Five things I'm loving for school

I'm always looking for easy-to-implement ideas that make my life less chaotic and more streamlined. Especially when they help during our school day. These five things that I'm loving are all easy to implement, work well, and have withstood the test of time (that is, I am still using them more than twelve months later). Even if you aren't a homeschooler or a parent with school aged children, you may find some of these tips useful, or you can forward this email to someone you think would benefit from them! In no particular order...

Flashcards

As a student I never used flashcards beyond math facts, and I now see that had I used them as a tool for studying in other subjects (I'm looking at you sophomore year of Spanish) I would have perhaps not watched in horror as my GPA plunged when I could not keep up with memorization. Now, as a teacher I now see how powerful they can be. Over the past year, I have fallen in love with using flashcards to help my children retain information. We have flashcards for almost all of our subjects: geography, vocabulary words, science, art, American History, ancient history, and latin. If your kids need to memorize something for school this year, give this a try. While we purchase flashcards that correlate with our curriculum for school, you could easily create your own with index cards.

Flashcard Organization

All of those flashcards create a lot of loose paper. The first time I opened a new stack of flashcards I cringed a little as I realized I had just intentionally given my child two hundred pieces of loose paper that I was then going to ask them to not lose and to keep organized. I quickly realized we needed a better solution. The best way that I've found to easily corral all of the cards is to make a hole punch in the bottom left corner of each card, use a loose leaf book ring, and add additional cards as they are learned. I keep all of the loose cards not yet handed out rubber banded in a basket. We start the year with a small stack of known flashcard facts that slowly grows. It's impressive what can be learned and reviewed just by running through each stack of flashcards one time per day!

Pro Tip: use a three hole punch to punch your flashcard holes. It will save your hand from significant cramping. Ask me how I know...

A Peaceful Schoolroom

There is not a school day that goes by that we don't have the diffuser in our dining room working to bring us something that smells delicious. I think it helps to create a cozy atmosphere in any home, but during the school day there's several additional benefits. Our current favorite this month is

While it is really lovely to have a cozy feeling in our schoolroom each day, the real beauty of diffusing is that our moods are lifted, our emotions are more even, and our bodies stay healthy. In this particular recipe Grapefruit and Bergamot are both uplifting and balancing oils. They create feelings of peace. Christmas Spirit and Clove are both oils that work to keep us healthy. Clove especially is one you need to Google! It is so good to diffuse this time of year as the weather changes and illnesses come home from school. Clove is the oil that I diffused nonstop whenever we were admitted in the hospital when Eva was immunocompromised.

The best was a quote from a student about this particular blend the first morning we diffused it this fall, "Oh my goodness mom! What is that DELICIOUS smell this morning?!?" I sincerely love that I'm able to create a cozy schoolroom. I think it helps to tackle the harder subjects when you feel peace and security.

You can grab all the oils to make this diffuser blend here.

Book Bins

Don't get me wrong: I love how classrooms look, I love the brightly colored posters hanging on walls, I love the artwork on the wall, I love all of the bookshelves brimming with books. I just don't like all of that in my dining room which is our classroom. Because of this we store all of our homeschool supplies in a way that is completely portable. Things are pulled out in the morning before school starts and then put away when everyone has completed their work. The best way that I have found to corral everyone's books, are these multipurpose bins from the Container Store. For grades K-2, everything fits in a medium sized bin. For grades 3-8, everything fits in an extra-large bin. Each bin easily slides onto a bookshelf when not in use and every book, flashcard, and notebook is stored right in the bin so that we don't have to spend any class time looking for something. It is all stored in the school bin. Even if you aren't a homeschool parent, a book bin like this would be helpful for any homework tools that need to be stored at home. They are sturdy, can take a beating, and are extremely affordable.

Mom Bag

Nothing says, "You are super cool," then the phrase "mom bag". However, stay with me. When I was a classroom teacher, I always had a "teacher bag" that I carried with me to and from school each day. That bag had all of my grading that needed to be done, my grade book, my planner, and my computer (along with other random things). I mean, basically it was a briefcase that looked pretty. I didn't have a teacher bag for our homeschool classroom until my sixth year of teaching, and I think that was a huge mistake. I've found that having such a bag is helpful for not just homeschool, but just as a mom. In addition to my purse, it's the bag that I grab every time I leave the house. Here is my bag. In my bag I keep:

• my laptop (while I have a desk, my laptop needs to move around the house)

• my planner (so I can jot down to-do lists that come up throughout the day)

• a pencil pouch (that is full of my own set of pens so no child can steal them)

• a pair of scissors that are mine (if you are a mom who has children living at home you know exactly why I would keep my own pair of scissors separate from everyone else. Ha!)

Whenever I am done with school for the day, I pack everything up in my bag. It's completely portable so that I can carry it upstairs to my office, or move it from the homeschool table to my favorite chair in the living room. Using a bag for portable organization has been amazingly helpful in reducing the things that I've lost. I wish I had thought of creating a bag like this that was a "mom bag" (planner, calendar, scissors, tape, grocery lists, meal plans, etc.) much earlier!

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear a few things that you find yourself loving these days–just hit reply if you’d like to share. I read all your messages and try to respond, but not always in a timely manner. Sorry! And if you enjoyed this email, you’d be doing me a favor by forwarding it to someone else who might like it.