Organization.

It's important and it's necessary.

Especially when one is homeschooling, you have to have a certain idea in mind on how to proceed with your day, your week, your month, your year with your child. Whether you are using traditional materials or unschooling, it helps to have an idea of where you are going, or at the very least, of where you have been. I've learned one important lesson about organization in the years I've homeschooled, and I've come to appreciate it now, as our journey is almost over.

The pencil and eraser are my friends!

I'm a bit of an eclectic when it comes to the particular curricula to use. My son would have never fit into a "grade-in-a-box." He was all over the "grade spectrum," so I had to buy subjects from various grade levels. In fact, I shied away from even thinking "grade levels."

Warning:  Bunny Trail!  I truly believe that grade levels were created for crowd control. With so many students, they have to be organized into groups so that one teacher can control one group. It would be better for the students to be placed in "learning groups"--place them with others who have mastered what they have and who need to learn what they need to learn. But that might mean a student would be in "6th grade" math, "3rd grade" language arts, and "10th grade" science. It's much easier to use their birthdays and group them by age, regardless of where they are academically in each particular subject. End Bunny Trail.

I started writing down only what we had covered that particular day, after the day was over. When he turned 12, he wanted to be able to start school whether I was up for the day or not. (I'm not a morning person.) At that point I had to go through books, see what looked like an appropriate amount of daily work, and write down page numbers for him to work on each day. Even though I never used a pen, I learned that the pencil was my friend! Especially as I found out that in some subjects he could get a lot accomplished and in others, not quite as much. With this way, I learned quickly that the eraser was my friend! When real life happened and changed our plans, I would have to re-date the pages or erase the entries and rewrite them on another week.

As I walked through this method, I realized the better way was to write out the assignments for each day, and each week, but not to date the weeks. Then I could notate what the days were when he was doing school, and also notate which weeks he was doing other things (e.g. visiting my dad, attending a special one-week outside class, etc.).

As he's gotten older, I write down the week's worth of work, expecting him to get the whole week done on his own with minimal input from me. This way he could do a subject a day, or work that subject on 2 or 3 days, or use all 5 days to get the assignment done. He knew that it had to be accomplished before the next Monday's new weekly assignments. There were weeks he had to finish some subjects on Saturday. There have even been days he's requested to have his "Saturday" on Friday and then has worked Saturday like a school day.

Currently, I have been working on the next 48 weeks of homeschooling, as they are the last weeks I have for homeschooling. I am about half-way through this process. I have already had to use my eraser several times to readjust my son's assignments. (He had been negligent in some areas. I have learned more deeply not to expect what I have not inspected. Even at 17, they cannot always be trusted implicitly, although I was doing so a bit too implicitly, which was where I was negligent.)

Having a plan about documenting the learning that your child is doing is necessary. As they get older, and you are looking at making a transcript, it's imperative. Learning to use a pencil and eraser to make that documentation is a must!