hooks to screw into the top of the wood strip – one at each end. Measuring carefully, I screwed in 2 more cup hooks in the wood trim of the opening to our room. Voila! Hanging maps that can be easily turned for display and removed when necessary! Detailed picture below…

Now, I don’t always leave my maps hanging in the door. So, it’s handy to have a place for them to go when they’re not in use…like in the summer months. I solved that by screwing drawer pulls to the bottom of one of my shelves. The nice thing about the drawer pulls is that you can use those metal booklet rings to hang all sorts of things from these drawer pulls – maps, calendars, laminated posters, pretty beeswax smiley sun faces. 🙂 See below…

Whew! Is it possible that anyone is still reading this ridiculously long post at this point???? Helllllooooo??? Anybody out there????? I promise not to post anything this long or picture intensive ever again if you’ll come back. 🙂 If you’re still there, I hope you enjoyed this very long peek into our spaces. It really was fun snapping pics in the sunshine for all of you to see. As I sit here, the early afternoon sun has just started making its way in through the window and I’m enjoying seeing it move across the room. Hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine in your spaces!

Came Before this Post: The Learning Room Set up for 2008/09

Follow-up Post: A Reality Check and a Few Answers

Follow-up Post: Organization of the Day – A Mother’s Rule of LOVE seeking HARMONY

Follow-up Post: Refreshing the Learning Spaces (June 2010)

Follow-up Post: A Little February Check-Up and Freshening in the Learning Spaces (February 2011)

Follow-up Post: When our home was remodeled (fall 2014), we actually converted our learning room (the room pictured in this post) back to a dining room space. Curious to see what our learning room looks like now? Our New Learning Room: Reveal (March 2015)

Living Learning in the heart of our home

November 18, 2007

I have received a few requests to blog more about our learning choices, and Montessori in particular. Here is a recent comment/request:

CAN YOU WRITE ABOUT MONTESSORI MORE. WHY DID YOU USE IT HOW DID YOU COME TO THAT CHOICE? WHAT OTHER BOOKS OR CURRICULUM DO YOU USE AND RECOMMEND?

It’s a loaded request, but I am excited about the challenge of it. So often, in writing out my plans, thoughts, and ideals I can refocus my own days a little more and I find renewed energy in my goals. I’m planning a series of posts that will cover a variety of topics, and I’ll also be posting more about our days in general – the simple things like scissors for my preschooler that make sense in his hands, our lovely nature studies with the extraordinary Botany shelf, my elementary age son’s love for the golden beads, etc. Finding the joy in those moments sometimes occurs randomly as the activities are chosen and explored in our home throughout the day.

My entire teaching philosophy is summed up by St. Paul:

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Montessori certainly isn’t the sum total of our days. We follow Classical ideas using Charlotte Mason’s principles and I make use of some Montessori ideas in the early years. We follow the beautiful rhythm of the liturgical year as set forth by Holy Mother Church. We feast and we fast. This is as much a part of our learning as any curriculum I weave together.

I’ll save some of my reasons for using and implementing Montessori for a later post, for now I’ll say that I am convinced of a need for beauty in the home, and in particular of the real need for a child to be exposed to beauty. One of the reasons I use Montessori is the attractiveness of the philosophy and the materials. The materials lead a child through their simplicity of design and beauty of function to a “connection” and learning happens. It speaks to some other needs in our family too, but more about that later.

Montessori really speaks to the visual and spatial/kinetic learner. I am a very visual person, as such I simply cannot function in chaos. I enjoy organization, and I believe it is a particular talent God has given me to make use of in my vocation. And my children run the spectrum of auditory, visual and kinetic learners – so it’s with great joy that I find a new tool in my tool belt for those children that really need to touch, feel, explore and own an idea through their sense of touch.

Home education provides so many opportunities to grow and learn; both for teacher and student. Montessori materials and the idea of showing a concrete object to explore so that a child may slowly and developmentally grow to understand more and more abstract ideas is something that I have learned to offer in and through our rich and ordinary days.

New Fall 2019 Erin Condren Products

September 10, 2019

I received some new Erin Condren products and since I love sharing through photos – my little spot here on the interwebs is where I decided to share with you! I was so excited to see some of these new products – so first, a big thank you to the team at Erin Condren for sending these items my way so that I could photograph them and share them with you! Drop any questions or thoughts in the comment box! I’d love to catch up with you there!

This post contains affiliate links – they cost you nothing, but I may earn a small commission – thank you!

Most of these items launch in mid-September (I’ll note specific launch dates with each product) and since these are preview items, they won’t be linked until later in the month, after they make their way to the Erin Condren website and I come back and add links to this post.

Let’s start!

Accordion Zipper Pouch | Launch date: Available now | $14

The Accordion Zipper Pouch is a one-piece set of 6 pouches that are sewn together and attached to create one large accordion-like pouch.

The hardware is all gold and there are 2 hand-holds – one on each side of the accordion pouch. It’s made of a durable nylon and the inside is a coated smooth surface making wiping down easy!

It folds very flat and compact for storage, but I couldn’t stop playing with it and accordion-ing it open! The colors are vibrant and so happy!

Obviously, you can fill this pouch with ALL of your planner supplies if you’re headed to a planner meet up! How fun would that be? But I confess, I can’t stop thinking of organizing girl’s hair bobbles, diaper bag organization, travel games/toys/card organizer for the kids in the car, My Little Pony accessories, and makeup organization – all in this accordion pouch! I see lots of uses for it and this one unexpected product has snuck in as one of my favorite picks!

Velvet Pencil Pouch | Launching September 19 | $12

The small velvet pouch was introduced in the recent Erin Condren Fall Seasonal Surprise Box (now sold out) as a “sneak peek.” Now we get to see the version that will be available on the website – in sapphire (pictured above) and gray. I am a big fan of the compact size of this pouch – it has an elastic strap attached to the backside of the pouch so that it can be attached to any 7 x 9 LifePlanner or even your on-the-go folio. The zipper is easy to open and close with an attached matching velvet pull and zips fully down the pouch so that inserting and removing tools is easy. It is just perfect for 2-3 of your favorite pens and a ruler – the basics! If you’re a functional planner girl or a minimal planner girl, this pouch is for you!

On the Go Folio (new colors)| Launching September 19 | $20

The On the Go Folio has fast become a favorite within the Erin Condren planning community. Currently available in lagoon, charcoal, black, and champagne, the folio (13.375 x 8.25” when it is unfolded & open) is a vegan leather-like cover with 4 elastics on the inside that allow you to choose and fill with any 4 petite planners. The flexibility and versatility of this system allows you to build a planner that fits your needs! It doesn’t get more individual and custom than this system!

September 19 brings new colors to the folio system:

pink (pictured)
mustard
wine
pink sketched blooms
sapphire
sapphire with gold stars

There are a few small updates to the anatomy of the folio with this launch. The interior elastic system inside the folio was formerly joined with a big knot. The knot was bulky and often frayed. This September, expect planners to arrive with crimped elastics (see above picture) which holds the elastics together neatly – no more fraying knots. My only concern is that the crimp holds firm and doesn’t loosen its grip over time, releasing the elastic.

A further update is an additional small metal reinforcement on the spine of the planner that reinforces the folio where the elastic band exits the planner. It’s a nice touch that adds to the durability of this year’s folio.

The folio system is a a perfect solution for the planner girl that is mobile and needs to customize and target the areas they plan!

2020 Daily Petite Planners | Launching September 19 | $14/each

As part of the petite planner system 4 quarterly daily planners are released each year:

Volume One: January 2020 – March 2020
Volume Two: April 2020 – June 2020
Volume Three: July 2020 – September 2020
Volume Four: October 2020 – December 2020

Issuing the daily planners in 4 different quarterly booklets allows you to insert the current quarterly planner into your folio and still have room for 3 different petite planners – your choice. Each 2020 daily petite planner has a kaleidoscope themed cover (in sturdy, smooth cardstock), and the back has a pocket with an included sticker sheet.

The daily planner contains the 3 months within that quarter with the monthly spread (above) and a full page for each day of the month with the exception of weekends (which share one page). The theme for this year’s daily petite planner follows the very popular current kaleidoscope theme and monthly pages reflect similar designs to the current colorful monthly page in the Erin Condren LifePlanner.

Above you can see a comparison of the current 2019 monthly view of the daily petite planner (with the green accents in the bottom of the photo), with the 2020 monthly (pictured on top) which has the color-shaded notes column and the kaleidoscope trim.

The daily pages also received an update to layout (I’ll share some comparison pictures below). Each daily page (except the weekends) has a full column which can be designated hourly, or you can label the sections, “work, school, home,” or, “morning, afternoon, evening.” The column is flexible – designate it in the way that works for you! Next to the main vertical column is a checklist box for tasks. And below the checklist section is a blank section for notes.

The top of each daily page now has a hexagon in the space that used to contain a mini monthly calendar (see below). While the hexagons are beautiful, I’m very functional when I use this planner, and I don’t find the hexagon addition very functional. I can think of a few uses for the hexagon – perhaps you could designate a holiday here, or a special event, countdown tracker, or a habit you’re working on.

Above you can see the current 2019 daily petite planner (in green/June 5,6) with the mini monthly calendar at the top of each page. Behind it, and toward the top of the photo is the 2020 daily petite planner (in teal blue/January 1,2) with hexagons in place of the mini monthly calendar.

And that begs the question, what happened to the mini monthly calendar?

It is now in the notes section of the left-facing page, justified left within the notes box.

See above for a comparison of the 2019 daily petite planner layout (top, in green) with the 2020 daily petite planner layout (below, in teal blue). The mini monthly takes up a lot of space that I really enjoyed using in the notes section. And, I can’t help but miss the symmetry of the two pages – every left facing page in the daily petite planner contains a mini month printed and justified left in the notes section. I think I can probably find an occasional use for the hexagons, but I’ll be tripping over the mini month printed in the notes section and would have preferred to just have the space to write my notes.

Petite Planners | Launching September 12, September 19 | $14 each

A couple of the current petite planners got a new cover, and there are two brand new additions to the petite planner lineup to share with you!

The Budget Book (braided beauty cover) and the Wellness Log (watercolor blooms cover) contain the same interior planning pages as in past petite planners. Only the covers changed/updated. These new cover options will be available on September 19.

Breast Cancer Journal (pink sketched blooms cover) | Launching September 12

This petite planner has been thoughtfully designed to support women going through breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

There are six weeks of trackers for drain levels, chemo, medication, symptoms, moods, and an exclusive metallic sticker sheet included in the back pocket.

The (undated) daily pages leave space to journal feelings, daily focus, gratitude (so important!), a daily medication tracker, habit ribbon (water, meals, weight), and a generous space for notes and reflections. At the end of seven daily pages there is a thoughtful weekly wrap up that invites reflection and gratitude as well as providing space for honest, raw, and perhaps gritty thoughts.

This planner is so well designed and thoughtful – what a gift of support and encouragement to someone who might be dizzy and overwhelmed with a breast cancer diagnosis!

Medical Treatment Log (midnight/metallic gold cover) | Launching September 12

The new medical treatment log is one that I am particularly excited about! I’ve mentioned before that I have an autoimmune disease – a chronic disease that I am working hard to put into remission. I currently use my on the go folio and petite planner system to help me manage my own medical efforts (meds, activity, doctors appointments, labs, dietary protocols) toward restoring my health and putting my autoimmune disease into remission so this new petite planner is definitely going to be incorporated in my lineup!

The medical treatment log includes several pages to make notes regarding your particular diagnosis, treatment options, treatment plan pages, and a place for surgery checklist and post-surgery notes (if surgery is necessary for you).

There are pages to list your medical team and 4 pages with places to record questions for your doctor. (These will be so helpful!!!)

There is a medication log, place for medical results, and a really helpful expense/insurance log page.

There are 40 appointment log pages with spaces to record notes, questions, and next steps. There is an included metallic sticker sheet in the back.

Metal Ruler & Desk Accessories Set | Launching September 19 | ruler ($8), desk accessories ($12)

These two items were part of the 2019 Fall Erin Condren Seasonal Surprise Box (sold out) and will now be making their way to the website as accessories for purchase. The gold ruler is one of my favorite items – it’s a very sturdy, small ruler! It fits perfectly in the new velvet planny pouch! And the desk accessories set in Gemtones has rubber bands, push pins, and every clip you could want to organize your papers!

I hope this preview was helpful! I’ll be back soon to share some details of our current Morning Basket book choices and a tour of our learning room and my home office! Happy planning!

How I Plan For Homeschooling

May 20, 2019

featuring: the Erin Condren Teacher Planner

I enjoy reviewing some of my favorite planner systems around this time of year! But I feel like reviewing a fresh new planner, while hopefully inspiring, can’t show you all of the potential and the usefulness I’ve found in its pages. And in showing you, it is NOT my hope that you’ll feel as if you must emulate or imitate (although if you find a workable idea here – take it, translate it through your season of life, and run with it!). It is my hope that in sharing how I prepare for and plan for a thing, you may see something in a different way, or see a possibility, or even that you might recognize that this style/iteration of planning isn’t a good fit for you and you can scratch these planner ideas off your list as a possibility! The idea here is to inspire with possibility and share my experience(s) with you!

In the past, I’ve always shared a video walk-thru of my teacher planner set up that leans into mostly specifics in how I plan in home education, but always shares some general planning ideas, too. But this year, I wanted to take advantage of the organizational tools here on my website – I can consider carefully what I share so that (hopefully) it’s organized and clear, I can link you to resources and specific examples so you can look at things and consider them, and I can still share pictures of my specifics along the way! I still hope to share a video soon, but this post serves as a beginning in the “how to plan in home education” conversation. We can see where it goes from here.

