Thursday, May 7, 2009

MOVING step 2: Paper Clutter

Paper Clutter...
just thinking about it seems over-
whelming. Oh where to start?
First
I sorted through our bills; tossing old ones, marking the calendar for up coming ones. Cancelled our water cooler account. Now how to figure out magazine subscriptions?...some are gifts, some are school related, the rest for fun. They consist of National Geographic, Highlights, Disney Princess, Boys' Life, & Christian World News, among a few others.

Next I went through my stack of home-schooling catalogs as a few were getting a bit outdated ;^D. Yes, I am a catalog reader, I admit it. I can spend hours (if I had that much free time) reading through catalogs. My current favorites are:
ABEKA- Great for preschool! It is also good for classic textbook/workbooks. At the higher levels, it does seems to be advanced, so I don't recommend it for struggling learners.
SONLIGHT- considered a "living books" style. Great for avid readers. I find it a bit expensive, so I have not used the curriculum as a whole, just good books here & there.
OAK MEADOW- I think this one is less known in the home-school community. This is not Christian based, but is moral-based (do good/feel good). I would recommend it for a creative thinking student. I also found the higher levels good for struggling learners, as all English & spelling lessons are based off one history story.
SRA/McGraw Hill- secular based. Has an incredible reading program (reading mastery) which is great for all of my students. I discovered this after using "How to read in 100 Easy Lessons", which btw, was extremely successful w/ my daughter at age 3/4ish. Our Andrew will use this when he is 5 as he is a bit more aloof with his attention span. ;^)
Teacher Created Resources & Learning Train are not curriculums, but great resources for workbooks/reading books, and for learning tools & toys.

I also went through my cookbooks and phonebooks. Do we even need phonebooks nowadays??

Last
will be to organize and sort our school books, arts & craft supplies, and Bible lessons. This should be a challenge, because I will need to set aside what we directly need for this August while trying to pack the rest to storage. I will have a Junior, 7th & 2nd grader, and pre K going into our new school year! Limiting books seems a joke. This gives me a bit of anxiety, as the teacher, I like access to our resources at my disposal. Wish me luck ;^D

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Luck.

I'm a tosser, don't keep anything...and yet, we're still overwhelmed with stuff.

Atleast it won't get weighed by the Army...I've been told by many other Military Wives to get a library card and don't buy books. I do both!

...You're so organized to plan your move so carefully!

-Kathi

Standinginhislight said...

lol, I am a tosser too, but it sometimes gets me into trouble ;^)
and I can be too organized at times, I call it being focused, although my husband I think compared me to a tornado?? I have a purpose and path, with no stopping me, so don't get in my way (I hope he was half kidding ;^D)
Weighed? Your stuff gets weighed? I hope they don't combine the weight of the kids, lol.
Thanks for dropping by!