NEW 2014-2015 School Calendars

NEW 2014-2015 School Calendars are now available for FREE on our website.

Portrait and Landscape views to replace the outdated 2013-2014 School Calendar. Don't follow the school year? We'll be offering traditional calendar year calendars as well.

Coming Soon!

We are adding several different calendar options to our popular Freedom Educators Homeschool Planner for the 2014-2015 school year. We are adding a couple of monthly calendars and a few different styles of yearly calendars to aide families in tracking yearly attendance and basic planning.

How do I use the Yearly Calendar?

One popular use of the yearly calendar is a simplified attendance. We circle the days that the children are actively pursuing education. We also write in our annual breaks and notes if a child is sick or otherwise "absent" in the notes sections of our current Portrait and Landscape yearly calendars.

Why would I need a monthly calendar?

Some find it easier to look at a monthly in order to plan the basic outings and scheduled classes or events. The monthly calendar may also be used for attendance and planning.

Should I plan by days, weeks, months, or years?

That is really up to your personal needs. However, we find that for documentation purposes having a yearly attendance and closing out your year by the school year is most preferred by those who are accountable to someone in their state or for those who want the peace of mind of having records "just in case". Monthly planning is useful for unit studies, planning outings and events, as well as to see how your month flows.

Weekly planning is probably the most important planning tool possible. This is easily managed with our several styles of weekly planners. With weeks, it is a small enough chunk of planned time to make changes quickly and to track reporting of your older Love of Learners and Scholar Phase children. Plus, it is mighty handy for the adult navigating these phases of their education as well. In fact, most families report that the planner was more useful to them as parents than they thought it would be for their own education.

The Education Journal

In past posts, I've talked  extensively about our Planners. These various stages of Planning tools have evolved over time and been very useful in our Leadership Education journey, especially during Core and Love of Learning phases. I still have book lists and record what books we read in a large 3 ring notebook that houses all my 6 Month Inventories and miscellaneous lists.

Mostly, these planners helped me to feel:

• Productive
• On top of things
• Like a good parent
• Organized
• Calm

This year we have developed into the next stage of recording our progress, which I call "The Education Journal". In The Student Whisperer, Tiffany Earl calls them her Academic Journal. I just can't bring myself to call it that with my teens, but they are one and the same.

Why the switch?

One reason for the change is that my two at home are both in various stages of Scholar Phase. I am in Depth Phase. I've been keeping both a Planner, to track what I do with the children and what they do individually, and my own personal Education Journal. 

As they have progressed, a typical planner just isn't enough. Sure, they could write essays about each book read, but that wasn't enough either. Been there, done that. What they need now is to record THOUGHTS, not just what they learned. The need to record what they are thinking.

After all, isn't the purpose of TJED or a Leadership Education to learn how to think? 

If so, then isn't the purpose to also record the processes that leads up to:

• what they think, 
• how they arrived at these thoughts, 
• and what action/reaction these thoughts might bring to their life?

Making the Switch

After Christmas, I felt restless to figure out why we, as a family, were in such a rut. Had our routine become...well, too routine? What were we missing? What could we do to shake up the need, the real fire, for learning? We all seemed to be somewhat....meh? 

I wrote about my own malaise, but through much prayer and meditation I determined that the loss of my mother was not what was at the root of our slump. The root of our slump was a loss of desire to take that next step, to step out of our current comfort zone and make the leap to the next level.

Yikes!

Sometimes those leaps are scary. Sometimes they are painful on the landing. And, sometimes we don't quite make the leap and have to try again.

We had a family meeting, discussing what changes can we make, what will be the "thing" that makes the next 6 months "work" for our family. We debated. We argued. I even cried. Coming up with the next level was not an easy task.

In the end, once the switch from Planner Mode to Education Journal Mode was mentioned, the feeling in the room suddenly shifted in a significant way. We felt lighter, like a switch had turned on. I saw that each of my children and my husband were nodding their heads and looked thoughtful. 

As we've made the switch, I can see more energy in our daily studies. My son, Chris, mentioned to me today how much he loves the Education Journal and how he feels it is just the thing he needed. That "Ah HA!" moment has made a major difference.

