tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58945769475821814422024-03-28T22:29:08.540-05:00Piney Woods HomeschoolKathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.comBlogger195125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-70756080257738383032023-09-24T20:20:00.002-05:002023-09-24T20:23:11.251-05:00The Courage of Our Capacity<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7C-lTL4L7mdPMmwhAqOidEda3rDhZtPGZvtM40vi2uIoVsCNFPQdzMEZRvjYGWpPtvrjHIptPME3jRVNyfVZQI0MrviLBxi8CoT4bRb9G8BomCOhGQB-3zzSF--sicBwXTeJrcJqFB7NQLK2i5AE96NA32n8qnHL53H9PikaMGVf2NHvsSGxb68o_WPA/s632/5F8F125E-6455-43FB-A52D-7CD70D0E50BC.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7C-lTL4L7mdPMmwhAqOidEda3rDhZtPGZvtM40vi2uIoVsCNFPQdzMEZRvjYGWpPtvrjHIptPME3jRVNyfVZQI0MrviLBxi8CoT4bRb9G8BomCOhGQB-3zzSF--sicBwXTeJrcJqFB7NQLK2i5AE96NA32n8qnHL53H9PikaMGVf2NHvsSGxb68o_WPA/s320/5F8F125E-6455-43FB-A52D-7CD70D0E50BC.png" width="180" /></a></div><br />I am, I can, I ought, I will.<p></p><p>The motto of Charlotte Mason’s PNEU schools helped students and teachers focus on their own capabilities and responsibilities. This is not a self-help motto though. Behind these words lies an understanding of God at work in me and through me to make this possible. </p><p>Because of God, I am. <br />With God’s help, I can. <br />For God’s glory, I ought. <br />By God’s grace, I will.</p><p>As homeschool parents, we often feel the weight of responsibility and inadequacy. How can we possibly nurture, and teach, and civilize these tiny humans so that they reach all the potential God gave them? Where do we find the courage to keep trying, day after day? With God’s help, I can.</p><p>Homeschooling is a ministry to our families. For some of us, it will be a lifelong ministry. For others, it will be a season of ministry. We can’t know in advance which it will be, either. God has His own plans for us and for our families. But as long as God calls us to this ministry, He equips us for it. It takes courage for us to recognize our weakness and still believe that God can work in and through us to accomplish His purposes. In Second Timothy, Paul encouraged Timothy to rekindle his faith, to renew his enthusiasm that came from God: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (II Timothy 1:7 KJV) Evidently Timothy had become discouraged and disheartened, brought to tears by his work. That’s relatable to homeschool moms.</p><p>Paul says that God did not give us a spirit of fear. We all feel fear at times. That spirit of fear tells us that we aren’t capable, that we are failing. It points out every imperfection, real or imaginary. The spirit of fear magnifies every setback. It makes us feel like our low points will last forever. But that spirit is not from God. God has not given us a spirit of fear. God has given us a Spirit “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”</p><p>If you have God’s Spirit, you have the power you need to do the work that God has given you to do. It is not your own power; it is the power of the Holy Spirit in you. You do not know all that you need to know. You can’t do this in your own strength. But once you agree to begin and to do the best that you can, you have Divine help. In her first volume, Home Education, Charlotte says, “. . . we do not always make enough of the fact that Divine grace is exerted on the lines of enlightened human effort; that the parent, for instance, who takes the trouble to understand what he is about in educating his child, deserves, and assuredly gets, support from above; . . .” (V1, p. 104) Keep learning, so that when the need arises you are equipped to at least recognize the problem you’re facing and have some idea where to go for help. Keep praying and listening to God, so that you can follow where He is leading you. But trust that God has given you and will continue to give you the power you need to do the work that he’s given you to do.</p><p>God’s spirit teaches us to love: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. In our own strength, we cannot love God or our neighbor, but Paul reminded Timothy that we have a Spirit of love, helping us to love when we cannot. We need that help to love God when we can’t understand his purposes or feel his presence. We need that help when we try to love these people in our home who thwart our plans and show us the aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to see. In her fourth volume, Ourselves, Charlotte says that “Love, and the service of love, are the only things that count.” (V4, Pt 2, p. 154) All our accomplishments don’t really matter unless they are done in love and for love. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:3) Our relationships with our children and our spouse, our relationships with the people and the world around us, our relationship with God, and their relationship with God matter more than what we can do. When the schedule is shot and our expectations are crumbling, we have to stop and ask God to help us love the people in front of us.</p><p>Until I became a mom, I did not question that I had a “sound mind.” Now that I have five kids and have had four teenagers, I know that I do not have a sound mind. “Sound mind” in Paul’s encouragement to Timothy is rendered differently by different translators because there’s not a good English equivalent. The Amplified Bible says “sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].” Paul says that God has given us a Spirit that enables us to have this calm, well-balanced mind and self-control. So when we are out of balance, out of calm, out of control, that too is not from God. Rather than pressing on in the midst of our chaos, that’s a signal to stop and pray and look for what God wants us to do and be in that moment. This can be terribly humbling. Our own judgment gets clouded by emotions and circumstances. Our own discipline gets distracted by the crises of the moment or waylaid by our health or lack of rest. God’s Spirit gives us unclouded judgment and focused discipline when we acknowledge our own need and wait for Him.</p><p>All believers in Christ have this Spirit “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”, but we must accept this help; we must ask for it and look for it and recognize our need for it. In Ourselves, Charlotte Mason reminds us, “Help comes to those who endeavor and who ask.” (V4, Pt 2, p. 135) It’s not enough to endeavor without asking, and it’s not enough to ask without making any effort. When we fall down, we ask for help and get back up and try again. Jesus told the disciples, when they had tried and failed, “’This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.’” (Mark 9:29 ESV) When our situation seems hopeless, when a problem seems intractable, prayer is our first and best resort. In fact, it’s best if we resort to prayer before we reach an impasse. “Pray without ceasing.” Pray first, pray last, pray in celebration and in grief, in success and in failure.</p><p>In Ourselves, Charlotte Mason describes the different types of courage each person needs to draw upon. The courage of our capacity is “the courage which assures us that we can do the particular work which comes in our way, and will not lend an ear to the craven fear which reminds us of failures in the past and unfitness in the present.” (Ourselves Book I p. 117) The courage of our capacity tells us that we have God’s Spirit within us, helping us all the time. The courage of our capacity reminds us to go to God, believing that he will give us His Spirit of power and love and a sound mind.</p><p>Paul tells the Corinthians, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)</p><p>Your external qualifications are not important. Your sense of your skill as a teacher is not important. Your background, your monetary resources, your academic achievements don’t affect this. God calls whom He calls, and He equips us for the work He gives us, so that when we boast, we can only boast in the Lord.