A quick word about overwhelm…and the internet.

In sharing on this topic, we may flirt with this. It’s not my intention to do so, but it’s a possibility. And the reality of that overwhelm is entirely up to you. Only you know when to click away before overwhelm steals your peace, and if you need permission to do that, you’ve got it. My stars! There is JUST.SO.MUCH information out there – how to plan in homeschool, why to plan, what to plan, how much to plan, the right way to plan, the wrong way to plan, use someone else’s plans. I’m just going to say this:

There is no perfect plan! So instead of spinning your wheels and endless energy chasing after perfect, build a workable plan. You need something that fits in the “good enough” column. Build something that will act as a rudder for your days – a guide. It can be simple or super structured depending on your own personality and temperament needs. It can be lovely and color coordinated or pencil scratch in a 39 cent spiral Mead notebook. You can type it or write it. Whatever you do, don’t marry it. And by that I mean, build yourself something out of modeling clay, not chiseled marble. You want whatever you build to be workable and malleable, because however hard you work on these plans, they need to flex. And you don’t want to be so in love with them, or have them so overdone, that when you recognize that need to flex you find yourself in a puddle of tears because you’re about to rip out…or erase…or undo…all of the work you’re so proud of.

And since we’re on the general topic of building lesson plans, I’ll just throw it out here now and tell you that I build my own lesson plans from scratch…from the ground up. My own booklists, my own pacing (with some good guides to help me), and my own daily detailed planning. I don’t buy into the idea that I have to use a vetted set of plans to convey a worthy education, although I leave room for that possibility if it’s ever a good fit for you or me. Prewritten plans have their place, and they have a value, especially if, for your own sense of peace, you need a little hand holding or your season of life requires it! There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with pre-written lesson plans! It’s just that – I have always enjoyed the freedom of writing our own story from child to child and year to year, to answer specific challenges and meet specific needs, and if you enjoy the scope of that idea as well, I’d like to walk you through my process. I’m going to show you some general ideas, and some specific tools. The specifics are for your consideration only! Ok? Ok. The general ideas are not mine to claim at all, so run with them! Translate them through your family lens, your season of life, and build!

Before any real planning can happen, invest some time in this process and CONSIDER:

The big picture of a year
The structure within your year (classes, activities)
The personalities under your care
The weaknesses that need gentle but firm molding and
The strengths that need loving guidance
The things that worked well for you last year
The things that didn’t
And the self discipline habits (both yours and the kids) that need attention (limit yourself to 1 or 2)
Your/My own limitations (I work wholeheartedly, but I’m not superwoman. I need time to rest, recharge, and cooperate with grace.

All of those considerations allow me to focus the lens of my mind and imagination and plan from big picture down to daily detail with an eye toward reality and virtue. It sets a year up for success and is a worthy time investment. Invest now, roll with God’s grace, flex when needed, and yield the fruit of reasonably smooth (not perfect…just reasonably smooth) days later.

A super quick word to the mom with littles…and only littles – kids from 8 years old on down, and especially the mom with her hands and heart full, trying to homeschool and mom into all the little corners of a day. Yes, you should still invest the time to plan, but your plan (much more than mine), must flex generously! Build some basic structure for your day because children thrive on routine and order. Within that structure, and those limits, expect to dispense freedom generously. Your plans should be heavy on big picture and routine, and very light on specifics and rigorous structure. Freedom within limits is your mantra! (Pro tip: When kids are little, I find so much generosity and freedom in the idea of working in blocks of time in my day. A reading block, a tidying block, a lunch block, a resting block. Maybe that’s a starting point for you, young mom? It’s a habit that helped me so much that I still use time blocks for our days!)

The starting point

For the past four years, I’ve used the Erin Condren Teacher Planner in home education. I mentioned in my review post of the Erin Condren Teacher Planner that I am embarking on our 19th year of homeschooling, and just saying that number out loud seems…well…like I’ve been doing this for a long time. And I guess I have. I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve gained (mostly through hard won lessons and failures!), the confidence I have in joyfully living out my season of life, and for the ability to unapologetically cut myself slack when needed. And I’m grateful for the fresh new challenge of each changing school year, and they are each very, very different! Though I’ve been doing this for a number of years, I still delight in seeing the world, my children, our circumstances and spaces with fresh eyes full of wonder and gratitude!

If you’re languishing or feeling burnt out in home education, may I suggest you embark on a journey toward home? I don’t mean to oversimplify, but I also don’t want to overcomplicate these possibilities. Claim your season of life with joy! Cut yourself slack when needed (and that means quit trying to measure up to a perceived standard that is impossible! Rest well, eat well, claim all the little moments of joy that are a part of your day!)! Start again to see life and the world around you with the eyes of a child – full of wonder! You did this once – very naturally – when you were a child. Look again with fresh eyes!

So, 19 years of homeschooling; 5 kids (age 22 – 6 at the time of this writing); homeschooling from preschool through high school, with 2 homeschool graduates – both doing well and able to function socially in the world-at-large. I’m only sort of laughing at that statement! The one thing EVERYONE asks me first when they find out we homeschool is the goofiest question (to me): in very somber and concerned tones I hear, “what about socialization?” And I understand that askers of that question are just repeating the same old worn out idea they’ve heard, but let’s put that one to rest, shall we? Homeschool provides numerous opportunities to expand a young person’s mind, imagination, and understanding in the areas of culture and society, and through that, there are very many opportunities to communicate socially with a diverse spectrum of ages, cultures, and types of people, including young people of their own age! Of ALL the possible pitfalls of homeschooling, backward socialization is the LEAST likely to occur!!

—ahem— Alrighty!! I digress. 🙂

A level of organization and planning is necessary in homeschooling. You can argue that if you’d like, but anytime you’re juggling children, education, ideas, books, and assessing the transfer of ideas from mind to mind – some kind of preparation equal to the task is needed and it follows that some kind of planning that guides the task is necessary. How you prepare, and how your planning looks may be very different from mine (and that’s absolutely ok!!!), but since we’re in my little digital corner of the world, I’ll show you how I prepare and plan for homeschooling!

For this post, I’m going to show you the current 2019/2020 Erin Condren Teacher Planner and a few of the accessories that I use with it because that’s what I normally plan in. But you can translate many of these same ideas into whatever planning tool you use! I use the Erin Condren Teacher Planner because of the quality and thoughtfulness in the design! It’s large, the paper is the most excellent quality (no bleeding through to the other side and is able to take all I dish out with writing, color coding, flipping back and forth, checking off, noting, and flipping more!!!). The layout fits how I naturally “think” when I plan, and it is so versatile – the layout isn’t pegged to a classroom situation! Perfect for my needs!

One of the first things I enjoy doing when I set up my Teacher Planner is laying out my planning for the year. I love using the inside of the Erin Condren Teacher Planner cover for this! Every cover interior (front and back) contains a wet erase surface and I love using the variety of colors in the wet erase markers to note my plans. It’s just enough room to lay out my basic outline for planning!

For each child/student I complete the following (in order) and these are the basic steps of planning in home education, for any level – start at big picture, and slowly walk your plans forward into the level of detail you’re comfortable with.

General Planning Guidelines

Build a booklist for the year
Divide your year into “chunks”
- 2 semesters
- 3 terms
- 4 quarters
Spread your books out across the year.
Take one “chunk” of the year at a time and mathematically map out page numbers to be read in that chunk of the year (example: number of pages divided by the number of weeks in your “chunk” will tell you how many pages you need to read in a week)
Lay out a basic outline of books and pages for each “chunk” of the year.
During the year, consider monthly seasonal themes that will be a part of the fabric of your days.
Weekly, using your “chunk” outline of books and pages, set out specific assignments for each day of the week – do so in a way that your children (4th grade and older) can follow your lesson plans and self direct.

Specific planning ideas

Generate a booklist. At this point, I’ve been through every grade level (multiple times), so I’ve got booklists that are already built! You’re welcome to check them out! Every single booklist I have built, I’ve uploaded to my printables section – click printables –> home education –> yearly & general booklists and you can find booklists from K – 12th grade. Here’s an example of a booklist and the term lesson plans I’m going to discuss in the points below – 5th grade.

Next, I gather the books on my booklist and bring them to our school shelves. At this point, you can probably imagine our home library is generous (something else I’m so grateful for after years of investing!). I organize my home library so that the books I use are organized by the year/grade they’re used. It makes planning so easy for me – no endless searching for that one book I know I have…somewhere! So, for my 6th grader, I’ll just go to my 6th grade shelf, pick up all the books, bring them to the learning room, and shelve them all. Each child has his/her own shelf in the learning room (pictured below).

Now I divide up the year into workable “chunks.” These chunks help me spread out the feast of reading and work for the year. In the past, I’ve almost always used the *3 term division* (36 weeks, 3 terms of 12 weeks each), but I am very seriously considering going to a *2 semester* year (36 weeks, 2 semesters of 18 weeks each). I learned in graduating my latest high schooler that whether I use 2 semesters or not, my state uses semesters in high school, and transcripts do as well – so I can either translate my year into their 2 semester system, or I can just build it in 2 semesters from the get-go. I’m a firm believer that in high school it needs to walk like a duck and quack like a duck – especially for the young person looking to move from high school to college. My 3rd child starts high school this fall, and thus his high school transcript starts this fall. Sooo…I’m leaning toward 2 semesters. Regardless!!! Divide your year into workable chunks that work for you and parcel out your books – some books will be read in one of your “chunks,” some books will stretch the whole year, and other books may stretch across several years. You decide, but generally the meatier the book, the longer I pace it (less reading at a given time)! The goal is slow and careful reading so that there is time to engage with ideas; I don’t want my kids to fly through! To review, you can divide your year into:
- 2 semesters
- 3 terms
- 4 quarters

Now that I’ve divided my books into the “chunks” of my year, I sit down and build a big table/grid on my laptop. You can use excel, but I use a word processing program (Pages for Mac) and insert a table into a document. Across the top of the grid, I designate the weeks of the term or semester, and down the side of the grid on the far left, I list the subjects and books we’ll cover. Start at the top, pick up a book, and start pacing it out. This is mathematical – number of pages (or chapters) divided by the number of weeks the book is to be read. List it out in the grid. (This is a guide I built for pacing and scheduling books and pages) – it’s a guide, NOT a rubric or a straight-jacket! But sometimes having a guide helps you to know if you’re in the ballpark.)
At that point, I’ve got a pretty workable plan in place. I can get a little more specific now by plotting out how many days a week a book will be read, and get even more specific mathematically – pages to be read in a given day. List it on the grid.
Once I’ve done that, my plans are ready for my teacher planner! I print and tuck the grid I created in the back pocket of my Teacher Planner, and pull it out each week when I layer in all the details on the weekly layout of my Teacher Planner.

The rubber meets the road in your planner

In almost every single Teacher Lesson Planner, there are prep pages. Some prep pages are very useful and workable for the homeschooler. In fact, some of the best prep pages I’ve ever found are in the brand new Simplified Teacher Planner which I reviewed here. (I’m still trying to decide what I will use next year – between the Erin Condren Teacher Planner (pictured in this post) and the Simplified Teacher Planner – I’ve got two amazing planners to try to choose from, and I plan to do a video to compare and contrast the EC and the Simplified Teacher Planners. #teamundecided #theyarebothfantasticplanners) Regarding the prep pages, I simply repurpose anything that is more suited for a school classroom setting – simple stickers to the rescue! Don’t trip on these prep pages if they’re not a fit for you! Ignore them or repurpose! No planner is perfect – make it work for you!

I don’t need a list of classroom volunteers, but I do often keep up with field trips. I used the triangle overlay washi to cover the original text and repurposed with a simple sticker. In the past, I generated my own text on my laptop and printed on sticker paper. Both are very workable options!

Communication logs (which are extremely helpful for educators in a classroom setting) are easy to turn into book logs for home educators! I love having a list of books my kids read independently each year and these two pages make it easy to log them! Get creative in re-labeling headings that don’t fit your needs. I cut a standard sticker (from the Erin Condren cool for school sticker book) down to size and now I can repurpose the far right column on the page to have a place to record notes for each book.

The 2019/2020 calendar section is always one of my favorite sections! I always – always – plan from the big picture inward! On these two pages I map out our start dates, planned break weeks, any known days off, and our projected end date. I refer to this page over and over again during the year and as other events present themselves, I add new dots. By the way, these adorable transparent dots are also in the new Classroom edition *Cool for School* sticker book!

This year plan section is another favorite of mine for listing significant monthly events. I list start and end days, field trips, days off, and when our new semester/term/quarters might start. I’ll continue building this as I get into planning the specifics of our 2019/2020 year a little more, and as I decide whether we’ll use terms or semesters to break up our year. This page gives our year good definition and guidance and is a big help as I start to funnel my plans toward more detail.

Also, if you read my review post, you might remember that this page was originally printed with January in the upper left corner and followed a calendar year progression. I prefer my blocks to follow an academic year, so I used this sticker sheet from Erin Condren to relabel the months and change the order. Easy-peasy.

There are four graph pages and 2 lined pages in the front of the Erin Condren Teacher Planner, and these are some of my favorite pages for brainstorming time management! I’ve started listing some of our daily time blocks to brainstorm here. As I build our blocks, I’ll lay out a grid of an average day that layers each child’s work on top of my own (finite) time. It’s so useful for the kids to see that my time must be used wisely during the day, and that they have work they must do independently at times!

The monthly prep pages are some of my favorite pages! I track and plan for our monthly seasonal themes and read aloud books here, on this page! I like to set up monthly themes in advance and I use simple sticky notes for that (the Thanksgiving Picture Book is actually a sticky note!). In using sticky notes, I’ve left some paper bread crumbs, but nothing is permanent if I want to move plans around!

