# Organizing



## NEfarmgirl (Jan 27, 2009)

I am a bit lost this year as I will be teaching my oldest who will be a junior in high school, and my middle kiddo who will be in kindergarten. I feel a bit overwhelmed since I have made a lot of activity (busy) bags to keep middle and youngest busy while the oldest needs my help. Our youngest were adopted last year and they are struggling to be able to play on their own without calling out or interrupting every few minutes. I am working on trying to organize all of the school work and the activity bags to keep my house from looking like a school/daycare exploded in it. Does anyone have any pointers in keeping things neat and tidy? We are trying to get a room cleared to use as a classroom/office. Thanks in advance!


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## gibbsgirl (May 1, 2013)

I don't work on too many things at once. We do some stuff together and the kids do some stuff that's separately assigned to each of them.

Also, frequently, we work on just a few things at a time. For instance, we'll do a year worth of one or two subjects then I get out a few more to replace them. I've found that's much easier to do than having each kid dabbling in 7-8 subjects every week all year.

Also, over the years, I've slowly changed over to curriculum sources that are very hands off. I don't have time to teach every lesson with a teacher manual to every kid. It's much easier to let them work on stuff, and I help when they're stuck or when they clearly have not done the work right.

It's also much better to try and start with a short school day and get them all into a good routine and habits and then slowly make the day longer with good work habits than to keep struggling to stay on track hour after hour day after day.

Good luck. We started homeschooling just trying it and reevaluating if we'd continue each year. We do it a lot differently now than when we started. But, I don't think we'll ever quit now.


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## NEfarmgirl (Jan 27, 2009)

I have homeschooled the oldest since the middle of his kindergarten year. He went to a public school for the first half of that year. He spent 1 year in parochial school and about 1 1/2 years in another public school in a different district. Things did not work out for him in either setting so we returned to homeschooling. I finally have him to the point he can take the assignment book and work on his own. He has autism so it has taken a lot of time and patience to get to this point. I think I may try to teach both younger kiddos at the same time and they will be in the same grade. Our youngest is doing about the same things as her older brother except he is reading a little now. I think she can handle it. 

My biggest stupid fear is how much things have changed since our oldest started school. I feel lost having to "start over". With our oldest we let him lead and taught what interest him at the time, but the middle kiddo has no interests. He will sit and stare at a blank tv. I have created my own curriculum for the younger two and I did for the oldest. It seems the early years are easy in that aspect. 

When we got the younger two as fosters they went to daycare which freed my day to help the oldest, but when the adoption went through we pulled the youngest from daycare and kept the oldest in a preschool/daycare program. We did learn that it is much harder having kiddos come into your home that are walking and almost talking than having them from small babies that you can teach a little easier to learn the routine.


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