</p><p>Face each day with Joshua’s admonition: (Joshua 1:9) “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”</p>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-37842053881991882292023-05-21T10:03:00.002-05:002023-05-21T10:03:42.188-05:00Immunity Brew<p> I love this recipe from Gwen's Nest for <a href="https://gwens-nest.com/cold-flu-brew/">Cold and Flu Brew</a>. When I make it, I adjust a bit.</p><p><br /></p><p>Pour one jar of cranberry juice into the pot.</p><p>Fill that empty jar with apple cider, then pour into the pot.</p><p>Do that again.</p><p>Add a large can of frozen orange juice.</p><p>Add 5 or 6 sticks of cinnamon.</p><p>Add some cloves and star anise.</p><p>Simmer for as long as you're willing to wait.</p>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-26729504136375098912023-05-04T21:22:00.006-05:002023-06-30T08:13:39.850-05:00How I Scheduled Year 4<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Mqn-jWOV1UtLNZY0BMA1TwjoOoOJWCHvcmWWW-CNTHhIoj3SNx5_4grg_XManO1ujBizhsLT5jS4f39Ip32fOeJi55q4JPs91UB02IKk-hL3NH2hrP4lCVo84wEC3a5Gvz1vZi8bAVIHGsx_cOduBIp1C7tDctBKUz_NrlJ72nd-KRZs9TDUH3FD/s700/Organizing.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Mqn-jWOV1UtLNZY0BMA1TwjoOoOJWCHvcmWWW-CNTHhIoj3SNx5_4grg_XManO1ujBizhsLT5jS4f39Ip32fOeJi55q4JPs91UB02IKk-hL3NH2hrP4lCVo84wEC3a5Gvz1vZi8bAVIHGsx_cOduBIp1C7tDctBKUz_NrlJ72nd-KRZs9TDUH3FD/s320/Organizing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This is my fifth time scheduling AmblesideOnline's Year 4, but Year 4 is a bit different this time than it was the other four times I've been through it. Also, it's been several years since I've looked closely at Year 4, so this is almost a fresh look at the year.<p>This particular Year 4 student will be on the older end of the range because of a fall birthday. Also, this student has great reading and writing, so that will impact some of my scheduling choices. Other times I have scheduled Year 4 have looked different based on the needs of those students.</p><p>To begin, I visit the AmblesideOnline website (amblesideonline.org), found Year 4 on the By Year menu, clicked through to the Year 4 schedule, then clicked on DOC in the list next to Choose a Format. This downloads a chart version of the Year 4 schedule in Microsoft Word (.doc) format. I think this format loads into Google Drive more smoothly than the Open Office (.odt) format does (although Open Office is actually what I use on my own computer). </p><p>Since I like to edit my schedules in Google Drive (merely for convenience and because all the other schedules are out there), I went to Google Drive and uploaded the downloaded file to the folder where I store my schedules. It uploaded as a .doc, so I went to the file menu and chose Save as Google Docs. Once that version of the chart saved, I deleted the .doc version from my Google Drive. </p><p>I don't see anything in Bible that needs changing. In History, the first issue I notice is that several readings are scattered around amongst the weeks, with gaps in between. I want, if possible, to spread these scattered readings so that no two of them are scheduled in the same week. CHOW and Answering the Cry for Freedom already don't overlap, so I can move the Trial and Triumph readings slightly to achieve my objective. I shift them into Weeks 2, 6, and 11, and now I have no doubled-up assignments each week between CHOW, Answering the Cry, and Trial and Triumph.</p><p>I now have three assignments each week in the Bible category and three (or two some weeks) each week in History.</p><p>Storybook of Science has two chapters per week. I insert a new row under that one and separate those assignments so each cell has only one chapter. If I spread out the Gregor Mendel picture book over the whole term, that gives me four assignments per week in that section. However, I don't think I need to spread the Mendel book over the term, so I will look for something else that could also fit there. I decided to move Minn of the Mississippi down to Natural History, then spread out Mendel over a few weeks in the spaces where Minn isn't schedule. That gives me four assignments most weeks (and three in some) in that category.</p><p>In Literature, I'm adding a row so that one chapter from Robinson Crusoe can go in each cell; it has two rows per week now. For Shakespeare, I'm going to schedule Midsummer Night's Dream. I generally start my Year 4 student in that play. Some of my new Year 4 students don't do Shakespeare at all. This one should be able to handle it, but we'll start with Midsummer because it's short and fun and not too complicated. I will fill in exact assignments by Act and Scene.</p><p>In the Poetry row, I will put four 'O's in each cell. That let's us color in an 'O' each day we complete that task.</p><p>I'll insert a row above Natural History for Math, and I'll put the 'O's in the cells instead of listing assignments.</p><p>I'll insert a row above History for Copywork, and I'll put 'O's in the cells there too.</p><p>(I'm working my way down the Daily/Weekly list, putting items in the main part of the schedule and deleting them from this part.)</p><p>Foreign language has been Spanish, and we'll keep that. I need to think about how long we should spend on Foreign Language each day before I decide how to schedule my students's Spanish and Latin (which will be new for us this year).</p><p>Plutarch will fit nicely in History, giving us four assignments in almost every week.</p><p>I've added a new section called Enrichment. In it, I've put Artist/Composer, Drawing, Sloyd, and Crochet/Sewing. </p><p>It looks like the extra Geography readings take about 5 weeks. There are exactly five weeks when Minn is not scheduled, so those Geography readings would fit neatly there. But that means I have to find somewhere else to put Gregor Mendel. The History section has some weeks with only three assignments right now. I'm going to move Mendel up there, spread over three weeks. That fills in my History section so all weeks but one have four assignments.</p><p>Now I'll add two rows to Natural History, one labeled CM's Geography and one labeled Long's Geography. I will fill in cells with the chapter titles, inserted into weeks that don't have Minn assignments.</p><p>Only a few items are left on that second page. I created a category called Miscellaneous and put Grammar, Map Drill, Nature Study, and Timeline in it. Recitation will get its own row with four 'O's in each cell because we do Recitation every day.</p><p>Now I just have to add our Spanish and Latin work. Oh, and select recitation passages. I will work with my student to select a Bible passage, poem (from our term's poet), and a passage from our Shakespeare play.</p><p>Done!</p><p>After sitting with this for a few days, I'm making some changes. I remembered that we needed Typing practice at least weekly so that eventually we can type the written narrations. Also, we needed to have Written Narration as an item. I cut out Crochet and made Sloyd/Sew our handicraft. (We sometimes have sewing club, so on those weeks that's our handicraft. Otherwise, it will be Sloyd.) I originally thought I would put Typing into that Enrichment section, but then I noticed that Nature Study was in Miscellaneous. Nature Study is a much more robust activity than the other work in Miscellaneous, so I moved it to Enrichment and put Typing in Miscellaneous. Now I need to see how to include Written Narration, which I originally forgot.</p><p>The only category at this point that has fewer than four assignments per week is Bible, which has three most weeks and two in some weeks. So that's the natural place to add Written Narration as a weekly assignment. </p><p>Now, a couple of weeks later, I'm revisiting this schedule. The additional subjects that are added in Year 4, such as Latin, Plutarch, Shakespeare, and Grammar, each require attention. I am weighing cutting back on some of that so we aren't adding all of those in Term 1. I think for my oldest I may have added them all at once, but my other kids eased in more gradually. I am going to mull over this current schedule and decide how much to leave in for the first term. </p><p>Looking over the schedule, I think I have spaced things out pretty well across our four-day week. The only subject that appears to be a big addition is Latin, which I've scheduled daily. Because of this particular child's bent, I don't expect Plutarch and Shakespeare to be terribly hard to add in, but we will see when we get there. I think instead of cutting anything, I'm going to keep my expectations low. For Spanish and Latin, we will strive to get to them daily, but just do very short lessons. I may just do Mad Libs for Grammar in the first term. This may be enough of an adjustment to allow us to ease into these new subjects.