The monthly pages are where the rubber really starts to meet the road. I lay out any breaks and days off, I add special events and field trips, drivers education classes (heaven help us…again!), testing dates (like the ACT or SAT), and I love using the notes column to have a gritty heart-to-heart conversation with myself. I reflect on the past month and consider changes I need to exercise! I list self-discipline habits I need to implement, challenges I’m having or that a particular child is having, other habits I need to adopt or fine-tune in order to assist smoother days.

The weekly spread is where the rubber actually does meet the road – it’s the nitty gritty daily detail that moves a plan forward. (click on the picture to enlarge and view detail) Let me say this clearly: I only plan one week at a time! Do NOT sit down with a planner, any planner, and map out the details for an entire year! Because….LIFE!!!!

Pictured above is a “mock week” that I pulled from an actual week last year. It’s a very real picture of what a day and a week might look like here with an early elementary student, a middle schooler, and a high schooler. I take my term grid out of the back pocket of my planner (remember, the one that has assignments broken down through the entire term by week), and translate the details to this page with specifics – page numbers, chapters, and regular daily work.

I started designating one column for each of my children last year, rather than assigning skills & subjects to the columns, and it made our days so much smoother. The kids could easily see their work and know what was expected. This year, I have the luxury of giving 2 columns to my older children because I only have 3 kids at home now. I love how this allows me to spread out their daily work from their bookwork.

Not every week goes according to plan. We’re not robots. But having a plan means that when we get off track, I know right where to pick up our work again!

Also, stickers are NOT a necessary component in planning! Neither is the Erin Condren Teacher Planner for that matter! But I find both elevate my planning and accent some items that I want to stand out.

Guidelines to add flex to your lesson plans

Build for one week less than the number of weeks in your “yearly chunk”
- plan for 11 weeks of work in a 12 week term
- plan for 17 weeks of work in an 18 week semester
- plan for 8 weeks of work in a 9 week quarter
Consider mapping out 4 day weeks instead of 5, and give yourself the 5th day to accomplish all those things you always push to the back burner, and have time to catch up on any work that may have gotten behind during the week.
Teacher days – plan to take one week (or at least a few days) off between each of your “yearly chunks.” This allows everyone mini-breaks to refresh…including you!!

I have learned (the hard way!) to build my grid plans with flex! If I am building term plans – 3 terms of 12 weeks each – I try to only plan work for 11 weeks instead of planning out every single corner of all 12 weeks! Why? Because kids get sick. Opportunities come up and an unexpected trip to Yellowstone understandably hits pause on the lesson plans. A parent may need extra help or care and plans need to take a backseat to attend to the people you love.

In addition to flex weeks, I build plans for 4 day academic weeks. We use Fridays to make up work and focus on the Fine Arts. Beauty is integral. Period. I make room for it on Friday and call them our “Fine Arts Fridays,” and if I need to claim a little extra time on that Friday to catch a child up on some academic work, I have the time without stressing everyone out. Flex weeks allow for FLEX!! And knowing flex is built into your plans diminishes stress and the compulsive need to check every box. Homeschooling is a marathon that requires considerate pacing of effort across quite a span of time. Don’t sprint the year and think that there won’t be consequences for you AND your children! Set a reasonable pace and take necessary refreshment breaks…and you’ll make it to the finish line with your sanity intact!

Be thoughtful and reasonable in your planning and build in flex!!!

And, in case you’re wondering if you can academically accomplish the pegs needed to meet an adequate education by the end of high school by flexing your days and weeks in your planning – yes, you absolutely can! I’m going to offer this not as a brag-moment, but simply as a point of evidence – living a rich curriculum of living books and ideas and following this strategy has resulted in graduating two children, both of whom tested very well. One child chose college as the post-high-school path and received an academic scholarship. So, yes, it works.

Here is another tool I happen to love in my planning – colorful writing tools for color coding! I love the dual tip markers from Erin Condren. I used the fine tip to write out the plans you see pictured! I tend to use the medium point when I’m illustrating something or extending a line on a page or drawing a grid on a monthly themed page.

Some plans flex more than others, and our Morning Basket of reading is one of those things. For plans that flex regularly, having a wet erase surface to brainstorm with pen-in-hand is handy! This is a new dashboard that snaps in and out of the coils of the Erin Condren Teacher Planner and can live wherever you want it to live in your Erin Condren Planner! I’ll keep mine on my current month’s view, but you can move yours to your weekly view, or keep it at the front of your planner! So versatile!

I love how I can designate our common read aloud and daily enrichment (poetry, Shakespeare, art/picture study, geography lesson, composer study) on this dashboard. I use these wet erase markers – they stay put once you’ve written, have a nice fine point, and wipe off with well kept wipes or alcohol wipes.

Prepping the day and wrapping up the day are important components to consider! They are the bookends of a day, and just like bookends, if they’re not present and sturdy, the books fall over just as your day will. And here’s the thing – as kids grow and change and mature, and as your season changes and your ability to tend to various things changes – this list may grow and shrink. Let it set you up for success and hem your day, but let it be gentle enough to meet you where you are, hardworking mom!

I hope this post has done three things: (1) shared how one homeschool mom prepares and plans for homeschooling, (2) shows you the potential in using an excellent Teacher Lesson Planner such as the Erin Condren Teacher Planner or the Simplified Teacher Planner, and (3) given you some ideas to translate and filter through your season of life to use in a practical way in your homeschool! I’d love to tackle any questions you have in the comment box!

Happy homeschool planning!

Erin Condren Teacher Planner 2019/2020 | A Review

May 18, 2019

Here we are, at the end of another school year, and smack in the middle of a month of new planner launches. As we’re wrapping up a year, we’re also starting to consider what comes next!

I have always loved the possibility in a fresh new school year! Almost as much as I love a bouquet of fresh pencils and the delight of back-to-school shopping time with fresh, new notebooks and crisp, clean paper! All of it equals potential…and hope! And for an educator, a brand new teacher planner is the pinnacle of hope intersecting with practical!

Next year, I will march into my 19th year of home education. 19 years! We’ve graduated two young people and sent them onward, and though I don’t share much about them as they get older (to protect their privacy…not because I’m not beaming with pride!) they’re both doing well – both doing what God has asked of them! And I am proud! Not because of some kind of measurable, laudable accomplishment (though there are a few of those), but because both my adult children are doing the necessary things, working hard, stretching toward virtue (with themselves and encouraging those around them), continuing to self-educate, and living out God’s will in their lives! <– THAT is what education is about. THAT is my paycheck. And THAT is what makes me beam with pride and pick up my lists and my plans and my tasks and keep plugging away. This is a long marathon, and I’m still in it! There are still three to go!

One thing I’ve come to rely on more and more in home education are my plans and lesson planning. I’ve learned how important it is to prepare – content, books, plans, the day. It sets a day (and a year!) up for success, and no, it doesn’t promote a sort of robotic rigidity – actually, it nurtures quite the opposite! Having a set of thoughtful plans communicates clear expectations to the kids (they know what they ought to do!) and gives us freedom to do and then enjoy! (Bonus points if you recognize: I am; I can; I ought; I will – CM) Which, over the years, teaches a valuable life lesson – responsibility then privilege; work then play. Order.

As a home educator, I have used every tool imaginable for lesson planning – digital apps, digital software/word processing programs, calendar programs, notebooks, cheap planners, home made calendars, and my own created documents which I built, printed, and filled out weekly. For the last 4 years now, I have found my sweet spot in generating booklists and term spreadsheets on my home computer (which you can find in the printables section of my website), and then mapping out the individual months and days in my Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner. Now, my way of planning in home education certainly isn’t the only way to plan, and I’m a firm believer that EACH of us plans (or should plan) intuitively, in a way that is a natural expression of our own temperament and personality. But, this month, I’ve been showing you some of my favorite planning tools because I find them to be versatile, flexible, functional, durable, and beautiful. And today’s planning tool is one I’ve come to rely on as a home educator!

Last year, Erin Condren completely updated the layout of the Teacher Planner, making it so much more versatile and useful and I lived on every page of it! This year, the team at Erin Condren sent me their new 2019/2020 planner and all the new accessories so that I could share them with you! Thank you, EC!! All of the product links are affiliate links – they cost you nothing to click through, but I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through one of my links, and for that I am so grateful! Thank YOU!! I do have a coupon code for you! If this is your very first Erin Condren purchase, click here and Erin Condren will email you a $10 coupon code to use on your first order!!!

Before we really take off in this review, I want to share that I’m going to show you exactly how this planner and the accessories arrive – fresh and new right out of the box. I want you to see its versatility – no matter what kind of educator you are. Or perhaps you’re an educational support person, a college student, or a parent hoping to manage the litany of activities and homework assignments through the week, or even someone looking to use the planner to manage work or volunteer opportunities! With fresh pages, I hope you’ll be able to see the possibilities because, while this is called a “Teacher Planner,” it is actually a very versatile, large scale weekly planner and could be used in almost any setting!

If you’re looking for specific and practical ideas for this planner and how I plan in home education, I’ve already got another post ready for you that shows just that! I’ve got pictures of the prep work pages, monthly layout, and even a full “mock week” that I actually pulled from a real week of school we had last year. The post walks you through my entire planning process from beginning to end and shares examples. And yes…hopefully a video for you soon! I hope to compare and contrast the Erin Condren Teacher Planner with the new Simplified Teacher Planner.

Let’s get started!!!

Last year, there were some very significant changes to the Erin Condren Teacher Planner – the size of the coil increased, the planner itself contained a full year’s worth of pages and was thicker overall, the layout of all of the pages changed, and the overall design was updated (the weekly lesson plan pages were updated to fall behind their corresponding monthly pages – a change I welcomed with open arms and have been so grateful for all year!).

This year, you’ll find all of those same changes still in effect, and there are a few small changes and improvements worth noting as we go through the planner, and I’ll point those out! The Erin Condren Teacher Planner remains the same price as last year:

Non-metallic cover base price: $55
Metallic cover base price: $60
Luxe cover base: $65
Adding a specialty colored coil +$10

There are a few options that can change the base price of this planner, like the number of checklist pages you request to be coiled into the back of the planner, and the number of clear sheet protector pockets you request (maximum of 3).:

2 sheet protectors +$1.50
3 sheet protectors +$3
14 checklist pages +$5
21 checklist pages +$7.50
28 checklist pages +$10

I do want to mention that the Erin Condren Teacher Planner is a full year planner, and you have two calendar options when you order:

An academic Teacher Planner (July 2019 – June 2020)
Or a calendar year Teacher Planner (Jan 2020 – Dec 2020)

Each year, every Erin Condren planner has a new theme. This theme usually carries over from Life Planner, to Monthly Planner, and into the Teacher Planner. But this year, the Teacher Planner theme is different from the kaleidoscope theme of the rest of the Erin Condren planner line. This year, the Teacher Planner line has a gorgeous, colorful geometric triangle overlay. You’ll see this this theme represented on many pages of the planner.

The Erin Condren Teacher Planner begins with several prep work pages.

For educators in the school system, these pages can be very useful! For other educators (support personnel, home educators, parents managing school/activity time), these pages can easily be repurposed! I’ll show you how I repurpose mine in my upcoming post!

The yearly overview page is so useful to me!! It’s one of the first things I go to in my new planner! I map out our start and end dates, mark our term breaks, any days off! And I refer to it over and over again through the year!

The year plan page allows me to map out my big picture plans for the overall year! I like listing our planned field trips, special testing dates, breaks, and other noteworthy events. It’s a great birds’ eye view of a year. My only complaint is one I’ve had for a couple of years now – educationally speaking, I run in an academic year (July – June) and would love for this page to reflect a July – June order. But, changing the order of months is easy to fix, and I’ll show you one way to do it in my upcoming post!

There are four grid/graph pages…

…and two lined pages. After that we start getting into the monthly meat of this planner!

Each month begins with two prep pages! I found these two pages so useful last year! I set up our read aloud time, our monthly liturgical/seasonal themes, and listed brainstorming points for the month.

Pay special attention to the “dates to remember” section! There is something special for that section that is tucked in the back pocket of your Erin Condren Teacher Planner, and I’ll point it out when we get to the back of the planner.

After my post and video from last year, and the brand new change shifting this planner into a full year of months and weekly planning pages, I got a lot of questions from confused planners, wondering what to do with the summer months of pages! Some home educators homeschool right through the summer so that they can take more days off during the school year, so for these planners, this change was especially welcome. I like my summer breaks! 😉 I use my summer pages to lay out my summer planning goals and lists as I prep and plan the next year – break down your learning room overhaul and re-org efforts, map out your yearly planning and break it down into bite size daily goals and tasks, make note of college admissions requirements and transcript tracking! I also track the kids’ summer reading and volunteer work here! Brainstorm it! What kind of educational-related work can you track in the summer months?

Each month contains a two-page monthly spread with a notes column on the far right side of the page. Last year, there were several helpful and pertinent dates and holidays pre-printed here on the monthly page, but this year, you will find a blank slate! And the reason for that is to keep the versatility and flex of this planner at a premium! If you’re not using this in an education setting, you likely don’t care about Jan Brett’s birthday, or perhaps you’re using this planner in Australia – you probably don’t want America’s Independence day on your planner – understandable! Wait until you see how Erin Condren addresses this – allowing you, the individual planner, to choose the important dates and holidays that are important to you and worth noting! Stay with me – the solution and answer is tucked in the back pocket of this planner! We’re almost there!

The weekly spread this year remains almost identical to last year’s weekly spread, except for the header over the very far right notes column. Last year, that header was just a white space, this year the header contains a monochrome variation on the triangle overlay theme.

