Busy Beaz Academy: First Few Weeks & Organization

So, you're probably wondering how the heck the homeschooling is going. Well, day one and the rest of that week was disappointing, to say the least. I had worked for weeks trying to make a schedule & plan things out so that everything would get done just so. I was feeling all sorts of crazy things & made the decision to start the same day as the public schools did. This was my first mistake. We weren't ready. I watched as my perfect schedule fell apart in a matter of hours. Soooo, after a few days like that, we took a few steps backwards, re-grouped, re-thought, and relaxed. Now, it was easy to see the flaws in my plan. I rearranged the schedule so that we do little kid activities after our first group time instead of after nap. Some of the activities that I thought Bug & Lil' C could do together needed to be done individually, so I split them up. Now, each kid gets plenty of one on one time. I also realized that we just can't get an entire days worth of the written lessons done in one day right now. I had thought about breaking it up before, but couldn't figure out how. Now I've found a solution that seems to be working for us. I've had time to get more organized as well. All of that to say that things are going much better now. We've completed 3 full weeks of homeschool now, and we're starting to find our groove. We've been talking about "persistance" in our lessons, and for us, it's starting to pay off! Yea!

Here is a picture of our "school room". It's our family room that's been converted to be used as a school room too, although we alternate between the futon in the family room, the dining room table, and the kids desks. Here are Bug & Lil' C's workboxes. I made the numbers with the pre-made workbox numbers from Melissa Renfro.

These are Pinky Lee's workboxes that I made using Melissa Renfro's blank workbox templates. Cute, if I do say so myself. And, of course, I do. The workboxes are working well so far. I've been using them more and more each day, and I've created a planning sheet that I plan to use this week to really make the most of them. Any work the child can do independently is placed in a workbox. This can be anything from their daily math worksheet to a coloring book, reading assignments to crafts. They really enjoy this. So far, there have only been 2 problems with this.

1. Pinky Lee & Boo Boo Bear take great joy in pulling all the boxes out.

2. Bug & Lil' C always want me to help them while I'm working with the other one.

I didn't make the little tags for Help from Mom, where they only get 3 helps per day, but I'm probably going to have to. The pulling the boxes out? Yeah, that's going to be an ongoing process I'm afraid.

This is a picture of Bug's Schedule Strip & Schedule. The schedule strips were also made using Melissa Renfro's templates. These are wonderful, God Bless that woman. She is very talented and I'm grateful that she shared these for free, since she usually gets paid for her work. You can find more of it on her website or at Scrap Girls. I also downloaded her fabulous caterpillar file folder game, but due to a printer problem, have yet to assemble it. (But I plan to!) I hope she comes up with more great stuff for us homeschoolers!
I probably took the schedule strip thing a bit too far, but that's kind of like me. I used them to not only schedule the school day, but the ENTIRE day. I'm so tired of reminding the kids 50 times a day to make their bed, feed the dog, etc. that I'm hoping this will help. Everything they have to do each day is on their strip. When they have completed it, the take the task off & put it in the cute little envelopes I made to hold them. This way, they can see what they have done so far and what they still have to do. This is still a work in progress for all of us. We don't love schedules, so it's taking us a while to fall into this one. However, I'm pretty sure if just DO it, it will work.

This is Pinky Lee's desk. We bought it a couple years ago at a garage sale for $10. It also doubles as a high chair, but we've never used it that way. Too cute, though.
Here is my lovely, organized bookshelf. I've organized it even more since then. I love organized stuff. *sigh*
So, that's how it's going & how it looks. If you're using workboxes, schedule strips, HOD, or whatever, please feel free to leave comments or links to let me know how things are going for you as your school year begins. Or how things are going now that your kiddos are back at school!

I know this was a long post...sorry! I still have so much to catch up on, so I'm planning on making multiple posts per day to try to catch up. Keep checking back!