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Text of the page (random words):
ant i will share with you pictures from the last years my daughter was home i will share with you how i organized myself as a teacher and why first year teachers are notoriously a stressed out mess because they are thrown into the fire and have to learn what s important and what isn t how to organize themselves as the paperwork necessary behind the scenes far exceeds the work necessary to teach so i too went through the hazing the stress until after a few years i got it organized learned what was important and what could wait and became fully engaged with my students i now bring those skills into my high school homeschool organization and wanted to share them with you there are things i see high school homeschoolers stressing over that is unnecessary and things missing that i hope you learn to include it s far easier than you think but oh so easy to fear the pressure and make it complicated so let s get to it there are records you ll need to keep and keeping them is far easier than you think colleges need only a few things and they are not important to worry about until the senior year until then there are truly simple things to do each year of high school so you have what you need but the most important thing to do is enjoy these years it will get easy to lose sight in being overwhelmed putting too much on yourself and stressing and missing out on the best and last years of homeschooling your child our new order slim and sleek my work is one simple book my plan grade book my desk now has only a few things on it pens files for graded and not graded paper and i have a bookshelf life while more full of things to teach is smaller now my son s desk has his laptop and his book bag has his books that s our school now we re on schedule and life is organized and easy even those days that surprise us we treat as another chance to go with the flow the no regrets part keep reading record keeping so how about grades and all that insane transcript and portfolio stuff firstly colleges and trade schools are only interested in high school transcripts so up to 8 th grade you can keep a relaxed planner or any records your state requires but you don t need to make a transcript for anything before high school so let that go you can use my relaxed homeschool planner i made it s free here you may have to go to page 2 to find it teachers in schools have 2 things a plan book and a grade book but that s only for administrative purposes you do not at home you can have one book each year don t over complicate it i use a 12 planner it s the 7 subject plan book by action publishing i get it from amazon i start the year off by counting out the 180 days required and then tear out the remaining pages down the left side i cut off a thin slice of the pages to reveal a strip where i can write each class subject so i don t have to re write it on every page see this pic once i trim the edges off i now have all the subjects in the margins written only once from there what i m about to tell you is very important kids get sick we go on vacations we get stressed you can t teach every single day sometimes you can t teach for a week if you pre write in the dates in the entire book before the year starts you will be setting yourself up emotionally those days you can t teach will sit empty the plans sitting there that you ll have to erase and then re do down the line so what to do start out by knowing that life will happen create a pacing guide all teachers have it perhaps you know what one is a pacing guide is what you plan to cover each day not by date just something your child can look at and see next up do this then they can cross it off and tomorrow do the next thing it takes about 2 weeks per subject for you to make it during summer but once you have it it s everything it takes all the stress away take the time to make one for each semester at a time take into account how many weeks you need to cover divide the chapters into those weeks and work it out so that you finish what you want to cover in 180 days keep in mind as a teacher we never covered all the material in the book we had to choose what was most important to cover here s the one i just finished for upcoming year 1st semester each line is a day of work he ll do that cross it off turn it in next day next line until we finish the work at the end of the semester this isn t all of it it goes on for another page but you get the idea i make one of these for every single subject that way he knows what he s doing every day yes it takes time but it s your work do it before the year starts and your year will be simple you re normal this is something i see homeschoolers stress over let me say that again we never covered the whole book i skipped at least 5 chapters in everything i taught it s what we asked other teachers what are you leaving out of it i realized what i was leaving out they too were leaving out like instead of spending a week on lab safety and the scientific method which the kids have had every single year i spent a day on each instead of teaching the entire history of the subject we did maybe 2 days then moved on each book had careers in the field after every chapter we skipped those and did a project on a single day about careers stuff like this saves you time and keeps you from attempting the impossible when we re ready for school to start i have all the subjects outlined as to what to cover and the pacing we will use based on the number of days i have in the year once school starts we do week one without actually writing in the plan book at the end of the week we write in what we covered each day that week the grades for each assignment go in same square as the assignment then just tally up the week s grades and put that total at the end of the week as a teacher i had to turn in an official plan book in advance it meant nothing it was a joke all teachers laughed at it it was busy work we knew we d never cover all that why constant interruptions kids acting out in class sudden assemblies and half my class would have tickets and leave calling me out of the classroom to attend an iep meeting half days holidays teacher work days the death of a student and the school was in mourning homecoming week nothing got done that week pre holiday weeks the kids were too restless more assemblies fire drills tornado drills you name it it was truly rare to have a week that didn t involve losing at least a day toss perfectionism i know this feels odd and i know perfectionism kicks in but in reality that s fear you think that if you plan it all out in advance you ll prevent things from going wrong getting off track getting disorganized but in reality you re creating that very thing letting go is the first step to real organization facing that life is going to get in the way is the first step to becoming truly organized and this was the thing that messed with me the most in my early years as a teacher i found me and my plan book a hot mess i learned by my 3 rd year to turn in the ridiculous plan book then in my book plan one week at a time shoot for a certain test day notebook check day and i d say about 50 of the time that actually happened at the end of the semester i only have to add up 18 grades 18 weeks and that is the semester average takes me 10 minutes i have one book i plan one week in pencil i put the grade in the day of the assignment in ink i add them up on fri and put the week s grade at the end