In Due Season Homeschool; Your Guide to Living Well Throughout Your Homeschool Journey Amber J. Smith

Amber Smith shares the facts you need to talk over with your student before you enter the high school years. Let's clear up some misconceptions and despel some fears aroung graduation. I'll share some opportunities you might not be aware of and the advantages to choosing to homeschool your child through high school.


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Managing Paper in Your HomeschoolSummary


How do you tame the paper monster? 0:05


Amber has been homeschooling for a million years and has 10 kids. She has had 7 million pieces of paper over the last 20 years.


Amber shares some ideas for record keeping.




Doing math online and digital math. 1:40


The kids have been able to write on a writable tablet that connects to the computer and use a digital pencil.


One way to reduce paper is to do math online.




Science and how it prepares students for higher education. 3:44


Science is another subject that has a lot of paper, but it was the one subject that prepared her children for college level work.


A bound student journal is a huge blessing.




Buying a workbook. 6:02


I didn't have the money to buy five workbooks, it was not in my budget, so if you are not able to do that, do not feel guilty.


Most things that are created for homeschoolers grant permission to copy those for multiple students.




Create a turn in location. 8:16


Create a turn-in location, a safe place for people to take their completed work.


The more concrete the consequences of unfinished work, the more peacefully the conflict in the house is going to be resolved.




Record keeping and keeping transcripts. 10:34


High school students should start keeping their transcript now, even if they are junior high students. Hslda is a good source for high school transcripts.


If you have a digital online source, keep a file on each child for the school year for your state.




The importance of forecasting ahead of time. 12:33


Always include the title, the year of publication and the addition to the book in the addition. Record keeping is important.


Write a transcript for every student.




How to compile your student's transcripts? 14:06


Keep a digital file on your computer, but keep a hard copy file in their records. Keep personal information, birth certificate, important papers, etc.


Keep a copy of their transcript.




How to reduce paper typhoon. 15:34


Keeping the paper typhoon at bay and reducing the amount of papers to deal with on a day-to-day basis.


A binder for each child and a plastic sleeve for each activity.






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Organization SkillsSummary


Keeping students organized. 0:05


This episode is about keeping students organized and helping them help themselves. Amber J. Smith from 200fingersandtoes.com shares the tried and true methods used in the twenty years of homeschooling her own huge family of ten.


Amber shares ORGANIZING tips and tools to help you create your best homeschooling experience yet.




How do we help our kids be organized? 1:59


How to help keep kids organized. Minimize the amount of things they have to navigate and take care of each day.


How parents can help their children develop a sense of organization.




Making the playroom fun. 3:45


Make it fun, even in the messy playroom, by finding all the trash in the room and having buckets for toys to categorize and organize.


Create some hinge points in the day.




How to develop organization in your home? 5:28


Having a way to develop organization. My oldest is 23, and the bookshelf has gone through many homeschooling reiterations.


One of the ways that we helped keep the kids organized with their personal items was by buying a toolbox for each child and their own toolbox.




How to organize your school supplies? 7:53


She bought one for each child in the house and all of their workbooks and reading books fit in that bucket. She also bought them all the supplies they needed at the beginning of the year.


Then she created a supply station for herself.




Backup supplies for homeschooling. 9:57


All of the back-up supplies were in some of the teaching textbooks. All of the other items were in the teacher binder.


She created The 30 Day Homeschool Reset course to help with building accountability.




Accountability for the parent first. 11:47


The importance of creating a habit of creating order and being organized.


How to be intentional and show up to school prepared and ready on task with what they need for the day and anticipate their needs with resources and tools.




How to build a habit of being responsible. 14:10


Look at your homeschooling space and see if you are helping or hurting in your organization. Look for creative ways to solve the problems that you are looking at in building an organization.


Check out a blog post that shares some of the tools used for organization in homeschool.






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What we Are Using in Our Homeschool This Year

Episode 008

Track List:


Introduction

The Unsung Hero of the Sonlight Catalog

Record Keeping and Creating Accountability

Transition to High School Level Work

Honing Computer Research Skills

Moving Into Non-Fiction with Higher Level Content

Raising Fact Finders & Critical Thinkers

A Non-North American Centric Program


Listen to the full blog post HERE

Want the FREE schedule pages? Get them here and read more about creating a schedule that first your homeschool in this blog post.

Want more information about how I use Sonlight Curriculum in my homeschool? I wrote a year-long series of articles for the Sonlight Blog. You can access 22 helpful articles and more great homeschool tips HERE

There are many places that provide literature based homeschool curriculums. I created a tool to help you, the Curriculum Guide & Homeschool Reference List is a part of my Home School Quick Startup Guide and that is available as well as our course for homeschool parents at In Due Season. The Homeschool Quick Startup guide contains everything you need to answer your immediate questions and get you a strong start in your first home school year.

Maybe you're making a transition from public school to homeschool, and you're not quite sure where to begin. This guide has all the answers, plus live  links to any of the locations that I talk about. When we cover a specific curriculum, the link is provided for it in the home school guide so you can click and find everything you need with one simplified resource at your very hands. You can download it today for $15 and find all of your homeschool start up questions answered.


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Why Now is the Best Time to Study China in Your Homeschool

In Due Season

Episode 007

       Track List:


Intro to Episode 007

Digging Deeper Into the Eastern Hemisphere

Using Hands On Learning Kits

Why We Need to Learn About China Now

Learning Empathy Through Story

The Importance of Adding Biographies to Your Homeschool

Keeping the True Geography of the World in Perspective

Celebrating 30 Years of Sonlight


Early in 2020, China was at the top of every news story. As shut downs from the Covid-19 outbreak began, we looked to China for vital first information. Our children were seeing the empty streets of towns and cities they had never heard of before. The problem is that the context was couched in the fear of a dangerous and unknown sickness.

As adults, it is easy to rapidly move from one news story to the next without changing gears. This influx of news snippets and bold headlines are constantly reshaping our world view under the surface. We combat this slide with the facts that we have stored in our minds. By using EHE this school year to study China, we take the helm and intentionally we begin to shape our children’s view of the parts of the world they cannot see...

Read the FULL Blog post HERE

Do you want to learn more about Sonlight’s Hands On History Kits? Here is the link to Hands-On History Kit for World Cultures and Chinese art, calligraphy.

Hungry for more? Stay tuned for more reasons why I am excited to be using EHE for the third time to study China and more with my homeschool students in EP008 next week.

In the meantime help Sonlight Curriculum celebrate 30 year of helping homeschooling families discover the bigger world around them. Enter to win prizes all month long HERE. The contest runs now through 9/30/20 with a new giveaway item each Wednesday and the GRAND PRIZE of an All-Subject Package of your choice from Sonlight. Enter the contest weekly for eligibility.

Find out HOW TO GIVE YOUR STUDENT THE EDGE WITH CURRENT EVENTS RESOURCES with links and examples of what we use in our homeschool HERE


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In Due Season Episode 6

Can you homeschool if you can not afford the latest and greatest tools and tech? When I homeschooled my oldest three students, we were living on a shoestring budget. If I couldn't make it we found a way not to need it. These three kids all earned academic scholarships with their transcript and test scores. A few key educational goals helped us stay on track. I share them in this episode. A great education should not be available to only those who can afford it. It should be the gift every parent can afford to give their kids. Let's talk about how you can do that.

Topics Covered

Homeschooling without Tech Tools, on very limited Resources
Replicating this system as a homeschool Idea
What did my homeschool start look like?
Homeschooling without cash
Be Disciplined to Spend Less, Commit to Commit for the long haul



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