The Schedule.

This is a picture of my "organized" lesson planner.  A lot of homeschooling parents have different ways to keep themselves organized.  This is actually my first year using a planner.  In the past, I would have everything in a giant 2 inch three ring binder, each subject separated, and a ton of blank sheets of paper in the front.  I usually made up lessons as I went along so I would document our activities on the blank sheets of paper, noting things I wanted to work on later in the week.  It was a pretty good method, but I needed something a little more condensed for Kindergarten.

As you can see, I still lack the ability to stay on track....but let's face it, homeschooling is awesome because we're able to change subjects on a whim based on our child's curiosity.

So I try to map out three days worth of lessons.  We do Monday, Wednesday and Friday then he'll go to a co-op the other days.  I color code based on what we do that day, and as you can see we often switch lessons around.  Flexibility is key as a homeschooling parent!  Also, my son wanted to do some water experiments on Thursday so I turned that into a science experiment. 

I made sure to document how many hours we did, which is really important.  You need to keep accurate attendance and you need to adhere to your state regulations.  I was worried I wouldn't be able to get 4 hours of instruction time in (my kid can't sit still for 4 hours) but I found that it's actually pretty easy if I work with him and allow him to explore in depth his interests, instead of adhering strictly to what I intended to teach.

I know this sort of flexibility can be a bit intimidating.  What if he starts asking questions I don't know the answers to?  What if we spend all day doing math and never get to reading?  How will he ever learn his letters?  As far as the latter is concerned, if he goes off on one subject on Monday, I make sure to start with a different subject on Wednesday so he gets both subjects in for the week.  Now for the first question.  Yes, he's asked questions I don't know the answers to, but we just look them up and continue learning.  It's ok to not have all the answers.

How do you keep yourself organized?  I always love to hear tips from fellow homeschool parents!