of the week at the end of the semester i average up 18 numbers and done simple easy there s a higher purpose for this we ll get to it remember no regrets portfolio all colleges will need is a transcript and the portfolio a transcript is not a list of every single assignment and grade on every test it is only the 1 st semester average the 2 nd semester average and the year s total average for that course so why bother with making it all complicated if you keep their work you ll have that and you ll have what you need for a portfolio here s what i do i keep his notebooks all his map work his workbooks his worksheets book reports photos of fieldtrips everything he does goes in an accordion file at the end of the year i label it and put it away done the good the bad and the ugly are all in there when it comes time to submit a portfolio i will be able to sit down and go through it year by year and find highlights according to what the school wants maps reports video projects and pull from all of it the best thing that portrays what he is what he did how he evolved etc i leave all that for when that will be necessary his senior year for now we focus on one week at a time get the best information in the best way go on fieldtrips make things have fun learning take time off rearrange the schedule because it s written in pencil when he s sick or we just need a day off make it up on the weekend or double up one day next week or work in the car while running errands or just erase that assignment completely and do it verbally and not give it a grade because we can be flexible because we homeschool remember that no regrets part here we go get out we don t stay at home to school now with no more littles in the house my son and i are free to homeschool anywhere in college you re in class for the lecture but if you ve got time between classes you sit outside and study go to the quad cafeteria library back to your dorm etc while you wait for your next class so we homeschool in different places a coffee shop this cool french market with outdoor seating at a bookstore in a park we get out and in doing this i am showing him how to study anywhere it s good for his mind and will prepare him to do the same when his brain will need that break the most if you have a high schooler and some younger ones see if you can get a sitter at least once a week and take your high schooler out just the two of you and school somewhere else this is us schooling at a coffee shop so like them we too need to learn time management and it starts with letting go of fear which helps you let go of doing too much planning too far ahead pressure and fear of failure it means slimming down taking it one week at a time doing only what s necessary so you can enjoy the last few years of your child at home instead of sweating those years out with your nose in books and papers and your mind in a state of stress no regrets you ll regret every moment of your stress you ll never regret slimming down to only what s necessary and using that free time to be with your child living life and engaging with them and their friends going places taking weekends away field trips taking days off and going to teen meet ups with my daughter we would have her friends suddenly show up eat with us stay late and we d have a blast we would go to a concert together yes together even if i didn t like the music i played and danced and took pictures with her like this then the band would be hungry so there i was at 10pm in the grocery store buying food to take home and feed them all and we d be up till 2 in the morning laughing and eating and talking nowshe lives in another state i have pictures on the wall on the fridge from those times i have them because i quit stressing and knew these times were the ones that mattered my pictures from that time aren t of her working they aren t of me with my nose in books at 2am these are the things that teach them how to live when they leave home be a stressed out mess and they will take that with them and become that in life you raised them trained them well showed them love all for these years when you get to be with them and enjoy them these years may be focused on learning but in reality they are about a small window in time where you can enjoy them on a whole new level and before they leave home it s a small window don t waste it be flexible be simple stick to your small amount of work in a timely manner be what you want your children to be when they leave home they will leave healthy with a love of life with joy and what more could we want for our children bye baby have fun filed under personal posts homeschool posts organizing high school organization 1 note july 3 2016 end your fear of teaching science i have been fortunate enough to have been the victim of the high school traumatic science experience and then to go into college and learn the in s and out s of science and all the smoke and mirrors i overcame my fear of science and it became my life s work to help others who fear it i was driven my entire life to become a doctor but because of some scarring experiences in high school i feared science and knew i wouldn t cut it i was wrong very wrong i went on to major in science take the terrible chemistry and physics classes and couldn t believe how truly easy they were they were actually much easier than biology then why do they have such a bad reputation since then i taught science at the high school level dropped out to homeschool my kids and was inundated with homeschoolers and teachers who feared teaching science i have hundreds of emails from people with really sad horrible experiences with science i speak at conferences and afterward so many people come up to me in tears telling me about their experiences in science i know why it makes me sad that s why i wrote this book the good news is that it s not your fault you were scared by people who inherited a sense of ego based fulfillment through fear and you are so not alone seriously millions of us are out here having been done a disservice by the science community and it served to run off many of us who would have possibly pursued a career in science and what about your kids what if they have an interest in science and you feel scared or inept and you feel you aren t doing right by them my life s work is to help all the kids who might possibly pursue a career in science learn not to fear it but to find it easy natural so that when they go to choose their career in the sciences even those that don t seem like science like cosmetology military service any medical assistant forestry service and hundreds of other fields that they aren t held back by any fears i hope you take a chance and read this book you will be surprised at how much sense it makes how simple it is and how i guide you through the process of learning not to fear it because really think about it who are we doing this for when we gloss over science dumb it down or don t teach it our children are not stupid they pick up on that fear and we wind up passing that fear down to our children this book will truly help you in letting go of that fear helping you learn to engage your children deeply into where their natural curiosity takes them in science and you will be free of fear here s the table of contents so you can see what we cover chapter 1 introduction chapter 2 my experience chapter 3 it isn t your fault chapter 4 scientists were crazy chapter 5 where s the fun house chapter 6 elitist attitudes chapter 7 keeping secre...