</p><p>You can see the first few weeks of our Term 1 <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jfNwaaLwFjq1S3iWni1GtZMXm3R4zRiw_0sO5NEcBfQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-18198681886018819772021-12-21T07:53:00.006-06:002021-12-21T07:53:36.544-06:00How I Use Ray's Primary Arithmetic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBIlBNfYBBeHKhlhFLGHRsWpCmg3gvWJlpvtoeJxS9yPnQDz9DiCg0R8GFZqnZNTB4GHJfNF4M0jIi3GJvbO7fJunxh5s16xaLCxnx3OOb_6Oi74KFttKvAy2wXL_rjEO5lJ-JFZqM6I/s1600/Ray%2527sArithmetic.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="150" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBIlBNfYBBeHKhlhFLGHRsWpCmg3gvWJlpvtoeJxS9yPnQDz9DiCg0R8GFZqnZNTB4GHJfNF4M0jIi3GJvbO7fJunxh5s16xaLCxnx3OOb_6Oi74KFttKvAy2wXL_rjEO5lJ-JFZqM6I/s200/Ray%2527sArithmetic.jpg" width="170" /></a></div>
Ray's Arithmetic was one of the first books I bought when I decided to homeschoool. Really, it's a set of books, and I bought the reprinted box set on ebay, determined to give my kids a good start in math using time-tested materials. The box set comes with a teacher guide from Ruth Beechick, and that's the guide I used to get an idea how the books should work. Immediately I ran into difficulties, though, because the prescribed sequence didn't match my child's needs. I think I was a member of a Yahoo group that discussed Ray's specifically or maybe a broader category that included Ray's, and that's where I found out about <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2009/06/rays-arithmetic-teacher-guide_15.html" target="_blank">the original teacher guide for Ray's</a>. That changed everything!<div><br /></div><div>If you're planning to use Ray's Arithmetic to teach math, sit down and read that teacher guide. You'll see more clearly how the books are meant to work together. In fact, you'll see that you don't even need to use a book for quite awhile, since you'll be working with counters to develop number sense.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I start a young child learning math formally, we start with counters, just doing short lessons. I set out some objects and ask how many that is. I try to keep the number small enough that the child can tell me how many without counting. Once we have the number established, then I take one away and set it to the side. "Now how many are there?" We repeat this process for all the various combinations that make up that number. And the lesson is done.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the child is pretty comfortable with 1-10 this way I often will start adding counters sometimes instead of just subtracting them. I think Ray's actually recommends working on number sense up to 20, which is probably much better. I just get impatient.</div><div><br /></div><div>At this point, I may actually get out the Primary Arithmetic book and start asking questions from the addition or subtraction section, just using the word problems. At first, we'll do problems only for one number family and only in order, not mixed up. Once that's pretty comfortable or if the child notices the pattern, I will ask the questions out of order, but still staying on one page. If we need more practice, I will use a deck of cards with only the number cards. As I turn a card face up, the child has to add that number to the number we're working with that day. If the answer is wrong or slow in coming, the card goes back into the deck so we can encounter it again. This provides lots of quick practice and is much easier to use than traditional flashcards.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's important to realize that this stage of math learning may take a long time. This is foundational and should be solid before moving on. There's no rush!</div><div><br /></div><div>Once basic addition and subtraction are solid, you can progress to the more complicated exercises in the book, using your judgment about what to introduce. Refer to the teacher guide for guidance too.</div><div><br /></div><div>Don't move on to multiplication and division until you see that addition and subtraction are well understood. At that point, I go back to the counters and start slowing building a multiplication table, on paper, with the child. Once we have a number family added to the multiplication table, we will do the word problems for that family from Primary, using the table as a reference. We'll keep practicing one number family at a time until the child is comfortable with that. If we need more practice, I will make up word problems. Peggy Kaye's Games for Math can be helpful at this stage too. Eventually we'll use the playing cards as flashcards in a similar manner to the way we used them with addition and subtraction.</div><div><br /></div><div>Slow and steady is key. Don't move on until you see that the understanding is solid. When basic addition and subtraction are firm, you can do the more advanced addition and subtraction work in the Primary book, but you don't have to do every bit of it. When basic multiplication and division are firm, you can do the more advanced multiplication and division work in the Primary book, but you don't have to do every bit of it. You decide what is needed.</div>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-69703788307496830742021-06-23T12:21:00.006-05:002021-07-19T11:50:35.232-05:00Scheduling Signs and Seasons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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AmblesideOnline uses Signs and Seasons in Years 7-9. The official schedules for those years include broad ranges of the book for each term. It's up to each family to decide how to spread that work across the term. Here's one way of doing that. There's no magic to this, so consider this just an example. You could divide up the work vastly differently and have it still be as good or better as this arrangement.<div><br /></div><div>Each column in the table is one week. In each week, you'll have one passage to read (except where that week has dashes) and two field activities. Generally, you want to keep a record of the field activities in your field notebook or journal.</div>
<div><h2><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/19LFo3U_p1P3RQn3cmAeDYwxrKHNNfsDBz51x81ptPtQ/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Sample Signs and Seasons Schedule</a></h2></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-44711615015636875262020-08-02T09:49:00.002-05:002020-08-03T16:04:37.674-05:00Charlotte Mason in Sunday School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">"It is better that children should receive a few vital ideas that their souls may grow than a great deal of indefinite teaching."</span></blockquote>
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Charlotte Mason, <u>Home Education</u>, p. 346</div>
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Much of what passes for Sunday school curriculum involves "a great deal of indefinite teaching" and few, if any, "vital ideas." We want souls to grow, but we have a vague idea of how to achieve that goal. </div>
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Our first mission must be to connect the child with the Bible text. This is the most direct way for the Holy Spirit to speak to the child. For very young children, this may involve retelling the Bible text in simplified form. Somewhat older children may be ready for Bible text mixed with some retelling so as not to get bogged down in the passages for which they may not be mature enough or which may be too long for them right now. Older children can hear or read the text itself and connect with it with very little intervention from the teacher.</div>
