Schedule Solutions

If your child is anything like mine, then she likes to do things in her own time. When we first started homeschooling this drove me crazy! I wanted to have a set schedule with blocks of time for each subject. The problem? Princess was not wired that way. Somedays it would take her 10 minutes to do math, and then the next it would take 50 minutes. There was no way to judge how long anything would take her. This drove me crazy! And it drove my poor daughter crazy too. Once she told me that she loved everything about school except when I told her to hurry up. Oh, no! I didn't want her to have that sort of attitude about school stemming from me!

After two years (sometimes it takes us a while to get over our preconceived notions!), we figured out a way that worked for both of us! I liked to have the assignments all planned out and in order each day, and she didn't care about the clock. What I did is create this lovely "dry erase" schedule board. On each day I would write (in dry erase marker) her assigments for that day. As she accomplished each thing, she would wipe it off the list. It worked for us both! It is also a really cute feature in our school room:



It is very easy to make! I found this cute frame at our local Family Dollar store for very inexpensive. The kids and I looked through old magazines and used construction paper to create the backgrounds. (Note: the more solid and light colored the background, the better you can see your writing) Then you just write on the glass with a dry erase marker. We use a tissue to erase. It is so much fun!

Today, for Project #1 of Project Week, I added an addition to our wall planner:

I found also found this cute corkboard frame at our local Family Dollar store. I didn't have a really good place to display the kids work (really, really important to do!).  This frame is not terribly big (ie. it won't make your house look terrible!) and is perfectly decorated with pictures of my beautiful babies!

What ideas have you used to make your homeschool room cute instead of gaudy??

Easier than Pie 4th of July Dessert

This 4th of July week has been pretty hectic, so I decided on a super easy 4th of July dessert. All you need is:

1 box blue Jell-o
1 box red Jell-o
1 tub cool whip
Some pretty clear glasses or goblets

Step 1: Make the jell-os
Step 2: Layer them, along with the cool whip, in the glasses - red, white, blue, white, etc.
Step 3: Celebrate with a cool and refreshing 4th of July dessert and some fireworks!

I will post pics later of how mine turns out!