The weekly spread is lightly lined – each box contains space for 7 lines worth of text. The spacing is generous and I had no trouble including two lines of text here if needed. There are a total of 7 columns, one of which is a flex column that can be used for notes, or to designate plans for a specific theme or need.

Each month has a monochromatic color designation that reflects the yearly theme – this year’s theme is triangle overlay. I got a lot of questions about last year’s monthly colors, so this year I snapped pics of each of the months. If you’re interested they’re here – if not, scroll right on through. 🙂

Each month repeats in the same way:

2 lined pages
2 pages of monthly prep pages
2 page monthly spread
The weekly layout planning pages for the entire month
The next month

Included in this year’s planner is the 2020 monthly spread of July, and then one lined page to make an entire year’s worth of monthly and weekly planning pages – versatility.

There are 7 student checklist spreads that come coiled into your Erin Condren Teacher Planner. I use these to track milestones and test scores, but if you don’t find these necessary, just remove them! You do have the option to add more checklist pages when you order your Teacher Planner (additional fee).

And that brings us to the quote page and the coiled in sticker pages, which are so fun! This year’s icon stickers were slightly redesigned. I love that every Erin Condren planner comes with coiled in stickers! You have everything you need to add FUNction to your planner – right outta the box!

The icon sticker page got a bit of a facelift/redesign! Rather than the thin horizontal stickers (conferences, reminder, furlough, field trip, testing), now there are round or scallop edge stickers.

It’s hard to capture the pretty metallic stickers in a flat lay picture, but this page contains yellow gold metallic stickers. In fact, all of the metallic accents on the coiled in stickers this year are yellow gold, as opposed to the mixed variety of metallics in last year’s planner stickers.

I just love the functional stickers, and this page contains a variety of header stickers and teardrops that are perfect!

The final page of coiled in stickers are simple event stickers, color coordinated to match the monthly colors throughout the planner, and each has a metallic gold asterisk.

We finally made it to the back pocket! As always, the back pocket reflects the yearly planner theme. The triangle overlay design has metallic gold accents and the pocket is a very heavy cardstock. This pocket easily holds a substantial number of standard letter size paper – ask me how I know!

And what do I spy there…tucked in the pocket?

There are three sheets of holiday stickers – each with dated monthly stickers, each sticker is individual so you can choose what to peel, stick and add to your calendar! The holiday sheets will be available for purchase separately for $7.50. These stickers also fit in the LifePlanner layout!

Holidays, noteworthy anniversaries, special educational days – they’re all printed here on individual stickers! You can add these to your monthly calendar, or the dates to remember section on your monthly planning page…or not! You choose what to add!

Perhaps you don’t observe a particular holiday, don’t add it! Or perhaps a holiday or noteworthy event isn’t pre-printed here for you, there are several blank stickers for you to add your own events! Once again – all the details and thoughtfulness make this such a VERSATILE planner for ANYONE!!!

Here is the final change and update to this year’s Erin Condren Teacher Planner, and friends, it’s a biggie for me! The back pocket is redesigned and MUCH more useful! > cue shouts of joy! <

And now…cue me….laughing at myself! It is hard to take a still photo of a completely clear sheet protector page! Excuse my hand! I do love the addition of a sheet protector page! I almost always snip mine out, add a coil clip, and move my sheet protector around in my planner. One sheet protector comes with your Teacher Planner, but there is an option to add up to three sheet protectors to your planner when you order (additional charge).

One final item comes with your Erin Condren Teacher Planner – a snap in ruler! Which you can also purchase separately if you ever lose yours or just want an extra.

Snap it in and out of your planner to mark your place AND have a handy straight edge!

That’s it! That is the entire 2019 | 2020 Erin Condren Teacher Planner – up close and personal! What do you think of this year’s changes and updates? Small but mighty, yes?!

Accessories

No launch is complete without a few new accessories!

The planny pack in triangle overlay with accents of metallic gold is STUNNING!! ($20) The back side has an elastic band that wraps around your planner and snugs the planny pack right to your planner. There is one large interior zipper pocket for pens and accessories, and a back slip pocket that is perfect for bookmarks, or a few index cards.
The new snap-in stylized sticky notes are adorable and so functional! ($10.50) It’s no secret, the sticky notes are probably my favorite EC accessory! I find them so useful all over my planner! Sometimes I use them as a sticky note, and other times, I roll some Tombow adhesive along the backside and let it function more like a sticker!
This year, the set of three watercolor apples mini snap in bookmarks have adorable apples with metallic asterisks. ($4.50/set) The turquoise has platinum/silver, the navy has rose gold, and the cherry red has gold. I love using these to mark my month, my big picture yearly planning page, and a checklist page! They’re so handy to have and because they’re tiny, they don’t take up much real estate in your planner.

The new Note From Your Teacher Notepad is perfect for teachers looking for an easy to way to communicate regularly with students’ parents! ($10)

Designer washi tape duo! ($5.50/set of two) This year, the tape is much thinner, and more like a traditional washi tape. I have to say, I loved the thicker EC paper tape with that smooth completely opaque surface! But the watercolor and metallic apples are adorable! They come in this set of two!

And in case you want to include the triangle overlay paper tape in your planner since that reflects the theme, you can purchase that tape as part of a two-pack here.

Big drum roll!! A petite checklist journal! ($9) The petite planner family has an addition and you checklist lovers are going to be smitten!

This petite planner contains 80 pages of….checklists!!

Each page has 26 total rows (or 13 if you skip every other row), and 7 tracking columns.

So much potential here! I love that this will fit in my on the go folio with my other petite planners OR it will tuck into the back pocket of your Teacher Planner, and I love that I can track goals and habits here!

The new snap-in teacher dashboard this year is so functional! ($7.50) I’ve already got mine filled out and tucked in my planner! Confession: I don’t use dashboards in my planner too often, but the functionality of this one in terms of setting our morning and afternoon routine, and giving me a place to build and flex our family read aloud time – well, I’m smitten! This accessory is going to stay! Also, this would make a great addition to your LifePlanner as a parent – record chore routines here, and any upcoming school projects or events!

Use the wet erase markers – they don’t smear at all once they are dry and they clean up and wipe off easily with the well kept wipes (my favorite go-to accessory – in my car, purse, desk, kitchen, and makeup drawer!).

The Classroom Collection Sticker Book, Edition 3 has 12 total pages of over 760 stickers! ($15.50) If you enjoy adding a little fun to your function, this sticker book is a great value! I’ll show you all the pages of the sticker book below:

Oh my stars! Those pens!!! Am I right?

A quick word on these dots! They’re transparent with gold trim around the circumference of each circle, and these are perfect for using on your big picture yearly page! I’ll show you how I use them in my next post!

Most of the stickers in the sticker book are standard paper stickers, but a few pages (this page and the next one) are high gloss transparent stickers.

And that is it! Aren’t the stickers gorgeous!!! The perfect mix of fun and function!

Remember that you can choose your own cover because all of the covers are interchangeable, so pick up a couple of extra to change things up through the year! It’s just another nod to versatility (if you’re not using this as a teacher planner, there are lots of “non-educational” options to choose from! Choose the cover and personalization that fits how you will use this planner! I’m definitely in love with this floral apples design!

** There is a bundle of accessories that will save you money if you’re considering one of everything! A $74 value for $59, the Triangle Overlay Bundle includes:

Triangle Overlay Planny Pack
Snap-in Teacher Dashboard
Triangle Overlay Snap in StylizedSticky™ Notes
Watercolor Apples Snap-in Mini Bookmarks
Fine Tip Wet Erase Markers – Gemtones
Designer Dual Tip Markers – Tropics
Candy dots & triangle overlay paper tape

** Not pictured in this post, but also available on the Erin Condren website, will be customizable subject stickers. ($4.50) Set up your subjects, or your kids’ names, or skills, or repeating task lists – and have stickers printed and in hand so that custom planning is a breeze! (Going in my cart first thing on launch day!)

I hope this review was helpful so you can decide the best planner fit for you! Leave me questions below in the comment box! And remember, if this is your first order, click here and Erin Condren will email you a $10 coupon code to use on your first order!!!

And now…

Check out some other fantastic reviews!

Sarah Klein (Plan With Ronald) on youtube – showing how she uses the Teacher Planner to map her kids’ school activities and homework assignments.
Jen Dufore (Jen Plans) on youtube – showing how she will be using the Teacher Planner as a volunteer and to wrangle kids’ schedules.
Jennifer Crowder (Happy Place Planning) on youtube – showing how she will be using the Teacher Planner as a high school special ed. teacher.
Emily (Favorite Daughter Emily) on youtube.
Sarah (I Speak Fluent Coffee) has an amazing blog post from her perspective as an educator!

– Happy Planning –

And now, how about I give away a Teacher Planner? Thank you again to Erin Condren for being so generous and making this giveaway possible!

The winner will receive a brand new Erin Condren Teacher Planner with the metallic cover (pictured above in metallic gold kaleidoscope with the turquoise center) and ALL of the accessories shown in this post (except for the Teachers Note Pad). You’ll also receive the brand new set of 10 dual tip markers because they are my absolute favorite writing tool for writing and color coding in this planner! US entries only, please. 🙂 Follow the Rafflecopter entry options below for up to 4 different entries in this drawing! I’ll draw the winner randomly at 9:00 am central on May 21 and will email the winner – so you’ll know if you won a planner before launch day! And I’ll have it on its way to you as soon as I’ve notified you and you’ve provided your mailing address! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Simplified Teacher Planner | A Review

April 29, 2019

In the world of lesson planning, I must admit – I am particular. Having been a home educator for 18 years has taught me to appreciate a few key elements of lesson planners and lesson planning in general. After all, with 5 kids, I’ve taught Kindergarten 5 times, 12th grade twice now, and all the grades in between for a grand total of 41 years worth of Kindergarten through 12th grade. (woah!) And that friends, has given me a lot of practice when it comes to lesson planning!

There are so many lesson planning tools out there – both in paper and digital form. In 18 years, I’ve come to appreciate a small group of them because I’ve found they meet the changing and varied needs of teaching a spectrum of grades, from high school to preschool, throughout a given day. I look for organization, versatility, function, and durability. I plan a lot, but sometimes I do like to journal (read: backplan) and I want that ability, too. I want quality paper and a beautiful layout that is intuitive.

This year, there’s a new kid on the block – the Simplified Teacher Planner by Emily Ley – and I’ve got it in my hands and I thought I’d walk through it with you. This review is courtesy of Emily Ley and the Simplified team who graciously sent the planner my way, but the thoughts and opinions shared are all my own! Also, full disclosure: the links in this post are affiliate links. They cost you nothing but I may earn a small commission if you use my links. And for that I am truly grateful! Thank you!

And finally, if you’re like me – you want details! Click each image if you can’t quite make something out and it will load for you in full size and you should be able to see all of the detail!

Details

The Simplified Teacher Planner launches on May 1, 2019, and is an academic year planner (August 2019 – July 2020).
The Simplified Teacher Planner is $60.
There are a few new Teacher Planner accessories – so check them out on the 1st!
10.25 x 11.25 inches (1.5 inches thick)
Thick, 80lb., pure white Mohawk Via paper
Full month views
Monday – Friday weekly lesson planning spreads
2019 – 2020 yearly calendar overview
2019 – 2020 holidays
5 sticker pages in the front (796 stickers total)
24 notes pages (12 lined, 12 grid)
Simple color throughout
Hard cover with gold foil details
Protective gold corners
Gold, sturdy wire-o binding inside
Navy interior
Colorful, sturdy mylar tabs
Sections for:
- About Me — professional goals, resource logins
- Prep — weekly & daily routines
- Class — procedures, student / sub / emergency info
- Student Checklists
- Calendar
- Notes
- August – July monthly tabs

If you are a first time Simplified customer and have never set up an account before, use this link to set up your account and you will save $10 on your first order!

This planner is built around the idea of intentionally simple, just like all of Emily’s planners. It is minimal, on purpose.

As always, I like to share a review of a clean, unused planner, so if you’re looking for a detailed “how I use this planner in home education,” that post will be coming soon! I do plan to walk you through the planner in this post and share a few ideas and thoughts in this review so that you can make an informed decision as you consider this as a potential Teacher Lesson Planner. I am planning a future post or video that will share a mock up week and some prep pages to show you how I would use this planner in home education.

Let’s walk through together…

One of my favorite features of this planner are the durable hard covers. This planner is uniquely bound – it’s a wire-o binding within a hardbound cover. I love this feature because I truly love the durability of the hardbound covers (for travel, sliding in and out of a bag, moving across my desk, a shelf…and everywhere else for an entire year) and the ease of flipping pages that a wire-o gives.

There is one key and noteworthy piece of information worth mentioning: this type of wire-o binding within a hardbound cover does NOT allow you to bend the planner backward (in half on itself), as you might do with a coil bound planner. If you are primarily a desk planner and prefer seeing your entire week open at a glance when you’re planning and executing, you’ll enjoy the binding of this planner. If you need to bend your planner back on itself just as you need air to breathe, consider carefully, because you can’t do that without completely breaking the binding.

Opening the cover, the Emily Ley Simplified Teacher Planner starts with 5 full sheets of coiled in stickers. The selections are beautiful and functional and I love all of them!

I mean – look at these icon stickers!!!

The art icons are so adorable!!

And this page of stickers hand drawn by Jessa Bray? So beautiful! If this sticker page ever goes on sale as a stand alone in the shop, I’ll be the first in line!

I mean – seriously! Who doesn’t want about 60 more “laminate” stickers? I do! #laminateallthethings

The next page of flag stickers are purely functional.