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In a Charlotte Mason context we call that "<a href="https://afterthoughtsblog.net/2013/10/31-days-of-charlotte-mason-narration-by.html/" target="_blank">narration</a>," but it's a concept that modern educators know as well. It requires full attention to the reading and then some mental effort as each child thinks about what was read and how to reformulate that in his own words. The child must think about the passage in order to narrate, unlike answering questions which often can happen by guessing based on cues in the questions. Narration encourages focus throughout the entire reading and puts the emphasis on the child's understanding of the passage rather than on the child's understanding of the teacher.<br />
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The teacher's part of the lesson mostly comes before the reading and after the narration. Before the reading, the teacher helps set the stage in two ways: recapping the previous reading and introducing key vocabulary, names, or dates. </div>
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Recapping the previous reading works best if the students provide the summary. I've used a pictorial timeline in my classes, so on the wall we have a picture representing each lesson so far. Before we begin the next reading, I will point out the picture from the previous lesson and ask for volunteers to remind us what happened in that lesson. This helps prime the memory. Sometimes input from several students allows us to get a sufficient understanding to know where we are. Sometimes I need to fill in some gaps, although it's not necessary to go into great detail. Just the main outline of the previous lesson is sufficient to set the stage for the day's lesson. </div>
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Help the children get their footing in the current reading by introducing key vocabulary, names, or dates before the reading. Keep this short! Don't introduce every word you think they may not know; just introduce words that may keep them from understanding even the broad outlines of what you're reading. Don't introduce every name necessarily, but just the most important people in this reading. Places and dates may not need to be introduced at all unless they play a significant role in the action. You don't need to explain these words! Just write them on the board, read them to the students, and ask them to keep an eye out for them in the reading. The exception to that is situations where some background really needs to be given for understanding. Sometimes it's helpful to find places on a map before a reading, and sometimes a date needs to be put in context before you start. Err on the side of saying less when you're not sure how much is needed! Teachers like to talk, and we often talk too much. Our talking gets in the way of the child interacting with the text.<br />
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When it's helpful, use a wall map to give students an idea of where the events were occurring. Sometimes it's even helpful to give each student a copy of a map so that each week students can mark on their own maps. Occasionally other visual aids such as replicas of artifacts, posters with additional information, timelines, or even artwork can enhance the lesson. "Better than nothing is a high standard," so consider the value of any additional materials and include them only when it's clear they will be helpful and not distract or confuse. </div>
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In an elementary class (roughly age 12 and under), having the teacher read aloud the lesson is probably best in most cases. Some children won't be able to read silently with comprehension, and they'll read at vastly different rates anyway. Most children won't be able to read aloud correctly and with proper phrasing, so the children who are listening will tune out or have trouble following along. When the teacher reads, she can read with feeling, using tone and inflection to help the children follow along. She can stop and ask the class for responses when she sees attention waning, even if she hadn't planned to stop so soon.</div>
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Children may need to be taught to attend to a reading and then think
about it and retell what they've read. In that case, stop at every
paragraph or in some cases even less to allow the class to refocus and
think over what's been read so far. Sometimes, let your eager students be the first to tell you about what's happened in the passage you just read. Then let other students add to that. If you have a student who's really capable, you may have to ask that student to tell you just one thing, so that others have a chance to respond. Sometimes, call on the quiet student or the one who has trouble focusing during the reading, to encourage them to do the mental work of thinking over what was just read and to include them in the group. Especially call on the quiet or struggling student when the passage is a simple narrative or when you can see that they are ready to answer. Help them have experiences of success! Generally, don't prompt a student to try to get a response. Let them work through thinking it over on their own. If they can't give even a simple detail from the reading, use your judgment about whether to call on someone else or to help this student think through the passage. Don't talk too much! Give them time to think, and accept their good faith attempts to try.<br />
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After the narration phase, the teacher can recap or reemphasize something significant from the lesson. At this time a review by looking again at maps or other materials that were used in the lesson might be appropriate. On rare occasions a short teaching on a concept that came up that requires clarification may be needed. While
you are preparing the lesson, think about the "vital ideas" that the
Bible passage contains. You might make a note of one or two of these in
your plans. You don't necessarily need to actually present these ideas
to the students directly, but you want to watch for opportunities to
help the children notice them during their discussion of the passage.
Sometimes it's appropriate to actually tell the children the idea you
see in the Bible text, but save that for a few key lessons. None of this needs to happen every week, and when it does happen it should be short. </div>
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At the end of your lesson, provide a way for the children to record what they remember. This could involve acting it out or writing a summary. In my class, we draw a picture. I've made a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l9LvoXTfk__40FUVryR2L75CI6sQT5PDfLn058CCD2k/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">simple grid</a> on the front and back of a sheet of paper turned sideways, with three boxes across the top and three across the bottom. This gives us twelve boxes on one sheet of paper. Each week at the end of the Bible lesson, the students each draw a picture in the next empty box to represent something they remember about the week's reading. I have a grid on the wall with twelve boxes on a large sheet (of paper or of chalkboard paper), and I draw a picture too. These are simple and crude often, but they work! At the start of the next lesson, we refer to this to remember what we previously discussed. Sometimes when we need to think about past readings, I will point out the picture on the wall to jog the students' memories. We've sometimes used simple costumes and acted out the story we just read. With younger children I've used flannel figures and let the children tell the story while manipulating the figures. Think about what fits your preferences, your students' interests, and the story's needs.<br />
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We
store our class supplies for each student in a simple manila folder.
