The Post I Wanted To Write Before We All Got Sick

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Honey

Christmas morning

Christmas approached way too quickly. It came and went and then was only just a blur. We had a whirlwind four days with family and a house full of excited children (and a few tired adults).

As usual, Jonah and I complained, "Next year, we start preparing for Christmas in January."

I want to have a truly relaxing and prepared Christmas season.

Every year we go merrily along until we hit August and then I start thinking about Christmas. When I mention that we should start preparing, everyone looks at me like I am crazy, so I brush off the thought. Then before I know it, BAM! Christmas hits and I am frustrated that I was not prepared.

This year, I have a plan:

I have my bucket ready to gather gifts throughout the year. Our desire is to have all of our presents ready before December even hits.
I am gathering ideas for treats to bake (that we ran out of time for this year).
I am making a list of traditions that my husband and I have decided that we want to implement into our Christmas season.
I am creating an address book again, so that I can actually send out Christmas cards. I am shocked with myself that I have not kept up with an address book, but I am also not surprised given how easy it is to connect with just about everyone on-line these days.

Don't get me wrong, we had an awesome Christmas (with the exception of the flu). We just would really like to move into a more simple, calm, focused Christmas and the only way I know to do this is to prepare everything ahead of time and be ready in advance.

I will be ready for Christmas early next year. What about you?

Photo Note - I wanted to share the story behind the photo. My husband was trying to take a picture of the kids in front of the tree on Christmas morning. The kids were excited and it was hard to get them all to focus , so I was saying funny things to them. They were looking at me instead of the camera because I said something funny.

I Finally Ordered My Curriculum

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Honey

Daily Planner

I went to bed early last night and was wide awake at 4:30am this morning. I tried to go back to sleep, but it just wasn't happening. I had my homeschool planning and curriculum ordering on my mind.

I got up and decided to push through finalizing my homeschool plans for this coming year. I would have been happy to simply get that finished, but everyone kept sleeping, so I was able to actually sort out the 3 different orders that I had to place. I am happy to report that I have successfully ordered all of my regular curriclum for this year. Now, I still have to finish the special needs order, but that can wait for another day.

Okay, so I bet you are dying to know what I ordered? Even if you aren't, I am really excited to share.

You can check out my Curriculum 2011 page because I updated it with everything that I actually plan on using for this year. That list is no longer a wish list, but a visual planning list to help me map out the rest of the year.

I have come up with a really fun plan for our homeschool days that I really think is going to be a nice change for our family.

I am envisioning the day starting (8-11ish) with group discussions and munchies as we work our way through Bible, Social Studies, and Science. This time would also include videos and various other projects for those subjects, but the focus will be the discussions. Inspired learning at it's best.

During this time, the twins will be in the same room with us, hopefully playing quietly with special toys that are only brought out for this time.

Then we take a short break for lunch (around 11-12ish) and some one on one time with the twins.

The afternoon (12-3ish) will be a rotation of Math/Typing and Language Arts (Phonics/Spelling, Grammar, or Writing). Each child will get time to do Math/Typing on the computer, while another child works we me on Language Arts, and another child plays with the twins. I will be writing out a schedule for this, but I haven't yet.

Next (around 3) on the agenda is a nap for the twins if they need it, dinner in the oven (unless it was put in the crockpot earlier), free play for the kids, and work for me.

This year's schedule greatly decreases my workload and will hopefully make our day run a wee bit smoother. This is just a rough idea of our day. I will be writing out a more "formal" plan to put up on the wall for all the kidlets to see.

You can download a pdf version of this Day Planner (94).

I am linking up with the 3rd Annual Not Back To School Blog Hop.

10 Steps To Planning For Our Special Needs Son

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Honey

I received an email today asking for me to meet and set up next year's IEP (individual education plan) for our son, Elisha. At first I was a little bugged because we just started our summer break and I have so many things other than school on my mind. Not to mention the fact that our teacher that we are accountable to is already off somewhere on vacation.

I guess it threw me off because every year (for the last six years), the IEP has not happened until the fall and sometimes even into the new year. I understand that our DL (distributed learning) school is trying to be more organized and yes we do get funding that pays for our TA (teacher's aid) and our OT (occupational therapist), but still.

Here I sit with a house full of sleeping children and a quiet moment to write and I couldn't get the IEP planning meeting out of my head.

So preparing for this meeting means that I need to:

write a list of all the things I need to do to prepare for the meeting (you are reading the list)
dig through my email's and pull out a copy of last year's IEP
pull out the notes I took at last week's meeting with the OT
prepare my goals for Elisha for NEXT year
plan my special needs order for NEXT year (I haven't even ordered my materials yet)
go over those with Jonah and see if he has anything to add
go over the goals and order with the OT when she comes on Friday and have her write it in the proper lingo for the IEP
contact the reporting teacher who is vacationing somewhere that I would like to be and let her know we need to arrange a meeting with the special needs coordinator
arrange a time to meet the reporting teacher and the special needs coordinator
write a blog post about it

One of the things that I am always telling people is to make blogging fit your life, not your life fit your blogging. Use your blogging to help you accomplish goals that you are already trying to accomplish in your life. I started thinking about how I could use my blogging to fit my life in this instance and you are reading the result of that. I have my to do list. You have a blog post to read.

I am linking up to Hip Homeschool Moms and Top Ten Tuesday.

How do you prepare for your special needs students?

What extra steps do you have to take when planning for them?

How do you use your blogging to accomplish your goals?