Next is a page of blank flags. I pulled three blank (teal) flags from this page to start to set this planner up to work for our home education. And you’ll see how I used them in a picture below. Keep reading!

After the coiled in stickers we begin the actual planner. In using the planner, I will probably consider removing the stickers, trimming the edge of the sticker paper to a straight edge, and tucking the stickers in the back pocket of my planner.

In the front of every Emily Ley Simplified Planner there is a letter from Emily, and this planner is no different. This planner also happens to have a note from Taylor, Emily’s sister in law, and the co-designer of the planner. Taylor was a teacher for many years and her experience helped build the planner.

The planner is divided into two distinct sections – the prep work and support pages which are in the first section, and then the monthly and weekly pages where the rubber meets the road.

The first two pages in our prep/support section are two “About Me” pages. Typically, for a home educator, there is no purpose in having these pages. But I love having a place to list my home education goals on the left facing page, and the resource/username/password columns will actually be very helpful. So, other than omitting or repurposing a little information, these pages will be very useful for a home educator.

I think these could be the two most valuable pages in the entire planner. What worked well? What didn’t? New routines and goals to work toward! This is big picture planning at its best! These pages hold your hand in reflecting and then walk you forward through goal setting in your education environment! In home education, there is not a single year that has been static and unchanging. Kids grow and challenges present themselves. Year after year. It’s so important to reflect and then walk it forward!

Following right behind those reflections and big picture goals are the perfect follow up! THIS is how I think when I plan! To find it laid out as part of the prep work is not only intuitive to me, but I think very valuable and helpful. We’re walking our reflecting and big picture planning inward – narrowing the funnel of brainstorming. The following two pages have a place to set weekly routines and daily routines!

Now that we have a working plan for the big picture, the weekly and the daily, it’s time to step into some teaching specific pages. The student info pages follow under the “class” tab. There are two total pages in this design. The Happy Stripe is so beautiful, but I will likely use these pages in a different way, using them as a yearly booklist. It only takes a simple sticker to cover the headings of the columns and repurpose the page.

The next page is set up to record values and procedures. I’ll probably repurpose this and record the virtues and habits we are working on for the year, and list resources for those habits and virtues in the “procedures” section.

Education inspiration follows – this might be a good place to record pinterest inspiration or wishlists for learning room organization!

Alright. Every single teacher planner has a substitute info page! And that makes absolute and perfect sense for a teacher in a standard schoolroom setting! I chose to use stickers (these came with the planner…remember those three missing stickers from an earlier picture?) to show you how easy it is to repurpose a page completely! Just use an ultra fine sharpie and repurpose and name those sections whatever you’d like! I will probably use this as a resource listing for my own “substitute teacher” which consists of educational videos. This will give me a great place to jot down program ideas so I don’t forget! Make the planner work for you!

On the opposite facing page is an emergency info page. I plan to use this to review and teach various emergency responses to different scenarios. Just because we’re not in a classroom setting doesn’t mean we don’t need to review our fire procedures. And living in tornado alley, we definitely need to review those seasonally!

The student checklist pages follow. There are 3 (2-page) spreads. In case you need more checklist pages, you can find them available freely here, in the free printables of Simplified, under the school tab. Print what you need and keep them with your planner.

I use the checklist to note milestones and attainments.

We’re getting close to the end of the prep and support pages!

The next set of pages include a 2019 and 2020 calendar on a page. I enjoy mapping out our big picture yearly plans here. I use transparent date dots from Krissyanne Designs because if you choose the “colorful” colorway they match the SP colors perfectly!

2019/2020 holidays – to use as a reference.

We wrap up the calendar section with a school year overview. I appreciate so much that this page runs with the academic year!!! One of my favorite things to do at the beginning of a school year is to set up the basic framework of a year on an overview page! I refer to it often through the year, and especially as I plan out my terms/semesters.

Opposite the year overview is a place to record the daily overview. I can see so much potential in this page! This is a great place to list activities, classes, co-ops, sports activities, volunteering days.

Notes pages!!! There are 12 fully lined pages for notes! Be still my heart!

And there are 12 grid pages – for more notes! A total of 24 notes pages! I love having them all grouped together like this!

And now, we’re to the heart of the planner where we live our days!

This is a dated planner and it begins with August 2019. Each month begins with a full monthly spread. I love the simplicity tips at the top of each monthly spread. This monthly spread gives ample room for recording field trips, special themes, weeks or days off, and your general schedule. I love that each month has a generous notes column on the far left.

Immediately behind the monthly spread are the weekly pages for that month.

For me, and likely for you as well, this is where you’ll spend the majority of your time, both in planning and executing your days. The pages are generous and there are 6 vertical columns and a support column on the far right of each weekly spread for recording themes, booklists, notes, field trips, challenges, etc. You can label your columns however you like – list skills, subjects, or designate one column for each child. The latter is how I plan and it works so well for us!

I do want to note one piece of information. The weekly spread is unlined. This can be a pro or a con depending on your needs. Without lines, you are free to note as many assignments as you’d like under a column for a given day. The smaller you write, the more you can fit. You won’t be limited to seven lines within a block! On the other hand, if you need or appreciate lines to write when you plan (>>raises hand<<), you may feel a little lost. And I confess, this is how I’m feeling.

Finally, behind the last month of the planner is the coiled in pocket. There is a folio pocket on both sides.

A full size piece of paper does fit in the back pocket. I tested and I can fit 10 pages of letter size paper in the front and 10 pages of letter size paper in the back side of the pocket at the same time, but it is a really tight fit.

Each planner comes with a gold embossed card that states, “the work you do matters.” What an encouragement! It does matter. There are very few, if any, glorious moments, not much fanfare, hardly any glitter (unless it spilled all over the floor on craft day) and no paycheck. It is hard, hard work. Yet at the end of this journey, there is a person, formed in virtue and a self-educator, ready to encounter great ideas and conversation. And that friends is what makes the work you do matter. And it matters so much!

The Simplified Teacher Planner and accessories will be available on May 1 at 7:00 pm Eastern. If you have never purchased a Simplified Planner before, you can click this link, set up an account, and receive a coupon for $10 off!

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them in the comments!

Happy launch day, Simplified!

Dear Homeschooling Mom: February Is a Time To Refresh

February 13, 2019

February is here. Any homeschooler knows what that means. Burnout season. I choose to view it differently, and after 18 years of homeschooling, this February time of reflection has come to be one of the most important times of our year for considering some of our habits, routines and spaces anew – and refreshing!

By February, here’s what is usually happening in an average homeschooling family (and I’m definitely including my little family in this grouping)…..

Somewhere from a smattering of disorder to all out chaos in terms of “stuff” (usually attributable to the happy influx around Christmas)
A real erosion of habit training (usually also a direct result of holiday scheduling and the garden variety of normal, everyday happenings)
An awareness that we planned a bit too much over the summer months in terms of lessons, and books to be read, and projects to be accomplished, and reports, and field trips, and, and, and…
An awareness that we haven’t accomplished nearly as much as we thought we would have by this time for various legitimate reasons
The subsequent dislike and/or complaining from the children associated with lesson overload or acting out due to boredom and lack of opportunity
The sinking feeling that something/everything isn’t working
The overwhelming sensation of drowning in a sea of laundry, lessons, life, and littles

What do you do when this hits? And, it hits every single February like clockwork.

I refresh.

Homeschooling is a lot like walking into the closet and choosing clothes. Some days we walk in, put something on the children and it fits. This works for a while, but then our children grow or seasons change and we need to make adjustments. Too much in the closet and a lot is wasted and never worn. Too flashy often equals too flashy and we always tend to the well fitting and comfortable. Too much and you’re overwhelmed with choices.

Keep it simple, keep it realistic and join me and the rest of the moms in the homeschooling world and let’s refresh – weed out the ill-fitting, simplify to fit our family, add a touch of the beautiful and know that we’re gonna have to do the same thing as each child grows and as the seasons change.

FOCUS ON:

Lessons and your general family educational philosophy
Plans
Season of life
Habits
Children’s needs
Spaces

And then…REFRESH!

I try to freshen by getting back to a simpler, gentler, more realistic plan and space – one that meets the needs of *my* family and *our* needs at this time. In this time of social media and vast homeschooling resources and support (all good!) it is easy to lose clarity of vision. Unplug for just a little while during this refresh process!

An often forgotten component, but an integral one is the beauty and relaxing you nurture amongst your days. Take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, grab a cup of tea and make a plan of prayer and action that takes into account where you are, where you want to be, and introduces a little sunshine. Your kids have likely grown since August/September when you started school…let’s refresh!

Lessons and our general family philosophy

Every family has one, whether you tend more towards workbook pages and texts or learning in the context of real life and more living books. Get back to your basic philosophy if you’re feeling overwhelmed. It’s a safe space.

**Side note** Would it be helpful if I shared a post on the main home education philosophies? If you’ve been a reader here for some time, and many of you have, you know that I consider myself a classically-minded Charlotte Mason home educator. CM’s 20 principles animate our days and have for 18 years – from preschool to high school…and beyond. But not all of you embrace that philosophy and some of you are quite new to homeschooling, so this idea, which is really at the core of who you are as a homeschooler and will animate your days, is so important. It’s foundational. Would you like to chat more about that? Ok…let’s get back to refreshing…

If you’re really feeling the weight of burnout it’s time to get back to absolute basics – reading – and this is universal regardless of the educational philosophy you embrace because it’s THE oldest curriculum. Here are three posts of mine for your consideration while you read and consider and freshen. These are three of my favorites!

Read out loud. Read outside if it’s nice. Read on top of pillows piled in front of a sunny window. Read in the morning and before bed. Just let them read. You read too, and pray. Do some soul searching. Discern where your own teaching philosophy and abilities mesh with your children’s learning needs. There will always be opportunities for growing and stretching in both of these areas, but for the most part where these two abilities intersect is where you’ll spend the majority of your energy and time homeschooling. This is home.

Plans

Have I tried to incorporate too much? Scratch everything but the basics.
Am I overloaded and overwhelmed with a myriad of learning philosophies? Simplify down to the core philosophy….and read, read, read.

Are my plans languishing because of a lack of time to accomplish them? Time for a reality check – did I plan too much or am I not offering my presence enough to accomplish a realistic amount?

We can make plans and live them, but when reality makes it abundantly clear that we’ve gone off the path somewhere, be flexible enough to recognize it, accept it and make some changes. Plans are a roadmap – a tool. Don’t be afraid to make that tool work for you! Those plans aren’t driving this – you are! The beauty of homeschooling is that we can custom tailor a set of plans and curriculum to fit. Don’t get stuck in the “check every box” trap. Look at your plans with an eye toward each child and the reality of life right now and then…refresh it.

SEASON OF LIFE

Are you expecting another little one? Taking care of an aging parent? Meeting the needs of an illness? Learning how to nurture a high needs child?

Consider your season of life.

Different seasons require different approaches. Give yourself permission to let your lessons reflect the challenges you face in your current season of life! Trust that God’s timing in all things is PERFECT. He placed your family in this season with great thought – to draw you and your family closer to Him. So stay close. Stay focused on Him and He will provide you the graces to meet this season of life with gentleness and grace. Be patient with His timing. Remember, His Yoke is easy and His burden is light. If your yoke and burden are neither easy nor light, you’ve likely added a few too many expectations/ideas/to-do’s/plans/errands/expectations/projects to your days. (Ask me how I know this.) Lighten up. Step back and gain perspective. (This often/always requires unplugging, too!) Live out this season and trust that there are many lessons in it for your children that are far more valuable in the eternal and supernatural sense than any algebra lesson or book report could ever be.

Habits

Life in the trenches is often overwhelming with its fullness. Sometimes the children re-direct. Sometimes my husband does (this usually happens at the end of a sentence of mine listing a litany of my current projects and his integral involvement in them, whereupon he quietly, or sometimes playfully, reminds me of my human-ness and suggests/insists that we redirect ~~our~~ my focus toward the important stuff) And…sometimes God redirects. The quiet moments are always just a precursor to suffering and climbing back on the Cross. If you’re not there now, you will be. If you are there, you’ll soon be offered a respite. This is the way of the Cross. If we’re following Him, this is the way.

The habits I exercise either serve to help smooth my days or they can frustrate grace. It would be hard to give a list of habits to add to your “adopt this” list because some habits really should be at the service of your season. For example, I could tell you how the habit of early rising has helped me so much, but if you are a mommy of a nursing infant and a toddler and a couple of preschoolers then this is NOT the season for early rising – this is the season for claiming as much sleep as you can, when you can.

Habits often stretch us toward virtue, and that can never be a bad thing. Consider areas of self discipline that could use some work on your part. What are your pain points? (Make a simple list) Now, brainstorm within that knowledge! If there is a pain point, stretch in virtue, grow a new habit, and refresh the stale pain point of your day!

Children’s Needs

Think individually of each of your children and their specific needs…then think of ways you can address that need with something in your own home that lives on your shelf already. Imagine you are a pioneer and you are educating with a Bible and the family farm – put some of that ingenuity and imagination to use and harness it. Don’t let your knee-jerk reaction to, “this isn’t working” be “what new thing/book/curriculum can I now buy to fix it?” It may be that you will decide to prudentially purchase something after further research and exploration and discerning, but seek first to meet a need with something within your own home or with a better use of your time. Look for opportunities and answers from real life, from the everyday where most learning takes place.

Spaces

Let’s quickly address the idea of a learning space. As homeschoolers we may have a dedicated room or a desk or table or even bookshelves, but none of that is necessary! And it’s one of the reasons I love Charlotte Mason’s idea of education is atmosphere as opposed to an emphasis on a physical space!! If you’re homeschooling out of canvas bags at the kitchen table, you’re in good company. When we remodeled our home, we homeschooled out of 3 bags we moved from room to room each day – and it worked. For months!! After 18 years, I have the benefit of a homeschool room which I’m so grateful for and appreciate. But is a dedicated space necessary? Nope. And the reason I need to emphasize that is so that you will look at your spaces as enough and know that they truly are!