It's easy to manage and easy to store. At the end of the year, we send
the folder home with the student. Many other ways of keeping supplies
in one place would work fine too. We keep the folders in a plastic file
box, and in that box we also have folders with the handouts we'll need
for future class sessions. Almost everything we need fits in a simple
plastic file box.<br />
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Children need a regular change of thoughts in order to maintain focus. Spending too long on one activity or one type of activity will cause their thoughts to wander and their behavior to deteriorate. Aim for 15 to 20 minutes on each phase of the class in the upper elementary years, definitely no more than 30 minutes on one type of work. So after reading the Bible lesson, which usually takes me about 30 minutes start to finish, something that is not reading should be done. I like to change to a movement-based activity since we've been sitting and concentrating for so long. Then we do another, lighter, reading-based activity. We follow that reading with singing, then with prayer and a missionary story. Exactly what elements your class time contains can vary greatly, but it's vital that you change pace every 15 to 20 minutes and switch between activities that require different types of effort. </div>
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When
we do scripture memory, we work on learning a passage rather than a
single verse. We work on the same passage for approximately 12 weeks,
working on a sentence or a phrase for two weeks and then moving to the
next sentence or phrase. At the beginning of the quarter, I introduce
the passage which I have printed on a full sheet of paper. Each student
has a copy in his folder. I read the whole passage and explain the
context briefly. Then each week we say that week's phrase together as a
class a few times. Then the kids line up. I pick two kids to hold our
giant rubber band, standing inside it one on each end. (I keep track
of who has helped so everyone gets a turn.) Each child in line says the
phrase without looking, then gets to jump over the band or crawl under
the band or whatever suits him. If a child struggles, we stop and
everyone says the phrase together again and the child gets another
chance. I may assist with hand motions. Each child is successful
before we continue on. When a child goes over the rubber band, he gets
back in line to go through again. Each child goes through the line
twice, then goes back to his seat. This is usually the time in the
class period when we take bathroom breaks, too, so during this time my
adult helper is taking small groups of kids to the bathroom and the
drinking fountain.<br />
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Our lighter reading helps provide a chance for children who struggle to attend to the Bible reading to follow along with a reading in class. We read a chapter from <u>Little Pilgrim's Progress</u> by Helen Taylor each week. My husband reads from <u>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</u> by C.S. Lewis in his class. Both of these are fiction that is fun to listen to and has a simple, straightforward plot. Listening to these is not hard work. But both of them also embody within the story ideas that help us understand truths about God and about ourselves. A biography of a missionary or other Christian could work in this place, or you could use a book about natural history. The book you choose should be well written, should convey valuable ideas about God without being preachy, and should not be difficult for the children to understand.<br />
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When I finish this reading, I allow time for the students to draw a response, in this case in the form of a map of Little Christian's journey. I showed them some really impressive maps that have been made from the original Pilgrim's Progress story, and suggested they might want to make one of their own. They each have a piece of blank paper, and they are free to use it to illustrate the story in any way they want. Some will make a detailed map. Some will make grids and put an illustration in one each week. Some will draw a large picture on the whole page each week. Whatever they do, it's helping them think over the story and decide what's meaningful to them.</div>
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We sing a hymn together each week, singing from the sheet music without accompaniment. (I select hymns I know and can sing easily.) Sheet music can be printed for free from several <a href="https://hymnary.org/" target="_blank">websites</a>. Each student has a copy of the hymn, which we keep in their folders. We sing the same hymn for four weeks. Occasionally I share some information about the hymn, but mostly we just get out our music sheets, sing the hymn, and put them away again so we can move on. Short and simple, but a nice break between heavier subjects and a lovely way to include an important element of Christian practice.<br />
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When we pray together, I try to make it a time of meaningful prayer with more involved than just making requests and with everyone participating. I have experimented with several different ways of handling this 5-10 minutes, and I haven't settled on one that I think works best for us. Sometimes we've just opened it up for voluntary prayer after which I close. Sometimes I have spent several weeks working through the Lord's Prayer and having the kids help me to figure out what each part of that prayer meant, then implementing those pieces in our prayer time by assigning parts to each student. Sometimes we've listed out prayer requests for our missionaries (or just the names of the missionaries) on the board, then had kids volunteer to pray for specific ones (and everyone had to volunteer). We've done other things too. All of these things have been successful in some ways, but I recommend making this time a matter for special prayer by the teachers so they can know what's best for this particular class at this particular time.<br />
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I close the class with a very short missionary story. For a time, our curriculum included a missionary story each week, focused on one missionary for an entire quarter and including a quick episode from that missionary's life each week. For one quarter when that wasn't available, we focused on a different missionary from our church each week. When we needed to find our own missionary stories, we tried spending four weeks on each missionary from our church, giving small snippets about them each week. The first week we might introduce the individual or the family and the general location where they serve. Another week we might look more closely at the work that missionary does. Another week we might look at the location and learn a little about what it's like. One week we might talk about some particular challenges or prayer requests. This missionary time really takes about 5 minutes, but it's flexible so it's well suited for the end of class when we might need to stretch a bit to fill some time or compress to end quickly.</div>
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Your Sunday school may include different elements. I've included simple but useful handicrafts during our opening time in the past. Some teachers include looking at great artworks. You could include poetry or nature (plants in the classroom or walks outdoors). Classical music might be a helpful element. Your Sunday school may be structured completely differently from what I've described. The structure we're using accounts for some needs that are specific to our situation. Your situation will be different and will have different needs. What matters is that each class contains "vital ideas" and that we avoid the "indefinite teaching" that undermines the work of the Holy Spirit. When we present those vital ideas in forms and with methods that reflect proven principles of effective teaching, our students will thrive!</div>
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(This post will probably be updated from time to time.)</div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-50703337594293487202019-06-13T22:54:00.000-05:002019-06-13T22:54:20.242-05:00Unbouncing Tigger, or The Defect of His QualityI'm reading <u>The Tao of Pooh</u>, in which Benjamin Hoff uses the Winnie the Pooh stories to exemplify philosophical principles. And I'm reading Charlotte Mason's second volume, <u>Parents and Children</u>, which is a collection of articles she wrote for the parents' magazine her organization published. <br />
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Tonight my Tao of Pooh reading came from chapter 4, "Cottleston Pie." One of the points of this chapter is that dealing with things As They Are is better than pretending things are Something They Are Not. Tigger comes up a lot. Hoff reminds us of Rabbit's plan to Unbounce Tigger. The plan failed, and one of Tigger's positive traits became obvious: he doesn't get lost. Tigger's bounciness distracted everyone, maybe even himself, from noticing his talents. And when Rabbit finally wins and forces Tigger to promise not to bounce, Tigger's whole character changes, and not for the better. Everyone misses the old cheery, bouncy Tigger, even if the bounciness seemed overwhelming.<br />
