This is the story of Three Little Notebooks who changed our homeschooling days for the better.
So, I have not always been the most organized of homeschool teachers. That may be understating things. I have put lots of energy and time into choosing good curricula, changing them when it was apparent that a change was needed, and teaching the kids how to use them. When it came to actually getting them all done on a regular basis, however, some things always seemed to fall through the cracks or get forgotten several weeks into a new school year.
Enter the absolutely wonderful blog by Sarah Mackenzie called Amongst Lovely Things. I read her lovely and reassuring book called Teaching From Rest last year, and it began to work on me in wonderful ways. While owning my own lack of organization and daily diligence in my work with our children, I began to relax into my role as a teacher and take lots of her wonderful ideas to heart. I knew that I could no longer go about our days willy-nilly, and that I needed another plan so all three of our school-age children would get the attention they need, as well as to develop their own sense of diligence in their work.
The blog post linked above seemed too simple to really work, but I figured, why not? A fifty-nine-cent composition book per child was a small price to pay compared to the $15 record-books I had tried (and failed) to use in previous years. Hallelujah! It works. Every night (or early in the morning), I just jot down a checklist for each child of what they need to do for the day's work. It keeps us all on track for the day's work. *Read: It keeps ME on track. There is a lot of satisfaction of checking something off the list. And I don't spend time trying to plan out weeks at a time, knowing full-well we won't get it all done. One day at a time. It mostly all gets done, and I can adjust things daily when they need it.