Wherever you spend most of your time, let’s call that a “learning space,” although – in all serious, learning spaces are everywhere. Because education is life. (Bonus points for you if you recognize a Charlotte Mason principle sneaking in!) But ok. For practical reasons, let’s confine this brainstorming to the physical spaces you’re working in – your kitchen table, a homeschool room, the couch in the family room. And regardless of where you are spending most of your time homeschooling, let’s take a look at that space.

Is it overstuffed? Is a learning space feeling suffocating? Stand inside that room, or open that homeschool bag or cabinet – look around. Have things been living on that shelf, in that corner, stuffed in that pocket, for months…for years…since you moved into the house? Does it belong there or would it work better somewhere else grouped with other like items? Is the room working for you or are you working constantly to keep that space? Find a way to restore a little bit of order in your spaces by sorting belongings and categorizing them.

Keep your books together and organize them (I organize my books by age/grade/form, but I also have a home library organized by genre, too).
Give each child their own space – a bag, a shelf, a bin. Let them have ownership of that space and let their books and pens and supplies live in that space.

Set up a space in your home that invites creativity and fosters a love of nature.
Children need spaces that are beautiful and that communicate learning opportunities and connections.
Do you have little-little people? Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around…have you made little spaces for them down low that are attractive and safe? Book corners, baskets of blocks, small groups of toys set about.
You need a LOT LESS than you think you need. Do not attempt to duplicate a schoolroom at home – it will be too busy and forced. Instead, focus your efforts on creating a beautiful, light, and open space. It will be easier to tidy and children will appreciate the few quality items they have access to far more.

Learning in the winter months can take on a touch of the drearies. It’s cold and harder to get outside. If your space is languishing, look for the light! Find a sunny spot, usually a southern facing room with windows and set up a reading corner – turn a chair around, relocate a table, bring a basket of books from the learning room…but find the sun. I orient my entire learning space around a sunny room for this very reason. The sun just encourages cheeriness and bathes the space in light.

February Refresh

Know that your learning space, your plans and strategies – will need a little tweaking, a little tidying. Give yourself permission to take a day or two to freshen your spaces, brainstorm your habits, consider your lessons and educational philosophy, bend to your season, and address your children’s needs. Seek out the sunny, the cheerful, the simple, and the gentle. And instead of feeling stale and languishing – refresh!

Summer Projects and What’s Coming Up

August 10, 2018

Summer is winding down and I’ve been busy wrapping up summer projects here and there and preparing for our 17th year of home education! Wow! Where does the time go?

With my last post, which many of you receive by email, it was evident that my blog had been hacked. I apologize for the nonsense that came with my post! I’ve been working hard on my end to clean up my blog and secure it. Crazy technology! I’m still working through some of the technical aspects of restoration on my end, but your emailed posts and viewing of the blog should be undisturbed at this point! (If they’re not, definitely let me know!)

I thought I’d share a bit about a few of my summer projects! Interested?

There was Hawaii…

Makapu’u Lighthouse Trail – breathtaking!

The North Shore

I spared you all 847 gazillion of my pictures. You’re welcome. But really. It’s just so beautiful! I fell in love with everything about Hawaii! We were on the island of Oahu and stayed in Honolulu for a week! It was stunning. Hawaii, you took my breath away!

Erin Condren Feature Wall

Erin Condren Retail Store – Austin, TX

The Erin Condren retail store in Austin, TX is a store to experience! I’ve been there a few times, and every time I’m there, I see something new. The products are staged beautifully, and something about the store just pulls you in. It feels fresh and inspiring all at once – and you begin to see possibilities in every corner. There is a display wall just as you walk in the store that presents a collection of popular Erin Condren planners (the Life Planner, a Wedding Planner, the Deluxe Monthly Planner, and the Teacher Planner) as well as a little about the person behind that planner. These are people in the planner community that share their planning ideas as a way of sharing and inspiring others. I loved seeing this wall when I visited the store! I count some of those people as friends!

So, imagine my surprise and shock when I was asked if I would mock up a couple of Erin Condren Teacher Planners to be displayed at the store so that others shopping there could see how another educator might use the Teacher Planner! Seeing a blank planner is inspiring – such possibility. But seeing someone else’s planner, all filled out – that begins to really illuminate ideas! It’s a way of jump starting the visualization process. So…I jumped at the chance! Let me know if you stop by the store and see my Teacher Planner there! 🙂 I’d love to know what you think!

Home Library Redo

Our family room has, for some time now, had bookshelves that contain all the books I use from preschool through high school on the back wall of our family room. It isn’t by any means our only set of shelves! (I’ve got an entire library upstairs on the landing at the top of stairs!) But this set of shelving allows me to plan for and live out each year of our children’s education. The books are organized by grade and that makes it so easy to plan and find books!

I’ve been saving for some time for nicer shelves (ours were wobbly…and ugly).

Our family room is on the north side of our home and at times, it can be dark, so I wanted open bookshelves that would allow as much light to pass through them as possible (a tall order!). I also wanted sturdy and all-wood! After all, they hold a lot of books! I found my shelves at Target online – I ordered 3 of the 8 shelf room dividers by International Concepts. These are unfinished. I couldn’t be happier with the end result! The sides are all open which allows so much more light through. That was a big project that I was so happy to check off!

Simplified Planner Start Date & Prep Work

The new Academic Year Simplified Planners started on August 1 of this year, and as I mentioned in my review post, this year’s planners have a new set of Prep Work pages in the front. I found these so helpful to consider and brainstorm through as I set up my planner!

Our morning routine really needed some reworking, and with one child now married and living in her own home, and another child who is basically done homeschooling and will spend his entire 12th grade year dual enrolled at the local college, I find the chemistry of our family once again shifting. It’s just like when we brought a new baby home – old routines didn’t work anymore – we had to find a new normal. And as we send older children out, the same principles apply – there is a new normal to settle into.

And guess what? If you’re a calendar year planner, the new January – December 2019 Simplified Planners launch September 5, along with the Dapper Desk line! Be ready to shop – there’s a coupon for you on this post! The Simplified Planner is one of those planners that, once sold out, is not restocked. So if you have your heart set on a particular cover – shop sooner rather than later. I’m just sayin’!

Prepping for a new school year

I remember…back when I was a young homeschool mom…ahem…it’s been awhile…Rita Munn used to say that you can’t put new wine in old wineskins – time to freshen the spaces! I really delight in freshening up our learning spaces. Children are growing and changing and there are new needs now taking the place of old routines.

I spruced up our (thrifted a million gazillion years ago through Craigslist) learning room bookshelves with some peel and stick wallpaper in blue links! I love how something so simple gives an old piece of furniture a lift!

And then I wrangled our booklists and schedules for the upcoming year. This year I’ve got a Kindergartener, a 5th grader, and an 8th grader! Technically, I have a 12th grader, too, but he only needs 2 credits to graduate and he’ll get those (and more) by enrolling full time at the local college where he will be able to dual enroll (meaning he gets both high school and college credit). If you’d like to see our booklists and term plans for this year check out the Printables tab up there, then look under Home Education, and you’ll find the booklists and plans organized for you by grade.

Coming Up!

Homeschool Connections Webinar – INSPIRE

I’m speaking with Mary Ellen Barrett for another Homeschool Connections Webinar on August 17! Thank you so much for having me back, Homeschool Connections! Click below to go sign up for this free webinar!

Homeschool Connections – INSPIRE

Beginning a fresh, new year can be daunting – there are schedules and books and things and little people and big people and what about our spouses – will there possibly be time somewhere in there to nurture marriage? Whether you’re still in the midst of considering your days, or you’re about to begin, I invite you to join us for the day! I’m going to be chatting with Mary Ellen Barrett about STEWARDING THE GIFT OF TIME and I’m so excited to share with you and answer some of your questions!

New Post: Reviewing The Catholic Daily Planner!

Y’all don’t want to miss this post! There are some exciting surprises for you in it! Watch your inbox! It should land there soon!

And that’s it. My busy summer officially ends today, and next Monday starts a whole new year! Here’s to new beginnings!

Notes From Here…a Little of This and That

June 13, 2018

Happy summertime, friends! Here in the deep south it is blazing hot – which means pool time! I know some of you keep rolling with homeschool all through the summer, and I’ve done that before, too – why not, after all?! The weather is so painfully hot – make hay while the sun is shining, my mom would say. But these days, I need a hard stop and a B-R-E-A-K! We finished up our homeschool year at the end of May!!! (insert confetti here!) These days we’re spending afternoons in our refreshing swimming pool out back, reading, playing, traveling, watching movies, and planning for lots of big adventures!

Here are a few of the things that have been on my plate since spring and through summer. 🙂

Our biggest and most joyful news is that our daughter Sarah and her husband are expecting their first little one – our first grandchild. We’re overjoyed! Sarah is about 6 months along now and finally feeling well and enjoying life again as she and her husband prepare home and routines for a little one. We can’t wait to meet our first grandchild in September!
I was invited to attend the GO Wild Planner Conference in Austin this year and had a blast! It was so great meeting so many of the wonderful and generous women in the planner community, and see some of my dear friends again! Y’all KNOW how much I love planning, and always have. I was a planner before planning was cool! LOL! And I’m still a planner at heart! But even I am a little astounded at how many OTHER PEOPLE love planning, too! There were 1300 of us at GO Wild in Austin!! It was an extraordinary weekend sharing with others and meeting new friends and connecting with other planners who also believe that time is a gift to steward!
I was thrilled to speak at the Minnesota Catholic Home Education Conference this year! I met many of you that have been blog readers, made so many new friends (underthyroof – Sterling Jaquith – if you’re not already a reader, go check them out, friends!!), and delighted in sharing with all of you about the Morning Basket, and a Charlotte Mason education. I’ve got some other speaking opportunities in the future, but nothing firm that I can announce yet. I love sharing with all of you in person!
We’ve been plugging away at some rather large home projects that took our attention, planning, and budgeting focus. One of those happened to be home foundation issues. Yuck! The East side of our house was sinking into the earth and the fix wasn’t simple or inexpensive. I’m so proud of my husband for his efforts in brainstorming that project out. We’ve been actively working it since March and we finished the final steps of the project in late May. Foundation repaired and stable! But boy, did that take a lot of energy and time!
And now, I’m shifting gears from the last school year and setting up my Teacher Planner and booklists for a new year! In August we’ll start again – my 17th year of home education – and this upcoming school year I’ll have:
- A 12th grader who will only do a couple of classes for me at home next year, and will complete his 12th grade year dual-enrolled at a local college. He’s got his eyes set on an engineering degree at this point and is moving in that direction after graduation in May 2019. So proud of that young man!
- An 8th grader – it’s hard to believe my little fella is in 8th grade and as tall as me! This will be my 3rd time through 8th grade with a young person and I’m looking forward to setting this year up for John Paul! He’s a voracious learner. I’m really eager to see where his passions fall in this year’s reading booklist which is full of adventure and noble deeds.
- A 5th grader – Katie was slow to reading mastery (every child is on their own timeline!), but this past year her reading ability and confidence has taken off. This summer she’s pulling wonderful books off the shelf for her independent reading time and inhaling them – books like Annie Oakley, and The Kitchen Madonna. I’m so excited for her to enjoy her booklist next year and stretch into some other areas like written narrations and dictation lessons!
- And my little Kindergartner – who is growing up so fast! Lauren already knows all of her letters and their sounds and has been sounding out short, simple words on her own this summer, so I’ll do what I’ve always done with reading – meet her where she is and continue to invite forward from there. One of my delights is setting up our yearly themed picture book lists in the early years! I’m so ready to dig into that! This is a time so full of wonder and scope for the imagination and I treasure it!
- By the way…did you know I updated all of my lesson plans and booklists for you recently? Yep! Every grade from K – 12 is uploaded so you can take a look at our booklists and schedules. I share them as a little bouquet of book ideas – gather what will work for you! If you’re looking for a how-to planning guide for building your own booklist start with a Considered Booklist!

Upcoming:

We’re planning a big family adventure soon! It’s a fantastic opportunity that we’re all looking forward to!! Aloha!
Lesson planning for next year – and my video showing how I set up and use my Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner (read my review of it here).
Lots of relaxing and refreshing in the pool each afternoon!
And more. I wear a lot of hats! Life is full!

Which brings me to my time here on my blog.

For the last 11 years (!!) I’ve been sharing with you in this, my little corner of the interwebs! For years I’ve been blogging and sharing out of the margin of my day as my season of life allows. Margin: the little bits of time around the edges of the day that I can claim. I write and share about those topics that are dear to my heart, that I have a passion for, and that you seem to want to hear about. And I write as my season of life allows. It’s as simple as that.

I’ve worked really hard to cultivate this little digital space – I want it to be lovely, inviting, welcoming, quiet, and full of encouragement. For the first time ever, I’m trying to get a little more organized. I’m using a content planner to try to map out my goals, new posts, to bring some of my older posts forward for those of you that may be new here, and to help me map all the technical time I put into my blog – there is a lot of coding and arranging and setting up behind the scenes that I’ve been working on over the last couple of years. I’m a one-person show! LOL!! I don’t have a team, or a virtual assistant. I don’t have “people.” It’s just me. 🙂 It’s just my voice and my effort here – whether that’s good or bad, whether you like my content or not, it’s just me. Give me some time to build and grow into this habit, friends! I want to write more, but it will mean shifting my entire default blogging style and setting up new habits! LOL! And after 11 years of blogging that won’t be easy!