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Maybe as parents we tend to be Rabbit, wanting to "unbounce" our children. Maybe we can't see their talents because we're distracted by the annoying bouncing. Maybe our children can't see their talents either. Maybe we're trying so hard to "unbounce" them that we're taking away part of what makes them special and overlooking more important potential. "For within the Ugly Duckling is the Swan, inside the Bouncy Tigger is the Rescuer who knows the Way, and in each of us is something Special, and that we need to keep." (p. 65)<br />
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Last month our Coffee with Charlotte group read and discussed
chapter 16 in Volume 2, "Discipline: A Consideration for Parents." One
of the last points in that chapter focused on the necessity of seeing
the child as a person, whose good qualities sometimes show up in
negative ways. Many negative traits or behaviors stem from some
characteristic that could be a positive trait if directed appropriately,
and the job of the parent is to diligently help the child redirect
until the positive direction is habitual. "As the bad habit usually
arises from the defect of some quality in the child it should not be
difficult for the parent who knows his child's character to introduce
the contrary good habit." (p. 175)<br />
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What if instead of trying to make our children fit into our vision of Who They Should Be we instead considered Who They Are and thought about how to help them become even better at that? Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-8040590768449549302019-04-12T20:31:00.002-05:002019-04-18T18:05:54.491-05:00Success in Imperfection - Part 6 of 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG5l3L4Uh9LHzlf1MOZGrmTe5SxgpgkXbfgDmOqoOywjBUgTJtTcYeW0UxwuliZN6PNQt2zFXsSz87EpTpO26CO9SMsnSYleMTHyFTNZLcIMymFWW4Cmcr0vL3RAWpa3hdiXmcxvphzpU/s1600/Success+in+Imperfection.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG5l3L4Uh9LHzlf1MOZGrmTe5SxgpgkXbfgDmOqoOywjBUgTJtTcYeW0UxwuliZN6PNQt2zFXsSz87EpTpO26CO9SMsnSYleMTHyFTNZLcIMymFWW4Cmcr0vL3RAWpa3hdiXmcxvphzpU/s320/Success+in+Imperfection.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>This is Part 6 of 6. Find the other parts <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">here.</a></i><br />
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Less than perfect *is* success. Focus on what happened, not what didn’t happen. Today, this week, this term, this year, what did you and your students accomplish? Where did you grow? What new experiences did you have? How did you improve? Appreciate the beauty in what you *are* doing. It’s easy to feel inadequate and worry that you’re failing. <br />
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And of course we have to consider where we need to improve, but first we have to seriously look at where we’re doing well. So your Year 1 student isn’t narrating beautifully even when you read a paragraph at a time. But what *is* she doing that she wasn’t able to do at the beginning of the year? Where can you see growth or forward progress? Where are you seeing small glimpses of success? Maybe your Year 4 student isn’t adding Latin or taking to Plutarch or the original Shakespeare plays, but is he enjoying one of the literature selections? Or is he beginning to see the panorama of history just a bit? Or he’s fondly remembering a book from a previous year that you were sure he hadn’t understood at all?<br />
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We often scare ourselves with lofty visions of what our teenagers *would* be learning if they were in school. Stop that! The mythical school classroom looms too large in our imaginations; the real classroom is not nearly as intimidating. Of course we want to offer a rigorous education that prepares our students for life, but that happens through slow and steady progress, mixed with delays and setbacks, bit by bit. What does your teenager care about that most of her peers don’t? What opportunities is your teenager getting at home to learn self management? What subjects are you able to at least *touch* on that wouldn’t come up in a traditional school setting at all?<br />
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Oftentimes what looks like failure is really a success because of our unique situations.<br />
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<ul>
<li>So my 11 year old draws generic daffodils week after week in his nature notebook. This was actually much better than what we’ve achieved in the past, so I was happy! Plus, he’s been doing it with minimal prompting, and drawing is really a challenge for him so he usually won’t even try. For all these reasons, this is actually a success, not a failure, even though it doesn’t meet our usual expectations for perfect nature study implementation.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Usually dictation passages come from school readings. I’ve been comfortable pulling them from other great literature sometimes, but it’s hard to justify using lines pulled from various episodes of a fictional TV series. However, my son gladly is copying out the Hobbit in his commonplace book every day and already is an excellent writer, so this temporary compromise of using the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition as dictation doesn’t bother me too much.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>My daughter had a concussion last year and her ability to focus has taken time to return. She’s also working and volunteering and participating in other activities that have great value for her now and in the future. Our lightened version of a light year schedule is still incorporating great history and literature and theology. She loves her readings! We just had to cut back to what we can actually achieve with our current challenges. This little bit done consistently is still beautiful, and when we can’t get it done we just have to let it go and try again.</li>
</ul>
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Ultimately, are you honoring God in your home? Are you following His direction? If you are, then you’re achieving absolute success, even if it looks like failure from a human perspective. The verse I cling to when homeschooling is hard is Isaiah 54:13: “All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.” <br />
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We aren’t wise enough to plot out a definite course that’s best for ourselves, our family, our community. No map we lay out or get from even the most expert source can account for the specific struggles and needs of our families. We study the map, and we “mix it with brains,” but then we must defer to the Holy Spirit because He *does* know which course is best and it may look utterly different than what we would expect. <br />
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If we stay close to Him, then ultimately our imperfection will be the greatest success we could have.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to Intro</a>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-59627719482325234202019-04-12T20:28:00.001-05:002019-04-18T18:16:29.863-05:00Success in Imperfection - Part 5 of 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part 5 of 6. Find the other parts <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">here.</a></i> <br />
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When you make your plans, plan to delegate. The first place to delegate is to your kids. Pass responsibilities to your kids as they can handle them. This looks different for each child and each home; it will even look different from week to week sometimes. Don’t fear for their failure. You want to be wise about adding responsibility, but you also need to let them own the responsibility even if it turns out to be more imperfect than you would like. <br />
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Plan for boundaries to help teach them as they take on these new roles. They need regular checkpoints where they can see the consequences of their success or failure. This helps them learn to manage their own work. But within those checkpoints, give them freedom. <br />
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Some of them will pick up on what they need to do sooner than others. I have one child who starts his week’s work on Sunday evening and tries to come narrate to me while I’m putting his sister to bed. He’s usually done with most of his week’s work by Wednesday, even though I’ve added extra work to his already full AO schedule. Another of my children generally refuses to start his schoolwork until 5 minutes before a deadline. He’s pretty sure he can knock all the work out really fast, so why should he start on it before he wants to? The process of teaching him to manage his own work even though he doesn’t want to looks like a detour, like we’re not making progress on our route, but it’s necessary in order for us to reach our end goal, so it’s worth all the difficulty up front. <br />
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Success isn’t simply getting the work done well; it also means learning these life lessons and developing a strength of character, and that sometimes comes at the expense of completing all the work or doing it in a certain timeframe.<br />
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Delegating can also mean outsourcing some of the work to another teacher. If there’s an opportunity to do that and if you think it would be beneficial, consider using an outside course occasionally. I can’t do everything well--time constraints make that impossible even if I were good at everything. So if I can outsource an area that takes a great deal of my time and attention, that can free me to focus on another area. It also gives my kids a chance to see a different perspective from another instructor. <br />
