•   Organize your home school by determining yearly goals, assembling your curriculum, and setting up your class arrangements and schedules. See Newsletter #129. 

School Time, Interruptions, and Emergencies

 •   Set a daily starting time for your school work and stick to it.

 •   Limit away-from-home activities (other than Sunday) to one day a week, if possible.

 •   Do not answer the phone during study; use an answering machine or voice mail.

 •   Sign up for the "National Do Not Call Registry" for telemarketing. It's fast and simple to do online -- and it works!

 •   Find a workable solution for repeated avoidable interruptions.

 •   Accept uncontrollable or unavoidable interruptions and use them for learning opportunities.

 •   Prioritize your plans and devise an alternative plan for accomplishing the most important things on days when your time is limited by unexpected developments, emergencies, late starts, etc. 

Simplify Meals

 •   Plan five or ten simple, healthy menus for school days (save special menus and cooking for non-school days).

 •   Serve meals at regular times.

 •   Cook and freeze meats for casseroles or stews for quick meal preparation later.

 •   Shop once each week for seven days of menus.

 •   Start dinner early, use a crockpot, or try once-a-month cooking. 


Regular Weekly Planning

     After your year's planning and goals are done, arrange your weekly schedule to include plans for each upcoming week in detail.

 •   Make lists of phone calls to be made, errands to be run, details to be tended to, and a goal or two from your ongoing master to-do list.

 •   Evaluate anything that is bothering you and consider how you can fix it.

 •   Coordinate your week with your husband. 

 
School Planning

 •   Once a week, take an hour to plan the next week's lessons in detail.

 •   Consult plans you made for the year and month, adjust as necessary, and write out assignments with page numbers and any individual instructions for each student.

 •   Collect all the library books and other materials you will need for your lessons at least one week in advance.

 •   Each day, spend a few minutes the night before or in the morning looking over the plans for the day and gathering materials for the day's lessons. 


Record Keeping

 •   Choose and use a record keeping system that meets your needs and/or your state requirements (e.g., a checked-off plan book, a journal, or a grade book).

 •   Have a routine for handling papers. Do they need to be filed for documentation, or a few saved for a yearbook and the rest tossed? 

Get Started and Keep Going

 •   Be prepared to handle opposition or lack of immediate success through prayer, adjustment, and perseverance.

 •   Make adjustments as needed.

 •   Make a daily quiet time with God top priority.

 •   Pray for wisdom, guidance, and strength (Prov. 3:5-6).

 •   Enjoy this privilege of investing your life moment-by-moment in the lives of your children!

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Help! I Don't Have My Curriculum Yet.

     If you have not ordered, received, or purchased curriculum for this school year yet, you can get started with these emergency resources.

 •   For the 3Rs you can use pencil and paper to write words or math facts for your child to read, copy, and learn.

 •   Purchase drill flashcards.

 •   You can buy inexpensive workbooks with answer keys at a local teacher's supply or learning store.

 •   For history, science, and literature, you can borrow books or videos from your public, church, or home-school library; then read and discuss them together.

 •   For geography, you can practice locating on maps or globes all the places you hear or read about each day.

 •   Add a geography research project using the Internet or library to learn more about unknown places (or to follow up interests related to your history, science, or literature studies).

 •   Play educational games. Many are available at thrift stores.