What’s COMING SOON:

My Erin Condren Teacher Planner video and walk through – this was so popular last year! Y’all gave me so much feedback on this video (I’m grateful!) so I’m definitely going to post a new one showing you this year’s planner, how I plan in it, how I set it up for 4 kids and home educating 12th grade, 8th grade, 5th grade, and Kindergarten.
Coming Clean – I’ve wanted to write and share this post for some time. 10 years ago I was diagnosed with an Autoimmune Disease – Hashimoto’s – and for the last year I’ve really been battling an upswing in symptoms and issues all stemming from that Autoimmune Disease. I’ve learned a lot, but this has forced one of the most dramatic paradigm shifts for this rice-and-gravy-give-me-bread-and-butter-with-a-big-chunk-of-parmesan-cheese-cafe’-au-lait drinking French Cajun girl. I love bread. I love dairy. I had to give both up. I don’t know if there will be interest in this post or interest in some of the solutions that have helped me keep my comfort food style in the kitchen while avoiding foods that trigger my autoimmune. Let me know! I’m definitely going to share this one post with you. Whether I share more will be entirely up to you and your feedback!
As part of managing my Autoimmune Disease and restoring my health I’ve really focused on self-care. For the first time, I’m really taking care of my self and I’d love to share some of my routines and the products that brought health back to some areas that were really damaged by my Autoimmune Disease – like my hair and skin!
My Splendor In the Ordinary series – I am definitely going to continue this series! I love sharing it with you.
Home Education posts – by far, one of the most voluminous categories here! I’m eager to share more perspective – like my home library and ideas for building one of your own! The Learning Room continues to serve us and be an extension of beauty and a space that invites wonder – I’d love to share more of it with you. And high school. I’m going to try to find a way to share and encourage more about home education in high school because it’s worthy and doable, and oh so rewarding! I am very guarded when it comes to my kids’ privacy, and even more so when it comes to my high schoolers. They’re normal kids and they’re allowed to make mistakes and enjoy successes without having that broadcast. So, I’ll think on how I can encourage while respecting my kids’ privacy!

Home Organizing posts – sharing about organizing is my passion. I love identifying pain points in my time or in my spaces and finding creative solutions that restore order and are beautiful! I love my home and making my home beautiful – I enjoy the challenge of choosing contentment with the less-than-perfect, and I love the hard work and investment of time and resources we’ve made over the years to transform some of our spaces. Look for more of these posts!

Happy summer, everyone! I hope to see you back here soon! Let’s see if I can shift my blogging paradigm!

Erin Condren Teacher Planner as Homeschool Planner – Video Walk Through

July 19, 2017

Friends, I promised a video detailing how I set up my Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner to use in our homeschool – and here it is!

Before we start, it might help to remember that I’m planning for an 11th grader, 7th grader, 4th grader and preschooler in this planner. We are Charlotte Mason educators using Classical principles – so my plans reflect days full of living books and ideas. In this video, I’ll show how I will use the Erin Condren Teacher Planner to tie up all the loose ends, lesson plans, and the administrivia of homeschooling. All four of my children’s plans – from preschool to high school will live in this one planner.

If you’re just arriving here and you haven’t read through my detailed review of this planner – check that out here – the review will show you how the planner will look right out of the box. That will be helpful because, in this video, I show you the ways I change the planner to fit our homeschool lifestyle. {Full disclosure: I’m not a professional vlogger!! LOL! Which I think will be evident in my video! Which is totally fine…but…just sayin’! And, I talk with my hands. A lot. Sorry if that’s distracting!}

Thanks so much for watching! Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like to see the follow-up videos I’m planning – my learning room tour, my home library organization, and how to build a considered set of lesson plans from beginning to end. I’ll also be posting more about life planning in my Erin Condren Hourly Life Planner and my Emily Ley Simplified Planner – and how I work my 2-planner system!

And…be sure to follow me on Instagram! I share a little something every day: planning and organizing ideas for the home and the homeschool, and peeks inside our home. I’d love to have you along!

** To purchase the Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner: click here.

AND…..Click here for $10 off your first Erin Condren order!!

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO

{I tried to list these in the order they were mentioned – full disclosure: some of the links in this post are affiliate links. They cost you nothing, but I may earn a small commission – and, I thank you!!!}

For the “wonder” decal on the front (inside) cover of my planner, message Melody directly through her Instagram account. I have several of her decals in a variety of colors and they’re all beautiful!
Pilot Ultra Fine Permanent (I use permanent markers on my covers and erase with alcohol wipes)
Le Pen Ultra Fine Permanent
Sharpie Ultra Fine Permanent
Silhouette Sticker Paper – which I used to create stickers to customize and change my planner.
Buttercup font (free) which is similar to the font used in the ECTLP
My Attendance Page for your planning book (free)
Owl Plan With You Etsy shop for yearly plan stickers
Read more about our Morning Basket
Krissy Anne Designs (a favorite sticker shop!) transparent dot stickers
plannerkate scalloped stickers
jenplans Youtube channel for planning inspiration
Erin Condren Dual Tip markers (all my monthly layouts {Aug-Jul} I used the Dual Tip markers)
Sarasa pens .7 (all the lesson plan pages I color coded with these Sarasa pens)
Le Pen
Pentel Energel .5 set (my favorite pen – this is what I use in my other planners…in blue – fast drying, smooth writing)
Erin Condren Stylized Sticky Corner Pocket
Coil Clips for use in all Erin Condren planners and notebooks.
You can see all my lesson plan grids (K-12th grade) on my blog under the printables tab.

Tutorial for customizing the tabs on the Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner

If you’d like to change/customize a tab on your Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner, I’ll show you how I did that using my home printer and things I had around my house!

Using my word processing program (I use Pages for mac), I created two rectangular text boxes, inserted color fill, and centered text in the middle of the box. I used Josefin Sans font, 15 point, bold for {THEMES} and Josefin Sans, 10 point, bold for {MORNING BASKET}. For you font geeks (like me!) I increased character spacing to 11% because that was a better match for the ECTLP tab font.
With Silhouette Sticker Paper, I printed and trimmed close to the two tab rectangles. Remember you need 2 of each label for the front and back side of your tab.
I put a piece of packing tape over the top to function as the lamination for the tab.

Then I trimmed the rectangle text box to its edges, removed the paper backing, and placed it over the original tab.

Do that with BOTH sides of the tab and then using your fingernail or something pointy, press firmly around the edge of the stickers to get a good seal. This will also help you see where to cut to trim.

You’ll want to use scissors that allow for a fine cut to trim the excess edges of your tab. I used my Fiskars 5-inch micro tip scissors.

Voila! New tab! Be sure to press firmly so that your sticker adhesive attaches well to the original tab.

I hope you found this helpful if you’re considering the Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner as your planner for next year! Let me know if you have any questions at all!

Happy planning!!

Review: Erin Condren 2017 Teacher Lesson Planner

June 23, 2017

It’s that time of year – we’re all starting to think about planning for the year ahead. Keeping ideas and records and books and assignments on paper somewhere is a necessity for any teacher. In the homeschool, planning and organizing can be a sanity-saver and is sometimes required (by different state and local requirements). As homeschool moms, we’re usually juggling multiple grade levels, multiple children, various challenges, books and things – and all the stuff of home like laundry, and meals, and errands and sick people. Having a good paper landing pad for homeschool planning has become essential for me – it gives everyone here the direction they need to do what they ought to do each day.

And that’s why I’m so excited about the Erin Condren Teacher Planner and the Back To School Accessories for this year. I’ve used this Teacher Planner for the last two years, but this year Erin Condren has upped her game when it comes to all her planners – they are sophisticated and functional and absolutely beautiful. Both the new Life Planners and the new Teacher Planners benefit from the new partnership with Mohawk Paper, and the result is a paper that is substantial and beautiful. The paper takes almost any pen applied without bleeding through to the other side. For a teacher planner, this is of paramount importance because our plans are many – any bleed through would create a mess and potentially illegible plans. So the paper, while seemingly unnoticeable, is important.

(Full disclosure: Many links are affiliate links – they cost you nothing, but I may receive a small commision! Thank you so much – I’m grateful!)

Before we go further, I want to share a video I made detailing exactly how I modify this planner (very slightly) to use it as a homeschool planner. I share a little about how I plan (in general and in this planner), and I walk you through every page of the planner sharing ideas! It’s going to be helpful to you to read the review on this page first so you can see how the planner will arrive and look out of the box – but if you’re looking for ideas to customize the Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner – whether in a homeschool setting or as a teacher at school, I’d love you to check out my video! Let me know what you think!!

The cover choices this year are extraordinary, but the watercolor apples cover is simply stunning. It is vibrant and rich with the watercolor apples, yet the colors are soft and cheery.

Inside each cover is a dashboard that can be used with wet erase markers, but I prefer to use ultra fine permanent Sharpie markers or a Pilot ultra fine permanent pen because with permanent markers there is no chance for any smudge or transfer of the ink. I use an alcohol wipe to erase my work and start again.

These dashboards are so useful! List planning goals, vocabulary words, geography notes, challenging spelling words, memory work verses. The potential is endless! The front cover dashboard is lined; there is an unlined dashboard on the back cover. (I need the lines so much!!!)

Throughout the planner this year, the painted petals appear on watercolor washes of rich, vibrant color. It lends a sophisticated note to the entire planner. While this planner still retains a certain whimsy, overall it is this sophisticated theme that draws this year’s Teacher Planner into a realm that any teacher – in any setting or teaching any grade – would enjoy!

The Teacher Planner is divided into 4 sections:

Admin pages
Monthly planning pages
Lesson planning pages
Checklist, sticker pages, and folders

I will be changing and adjusting the layout and the purpose of some of these pages to fit our homeschool lifestyle, and incorporating some hacks I’ve learned over the last three years of using this planner that really make this planner functional for me. I’d LOVE to share those with you, but I don’t think I’ll have room to do that here (this post is already huge!). So…maybe…if you’re interested, I’ll post a video on youtube and walk you through how I set up and plan in my Erin Condren Teacher Planner. Interested?? Leave me a comment below if so!

For this post, let’s stick to the actual layout of the Teacher Planner. Whether you’re a teacher in a school setting that may be reading here and looking for a review, or a homeschool mom considering this planner, I think you’ll be able to see the potential in these pages. (And remember to check out my video if you’re looking for HOW I will plan in this planner!)

~ COUPON LINK ~

Before we go further, I want to share a link with you. If you read this review and you’d like to purchase an Erin Condren Teacher Planner and this is your first order, click through RIGHT HERE and set up an account and Erin Condren will email you a coupon code for $10 off your order! Every little bit helps!

1. ADMIN PAGES

The first page includes an inspirational quote, followed by an *All About Me* page. As a homeschooler, the top third of this page isn’t needed, but the other sections could be useful.

Next up are the *Classroom Events and Volunteers* page and the *Helpful Hints for the Substitute* page. As a homeschooler, neither of these pages are needed, but the flagged and lined boxes on the *Classroom* page can still be useful. A few stickers can change the theme of the “Classroom” page. The *Helpful Hints* page is completely unnecessary to a homeschooler, so I’ll be putting a full page sticker over it and I’ll customize it to fit my needs. I may put my attendance tracking grid here.

In past planners, rather than repurposing the *All About Me* page and the *Classroom Events and Volunteers* page, and since they’re back to back, I just removed this entire page – just ripped it right out. I haven’t decided if I’ll do that again this year, or do some repurposing with stickers.

Under the Contact tab is the *Communication Log*. This page was highly requested by teachers! For a homeschooler…I guess you could record every time you brainstorm with your husband? Or maybe a homeschool mentor? But most likely, a communication log isn’t high on your list of needs in a planner. It can be a great 2-page spread for lists, and I’ll probably add a sticker to change its purpose. This may become my Morning Basket master list – I’ll note which books I might want to read aloud each term, our nature study themes, art prints we’ll study, composers, resources, etc. In any case, you can see that this is a great listing page…for any of your listing needs!

Next are the *Year Plan* pages. Since this is an academic planner, I would like it if these two pages were flipped, so that the first page contained Aug – Jan, and the second page held Feb – Jul. Since this planner was sent to me to review, I set up a page so you could see the kind of things I’d note here, but in my actual planner, I’ll be rearranging the months. I can use the flag stickers from the new Cool for School sticker book to cover the months and then re-label them to make sense for an academic year. Or…I’m considering a sticker purchase from a shop I’ve purchased from before – Owl Plan With You. She makes monthly flag stickers that match the colors of the planner so you can do exactly as I propose – re-arrange the months to reflect an academic year that begins with August (or any month you choose…but the academic planner begins in August) on the left facing page.

The *Absentee Log* is next, and this is another record page that I don’t need as a homeschooler. This will get a fresh sticker cover to re-label and change the theme of this page to become my book and reading log page.

The graph pages are wonderful and are perfect for a variety of content. They work well for mapping out your home library, listing science projects or craft projects, or planning how you can freshen and arrange your learning room. There are 4 graph pages total. So useful!

2. MONTHLY PLANNING PAGES

The next section contains 12 months worth of monthly planning pages. Each set of monthly planning pages contains six pages and is arranged in the following order:

2-page lined spread
Goals page
Inspirational quote page (the quotes this year are among my favorites!!)
2-page undated monthly calendar spread

The lined pages are fantastic for brainstorming monthly challenges! As homeschoolers, our kids are always changing and growing…and usually presenting new challenges. I love using these pages before each month to list my observations, any challenges, resources, and ideas. It’s just a fantastic brainstorming space!