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I’ve appreciated the opportunities we’ve had to do science labs in a group setting run by someone else, for instance. When we don’t have that opportunity, we make do with my efforts, but when we can, doing labs with a group can be a blessing. High school math is another area I’ve outsourced. I teach algebra and geometry, and then after that the kids who will do algebra 2 and higher take their math at a local university. They get college credit and a teacher who’s actually focused on explaining that subject, their homework gets immediate feedback, and they have a support group for studying. It’s been great! <br />
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Most importantly, follow the Holy Spirit’s lead. Pray over your plans, and listen to the answers. Keep praying, and be willing to adjust the plans when they need it. Pray over your children. You are not responsible for their ultimate success. That is not a burden for you to bear. You are responsible for faithfully carrying out what you *should* do, so lay the rest of that burden down. Pray over the challenges that come up each day, the small ones that soon pass and the big ones that sometimes never resolve. Pray for wisdom, for patience, for the right response. <br />
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Sometimes we’re not to fix the problem but to show grace through it. Our kids need to see us respond in love to the challenges, and we can’t do that without relying on the Holy Spirit. We can’t know the right course without his guidance either. <br />
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In the book Prince Caspian, Lucy has instructions from Aslan, but no one else does. She wants to follow those instructions, but she’s intimidated by the pushback from the others, so she goes along with their preferences. This winds up hurting them all. So often we’re in that same position. We know in our hearts, we feel it, that a certain course of action is the right one, but we talk ourselves out of it because it doesn’t look like what others expect or even what we expect.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to Intro</a><br />
<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-5.html" target="_blank">Next</a>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-89557996905902238902019-04-12T20:24:00.001-05:002019-04-18T18:15:46.871-05:00Success in Imperfection - Part 4 of 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part 4 of 6. Find the other parts <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">here.</a></i> <br />
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The map should not rule us. Plan, but hold plans loosely. AmblesideOnline’s booklists, schedules, and other plans are such a help! They give us a place to start. Sometimes we can work with those plans with very few changes, and other times we’ll find we have to make big adjustments. When you’re ready to plan, plan for what you think you can realistically accomplish plus a little more. Give yourself room to grow into the plans. Looking at the schedule for a new term can seem overwhelming--all those books! All those new types of work! And we weren’t getting everything done *last* term! <br />
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Don’t panic! Take that work, and organize it into whatever template works for you so you can see how it might actually play out in your home with your unique situation. Adjust your expectations down if you need to, but don’t adjust them all the way down to a level that feels completely safe. Leave some challenge, some room to grow. That book that seems *way* too hard before the term starts may become a favorite a month into the term. Even the book that continues to challenge us may prompt us to learn new ways of working through difficult material or to persevere with something that’s uncomfortable. If we always plan for what we know we can do and do well, we won’t reach as far.<br />
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You’ve probably heard the saying, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” No homeschool plan really works out in practice exactly as it looked in pristine form. You can’t account for the colicky baby, the washing machine leak, the sudden case of strep throat, someone’s bad mood. <br />
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Your plans are a map, helping you see the path to forward progress, but they can’t be adhered to rigidly when the terrain is different than expected. Sometimes we have to stop and figure out where *we* are and where we need to be and what the best route is to get there, rather than just following the plan, or we’ll end up in a hole we can’t get out of.<br />
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When Charlotte Mason’s teachers told her the timetables were impossible to keep to because of all the challenges that come with having actual children with their unique needs, she told them to “mix it with brains.” In other words, adjust the plan to meet the real needs and circumstances you face--don’t try to force those needs and circumstances into the plans. <br />
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Reevaluate regularly so you can *try again in a new way, *drop what isn’t currently needed, *add what has been neglected. In the upper years of AO, you’ll really find this is necessary, because the schedules start to contain more work than you *should* undertake--you have to decide what to keep and what to leave out, because only you know what’s best for your situation. <br />
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AO could pare down the plans for you, but that wouldn’t allow you to decide which route is best. One family may need the slow, scenic route, while another family may need one that’s more direct or includes more challenges. Being unable to complete every good and worthwhile task isn’t failure. It’s life. As homeschoolers, we have way more that we would *like* to do than what we can possibly do. We have to decide what’s most important so we can focus there, while still watching for opportunities to add in some of what we’ve had to skip.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to Intro</a><br />
<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-4.html" target="_blank">Next</a>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-37901626141049049442019-04-12T20:18:00.001-05:002019-04-18T18:14:46.469-05:00Success in Imperfection - Part 3 of 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part 3 of 6. Find the other parts <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">here.</a></i> <br />
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How do we measure success? Charlotte Mason said it wasn’t how much a child knows, but how much he cares, and the connections he makes. Most of the time, I don’t get much indication of how much any of my children care. I worry just like anyone else about where I’m falling short. When the kids were young, it was sometimes really hard to find signs of caring and connections. Somehow my kids never seemed to act out the stories they read in school like I hear about other people’s children doing. <br />
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Now that they’re older, I’m more likely to see connections in a dinner table argument over Richard III. I’d prefer not to have the argument, but it’s undeniable that the participants both know and care about the history they’ve studied. My kids normally don’t love their handicrafts, and that’s a subject that gets skipped regularly by at least one of them. But that one has voluntarily taken up macrame to make holders for planters. Sometimes a narration will reference other things we’ve learned about in the past, or will include a strong disagreement with the author’s opinion. These sporadic glimpses of caring and connections show me that we’re on the right track. <br />
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Mostly I have to see the success in forward progress, slow and incremental. So my 11 year old still has unsteady handwriting and can only write three or four words a day, but this is much better than the beginning of this year: he writes in cursive, he’s improving regularly, and he does it on his own. These are all huge improvements, so they constitute success even if copywork for us looks very different from someone else. Sometimes doing both a full Shakespeare play and a full Life from Plutarch is too much in a term; we sometimes switch off between the two or spread them over a longer period of time. If we’re still doing the plays and the lives regularly, slowly is still a success for us. We’re still getting the feast, just at a pace that we can handle. <br />
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Success is not about how we measure up to our own expectations. It’s not about how we compare to what we hear about other families’ accomplishments. It’s not about how completely we implement every piece of a Charlotte Mason education. Success is about how we persevere in spreading the feast, guarding the personhood, cultivating the love, making forward progress at a pace that isn’t destructive.<br />
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Imperfection is reality. We have to come to terms with the pressure our own pride and insecurity put on us. We have to put aside the pride that pushes us to achieve visible successes so we can feel successful, pushes us to achieve them *even if* those visible successes are not the right course for us right now. We have to get past the insecurity that tells us that someone else’s definition of success is what we have to achieve in order to know we’re doing well. <br />