Easy, Cheap, and Profound

Making the change to an Education Journal cost about 50¢ a person. Simple spiral notebooks have been effective. No need to spend a fortune on the next new curriculum, or that book everyone tells you that you need.

My notebooks are numbered and the date range is written on the front so that I can easily look back over my progress. While filling in a planner only took about 15 minutes, the Education Journal takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how much one wants to record about what they are learning/thinking.

The change in how we are perceiving our education is profound. I am so happy, and just a little surprised, at how effective this is for us and how much more we are learning with it's use. Give it a try for a few weeks! You might find it helps your education too.

End of Year Records

We "school" year round, with a few well-placed breaks among the un-planned breaks throughout. We typically go from July 1st to June 30th each year, which means we are nearing the end of this "school" year (I really don't like the word school...it reminds me of mindless fish). I take all of the records we've kept throughout the year and place them in a new binder.

The records I archive on June 30th are:

• Each person's individual planner for the previous year.
• The lists of books read by each person that year.
• The calendar used for attendance.
• The Course of Study plan.
• Previous Compass outlines, the current Compass stays in their Binder.

Beginning the "new" year - the first week of July is when I usually get the Binders ready for the new year. This time of renewal is always a fun time when I feel jazzed up about what the new year will bring. I try to have new resources ready by this time, but I've learned that new resources just seem to naturally begin showing up when they are needed. More on that next month!

Yearly Breaks

We used to take all of July and December off as our yearly breaks, but as the kids became teens we discovered there are many other conflicting things in the summer that get in the way. This year is no exception. There is Girl's Camp in June and Scout Camp in July. Seminary lasts into the first week of June. We've already had several visitors who feel we are sufficiently settled and can come visit on their terms. My mother is nearing the end of her life and we are taking more trips to visit her...and a wedding in another state at the end of July. With all this going on our calendar is rather disillusioned compared to the simplicity we used to experience.

We will be taking two weeks off in June and two weeks off in July instead of the whole month of July. We've already had too many breaks with the move and all the company we've had lately (I won't even get into some of the comments company made when they were here). It feels like we are really not making the kind of progress we've made in years past. We discussed these issues in our recent Family Council and discovered that we are all feeling a bit out-of-sync. With the new break schedule on the calendar, I think it gave everyone a much needed overview of what to expect this summer.

Teaching Children Weekly Planning

A recent post on TJED Muse got me to thinking about how we have handled these issues when our children were younger. I decided to answer a few of these and post them here.

Question

My 7 year old daughter has been asking recently what exciting thing are we going to do today, meaning what field trip or go over to someones house. We do not do any of those things on a regular basis so I am not sure where she has gotten the idea to expect it. So I tried to explain to her that life is made up of our everyday work, either home or school work with outings every once in a while. I tried to find a book that might explain this better but so far I have only found books that highlight all the exciting things of a person's life. Does anyone have any suggestion on what I can do or books that would be good to read?

My Answer

Your daughter's inquisitive questions are simply a sign of her age. She is becoming capable of seeing into the future of days and weeks rather than the moment. I find these questions are just so they can know the plan and maybe influence the plan with their own wants and desires.

At those ages, we simply installed a desk calendar to the wall and wrote down what was happening as it was scheduled...everything from doctor appointments to play dates to fieldtrips and outings. You may find this will appease her need to know what is happening on a daily basis and alleviate the questions. You can just turn her towards the calendar and say "Go see!" We still use this method today.

Another idea from TJED books is the weekly mentor meeting to plan your week. This helps children learn how adults go about planning their lives. We've found it very useful in teaching our children how life is just a series of hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Some days are busy and others are "homebody" days.

Book Suggestions

A few people did post some book suggestions that I would have suggested also:

• The Little House on the Prairie series
• Little Britches series
• Little Women and Little Men
• Laddie

Here is what our calendar looks like today. It is posted near the phone and everyone is asked to add their appointments, classes, and events to the calendar so that everyone knows the plan. This is especially important for my teens so that we can work out car issues...with four drivers and two cars it can sometimes be tricky.