I really like the new and redesigned goals planning page! There are a variety of “visual containers” to list goals or books. I may use this page to plan out my preschool themes for the month. I like the idea of listing various Montessori presentations and activities here.

I love the dates to remember section! I’ll probably cover *birthdays* and in that section I’ll list our liturgical year celebrations, as well as seasonal observations. That gives me a full section to plan seasonally – perfect!

The inspirational quotes pages are among my favorite changes this year. Along with the updated watercolor theme, the quotes here are inspiring!

The tw0-page calendar spread is ready for you to add colorful date dots (these will come with your planner), or just use a pen to add the dates. The calendar squares are large enough to accommodate events, field trips, attendance, volunteer hours and more. I like to map out our weeks, holidays, teacher work days, and anything special that may be happening that will impact our schedule…like Dad being off work.

This is the entire first half of this planner – with admin pages and the monthly planning pages.

With 12 months (containing 6 pages each), this monthly planning section comprises 72 pages.

3. LESSON PLAN PAGES

All of the weekly lesson plan pages are coiled in together behind the *Lessons* tab. The design, as well as the colors of the two-page lesson plan spread, was updated this year. And the number of 2-page weekly planning spreads was increased to 40! This addition will allow me to map out 36 weeks of lesson planning AND my teacher work weeks that I take in between each term! For my teacher weeks I can list planning goals, books to adjust or possibly substitute, term plans to update, shelves that may need attention, supplies to restock, challenges to brainstorm and address – and all the administrivia that takes place in a teacher week. OR…maybe you just need some extra lesson planning pages – they’ve added them!

Overall, the pages are cleaner and streamlined, which is something I prefer. The top of the page includes an area to note the week number.

Across the top of the page are subject designations, and down the left column are the days of the week.

Are you curious to see how an average week for a homeschooling family might look in this planner? I grabbed my lesson plans from last year and pulled out an “average week.” I mapped the entire week out on these pages and I have to admit that I surprised even myself at how well it fit! Now, just to be clear – we are homeschoolers, so the plans on these pages reflect an average homeschool week for four kids (at the time they were: 10th, 6th, 3rd, preschool). For you hard working teachers that might be reading, I think you can still get a good idea of how you can lesson plan and how much you can fit in this planner!

I color code my kids. Doesn’t everyone? Mark, my rising 11th grader, is blue. John Paul, a rising 7th grader, is green. Katie will be in the 4th grade and she’s pink. And Lauren is my preschooler and she is yellow. I use the Zebra Sarasa pens because they write with a fine line, their colors are vibrant, and they dry quickly – no smudging. (In case you’re wondering, I wrote with a .7 pen for this layout.)

The generous date boxes along the left side of the page allow me to note my personal goals for each day. If I don’t have a visual check in point, I may get rolling with my day and forget to ask for narrations. But if I see reminders in front of me, I won’t forget.

I’m experimenting with standard check marks to note completed work (see above)…or…

…using a highlighter when work is completed. I think I like the neater way the highlighter looks while still giving an easily seen visual reference that work has been completed.

We are Charlotte Mason home educators so our curriculum is wide and generous. I wasn’t sure I could fit everything from an “average week” on one page. Four kids? A Charlotte Mason schedule? YES! And there is still white space to spare! Not only did I fit preschool to high school on my planner, I had one remaining column – so I grabbed my Morning Basket planner from last year, found the corresponding week, and listed the reading and assignments from that week. I’m just astounded. It ALL fits!

4. CHECKLIST PAGES, STICKERS, AND FOLDER

There are, included with every Teacher Planner, 7 checklist pages. When ordering, you have the option of adding more of these checklist pages. At first glance these may seem useless to the homeschooler, but I have found so many different ways to use these pages. Just think of them as pretty list-ing pages! Here are some ideas for you to consider in making use of the checklist pages.

Progress Log – track a child’s progress in a particular habit or virtue so that you can see little steps forward.
Book List – give each child a page and list free reads and independent reading here.
Skills Log – List skills you’d like to teach or learn for a given term and then note progress markers.
Habits checklist
List daily or weekly goals and check in with yourself
Keep a narration log!
Build a Geography Checklist – list continents, countries, biomes and check them off as you encounter them in your reading and discussions. Or use this to record map work and mastery of a particular area.
List transcript objectives and check off progress.
Keep track of volunteer hours or work hours for a student.
Wouldn’t this page make a great music or instrument practice record?
List nature study object lessons for a term or year and note progress.
Keep track of grades for your students’ math, foreign language, or upper level science exams.
Use the checklist area to build a rubric to evaluate upper level writing and essay work.
Keep track of library books.
List Montessori presentations and note objectives across the top so that you can track progress and presentations.
Track your attendance here!

Immediately behind the checklist pages are the new and redesigned stickers. There are four full sheets of stickers here, and the first two sticker pages include stickers with metallic foiling, which is an update from last year. These included stickers have undergone a complete design change! I love how Erin Condren provides some of her most beautiful stickers WITH her planners!

What’s not to love here? The notebook page stickers are perfect! And the adorable apples! AND…the coffee cups!!! YES!!!!!!!

The icon page is one of my favorites! I’m a huge fan of functional stickers, and I’m also pretty guarded about the real estate that stickers take up in my Teacher Planner! So tiny little metallic foil icons? Yes, please!

While I won’t use all of these stickers as a homeschooler, many of them will be so useful! Like: note to self!!!!! I need a gazillion of those! LOL!

Another little detail worth mentioning is that the mini icons color coordinate with the monthly themed colors!! I’ll use these in my monthly calendar spread to note repeating and important events.

The third sticker sheet has been updated slightly. This year, there is a white box that allows text to really stand out! LOVE this!

And finally, a whole sheet of flag stickers!

Behind the stickers is the *Keep It Together* folder. I love how generous and sturdy this folder is because I use it…a lot!

It is made of a heavy cardstock with a smooth, matte laminate on it (at least it feels coated to me, but it’s not glossy). The pocket will easily hold a full-size sheet of paper. Actually, it holds several sheets of paper. Super handy! It’s one of my favorite drop zones. I drop in paper stuff, and periodically weed through.

On the backside of the *Keep It Together* folder is a pocket. I like this pocket for my sliding grader or index cards, but it will not hold a full-size sheet of paper unless you fold it in half.

Between the Keep-It-Together pocket and the back cover is a heavyweight sheet protector. The Teacher Planner comes with 1 sheet protector, but you have the option of adding up to 2 more. I use these A LOT!! For everything!

I actually snip mine OUT of my Teacher Planner and attach coil clips so I can move the sheet protector around in my planner. These can hold schedules, a seasonal nature watch list, co-op lists, term goals, a booklist, memory work for the term, a choice-time list for the inevitable “I’m bored” announcement! I have saved all the sheet protectors from past Teacher Planners so I have SEVERAL now, and find them so useful all over my Teacher Planner. A word of warning – I’d love to use 8 of these all over my planner, but they bulk up the planner quickly! Just keep that in mind.

And then, there is the back cover with another write-on dashboard! The covers are removable so you can interchange them with the season, with your mood, with holidays, or not at all.

If you bring this planner with you for car schooling, I highly recommend a matching carry-all clutch! The large size clutch holds the Teacher Planner and it will also stretch to hold pens and a few planning accessories. And speaking of…

LET’S TALK ACCESSORIES!

THE COOL FOR SCHOOL (EDITION 2) STICKER BOOK

The new sticker book released with the 2017 Teacher Planner is yet another example of extraordinary detailing and a festival of color in every hue and on every sticker! There are a variety of shapes and metallic foiling throughout the book. And the watercolors!! I mean – just extraordinary! I’ll let you scroll through some of my photos. I tried to take pictures of only a few favorite pages, but I think I ended up photographing almost every page. They’re all just beautiful while being completely functional! Which makes me a fan! And the stickers in this book are perfect for any parent of a school-age child, whether you’re a teacher, homeschooler, or not. Most of the stickers are general enough to use in your Life Planner, and the school-themed stickers could work as school reminders.

*Time to PREP* <– I love this sticker!! I need 3 of them – one for my planning week between each term.

I had to share a close up of those circle-lined stickers – merciful heavens! Does it get any cuter in sticker world? No. It doesn’t.

Aren’t those perfect – the *first day* and *last day* stickers!!

These small flag stickers are totally functional. They’re slimmer than a standard flag sticker which makes them a great fit for this planner! Because…planner real estate. Am I right?

Every time I flip the page in this sticker book I’m charmed. This page of seasonal stickers is stunning! They’re the perfect touch to note monthly seasonal celebrations in the Teacher Planner.

Snap-in Stylized Sticky Notes

These snap-in stylized sticky notes function just as post-it notes do – the dashboard conveniently snaps into your Teacher Planner wherever you’d like, and provides a number of teacher-themed notes for dropping reminders and lists in your planner.

Compliment Cards

The teacher themed compliment cards are perfect for tucking in a lunch box with a little note on the back, and they make fantastic bookmarks!

School Tracker Dashboard

The snap-in school tracker dashboard would work well for a student as well as for a teacher. As a dashboard, you can write on it with a wet-erase marker or a permanent pen (just use an alcohol wipe to erase).

I hope you enjoyed this review! The new 2017/18 Erin Condren Teacher Planner is made in the USA and starts at $55.00 this year. (Adding some options could increase the cost of the planner.)

If you order this planner you’ll be able to customize several choices – you can choose your own cover design, personalize it, choose whether your planner will begin in August or January, choose the number of checklist pages that are included ($), and choose the number of sheet protectors included ($). You can also choose your coil cover – rose gold ($), yellow gold ($), or platinum. And don’t forget to add a few accessories as well as a coupon link if this is your first order!

Let me know if you have any questions! Happy lesson planning!

This & That: Notes From This Little Corner

June 7, 2017

Full. That’s what life is. Full.

Blessedly full.

Decidedly full.

Considered and full.

I felt a little twinge of…something…I don’t know…weird, maybe…when I posted back-to-back-to-back planner reviews. LOL! You know, I do actually do stuff besides planning! LOL! But I had these great opportunities to share with you…and besides, it is fun to look at planners and take pictures!

Today, I really wanted to say hello, and share a little more of the personal side of my full life these days.

Sarah, our oldest daughter, was married in May. Wow! Moms of married kids, you know how bittersweet that is. It’s wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! We love our new son-in-law so much, and mostly my heart is overflowing with joy for this young couple. But of course, there are those realizations – she’s not coming downstairs to get her coffee and visit for a few minutes before work. She’s not coming home in the evenings. Her witty conversation won’t join ours at our dinner table as much anymore. All of these things are just a part of growing and stretching into this new season of our life, but just as having a sweet new little one alters the chemistry of the family, so does sending an adult child off to start her own family!

We did a couple of things right in all the wedding planning and prep. I learned from a dear friend after she shared this tip with me – set yourself up to wrap up and complete your to-do lists at least a week before the wedding. And that’s exactly what I did, except I set as a goal to wrap up two weeks before the wedding date. And I’m glad I did!! There are so many things to do, people to call, details to check on. But finishing up two weeks before the wedding date gave Sarah and I a week to actually…breathe. We went shopping for flowers (not the wedding kind, the potted plant kind). We chatted. I watched movies in the evening and ate popcorn and drank wine and just felt generally relaxed. And then the week of the wedding hit. Friends, once that week arrives, it has a momentum all its own. All your plans and hard work are playing out, and you’re along for the ride (hopefully enjoying yourself – which I did)! How grateful we were to go into that week feeling relaxed and ready. It was full. Delightfully full.

I gave myself permission to enjoy a full week of quiet and recovery from everything. And after that, we started school again. How grateful I am for the flexibility of homeschooling so that my schedule can bend and pause to accommodate the full AND the quiet that is needed!

This week, I’ve been preparing and getting ready to fly out to Houston this weekend. I’ll be speaking at the ARCH conference in Houston, and I’d love to say hello if you’re there! I’m giving three talks this weekend; I’m so passionate about all three: The Morning Basket, A Living Education with Charlotte Mason, and Rebuilding Culture by Doing the Next Thing. I’ve given all three talks before at other conferences and it’s such a blessing to share and encourage, as well as a blessing to visit with each of you!! Can’t wait to meet you, Houston!

After Houston, I’m spending the rest of the month wrapping up the kids’ school years, putting away books, tidying and freshening shelves, and starting the whole process of considering again as I build a Preschool Year, Year 4, Year 7, and Year 11.

And it’s pool time! Which we all love! Because, summer…in the south…means pool!

Around the house, I’m eager to do a major clean-out of my closet! And in the learning spaces and with planning for next year looming, I always start by completely cleaning out the learning room – emptying shelves, rethinking placement, carving out niches for collections, and ordering needed supplies. And in the kitchen, I’m working on adding to my menus. I’ve been slowly integrating new meals into my meal plan routine and it has brought a welcome freshness! I’m still working there! My gardens are…….well, I’m not sure I’ll get much of anything planted this year. There’s always next year! But my garden flowers are beautiful!

And in my little digital corner here, I’m committed to finishing up my “behind the scenes” organization (that I started…ahem…last year). I want to get all my lesson plans organized and updated, as well as streamlining my printables so that I can work on converting some to an editable format for you.

I have a couple of really big personal projects I’d like to start. And then, in July, I fly out to Denver, CO, to the RMCHE conference to speak (I think this is my third trip out to Denver! I love visiting with you, Denver!! That’s my last conference for awhile and we’ll start our new school year shortly after that! We take a short break each summer – just long enough to plan and build booklists. That schedule allows me so much flexibility during the year!

In the in-between times, we’re reading and talking and baking and swimming and spending time together. So, that’s life in this little corner. I pray that your spring has been blessed, and your summer is full of all the rich joys that summer brings! I’ll be back soon!