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Charlotte Mason gave us a wide array of sign posts to aim for on our journey, of modes of transport that will help us get to our destination. Every one of them is good and useful, but not all of them are possible or even desirable in every family, for every child, at every time. The principles are still true no matter what, but what they look like in implementation changes based on our situation. <br />
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Some of the principles show us where we’re headed, our destination. For instance, we want our children to love the world around them, past, present, and future. That’s one of our goals. Some of the principles tell us how we can legitimately move toward that destination. Children are born persons, and our path toward the goals must respect our children’s personhood. Keeping the principles in front of us reminds us where we’re going and how we can safely get there, but it doesn’t tell us exactly how we need to travel along the way. So we have to make our plans with those principles in mind but also use our judgment. <br />
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A few weeks ago, I needed to get from one activity in a neighboring city to pick up a child at another activity in my town. I don’t know my way around in that neighboring city, so I thought I would follow someone else who did. I quickly realized that person wasn’t headed the same direction I needed to go, so I changed course, but by then I didn’t know which way I was going. I tried to wing it and got lost, so I pulled up a map app to help me get my bearings. The app couldn’t really get oriented at first and it sent me down a sketchy road to turn around. I went even when I knew I shouldn’t, simply because I didn’t want to stop and figure out where to go. The path on the screen looked safe enough, and finding my own path seemed unnecessary and time consuming. I followed the app down a path I had serious misgivings about, and it led me right into a hole. I couldn’t get out! I was totally stuck and unable to go anywhere. I tried to let the map rule me, to listen to the experts rather than my own judgment, and it ended in disaster. <br />
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I’ve often done something just like that in my parenting and my homeschooling. I read a book or listened to a comment and decided that I needed to change course in order to get a child sleeping through the night or potty trained or reading well or any of a number of lovely outcomes. But I didn’t stop to consider where I was on the grand parenting map and what was the best route for us to get closer to the goal (or even if this particular destination was a valid stop for us on the way to our ultimate goal).<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to Intro</a><br />
<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-information-part-3.html" target="_blank">Next</a>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-68212667665848389842019-04-12T20:14:00.000-05:002019-04-18T18:11:36.917-05:00Success in Imperfection - Part 2 of 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part 2 of 6. Find the other parts <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">here.</a></i> <br />
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Imperfection feels like failure, doesn’t it? We want to know that we’re doing what’s best for our children, that we’re competent at this job of homeschooling that we’ve embraced, that we measure up, and the clearest way to know that is to judge ourselves and our children against the standard. But what if our standard isn’t the right one? And what if we aren’t competent to judge how we measure up because the results aren’t necessarily visible? What if our expectations fail to account for the true challenges we face? What if the “right thing to do” isn’t actually best for our specific situation?<br />
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My oldest and my youngest both learned to read painlessly and early. My youngest taught herself by helping me do DuoLingo Spanish on my phone at bedtime every night! (That’s not an officially approved method of reading instruction.) When my oldest started Year 1, for her reading instruction time we used the Declaration of Independence because I had a lovely picture book copy of it and it had enough words she didn’t already know that we could do some word building and other CM-style reading work with it. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? My second child had a vision issue that went undiagnosed until she was about 8, and because of that and some other factors she spent about 2 years working painfully through the McGuffey Primer. <br />
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Was that a reading lesson failure? No! Actually, in some ways my lessons with my oldest were failures because I neglected to do the spelling portion of the lessons most of the time and so my oldest had to really hit spelling hard through copywork and dictation when she was older to make up for that. My second child’s lessons didn’t produce the same results, even though we did them even more intentionally and incorporated many of the optional elements that help to remediate reading difficulties. But she had extra challenges, and we didn’t see much progress until her vision issues were addressed. And even then her results continued to be different because she’s a different child.<br />
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If I measured my success by the standard of “reading fluently by first grade” or some other commonly accepted standard, my time with my second child would be considered a failure. But it wasn’t a failure! We did what was possible and healthy based on where we were at the time. We mostly kept school as a positive experience in the midst of the challenges. We kept evaluating what we were doing to see if it was the best course right then. And we kept in mind Charlotte Mason’s principles and her guidance, which saved us from falling into many mistakes that would have been considered the “right thing to do” but in my daughter’s case would have been the wrong thing to do.<br />
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Keeping the principles in mind can save us from those sorts of popular mistakes, where something that works for many is confused with something that’s a foundational expectation. But we can fall into another trap, trying to do everything that’s ever been associated with Charlotte Mason, as if leaving something out or giving something short shrift means failure. Charlotte Mason never expected any of us to be able to perfectly implement every technique, every notebook, every activity that she recommended, every opportunity for habit formation. Even her own teachers, in her own schools, with lovely timetables and days structured to help them keep the timetables, couldn’t fit in everything. <br />
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My lists for weekly work for each of my students are pretty long, especially in the upper years, but they still don’t include everything I think we should be doing and certainly not everything Charlotte Mason ever recommended. And we don’t even accomplish those lists completely every week! (Don’t tell anyone, but occasionally some thing on the list doesn’t get accomplished at all during an entire term!) And many of the items on my long lists aren’t done “correctly” but are done quickly and simply in order to fit into our crazy life. They get done, but they probably don’t look anything like what most of you envision if you see that item on a schedule. And I’m happy with that, because even our simple and quick version of those items is good. Sometimes we can get bogged down in trying to figure out how *exactly* we’re supposed to do each piece. We just can’t research everything! And it isn’t necessary to research everything. <br />
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Sometimes we find we need improvement in an area, and then more digging into the details is needed, but usually a general understanding is good enough, certainly enough to start with. It isn’t perfect, but it’s moving us in the right direction. Charlotte Mason success is not measured by how many things we accomplish and how correctly they’re completed. <br />
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Not only did Charlotte Mason not measure success in that way, she warned us not to try to take her recommendations and turn them into lists and rules. She saw the danger in making her method into a system, like taking a detailed road map showing all the possible routes and turning it into a list of specific steps to get from point A to point B in one particular way, the kind of list you get in a map app. She didn’t want us to judge ourselves by such a list. That’s not a proper measure of success.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the first place, we have no system of education. We hold that great things, such as nature, life, education, are 'cabined, cribbed, confined,' in proportion as they are systematised. We have a method of education, it is true, but method is no more than a way to an end, and is free, yielding, adaptive as Nature herself. Method has a few comprehensive laws according to which details shape themselves, as one naturally shapes one's behaviour to the acknowledged law that fire burns. System, on the contrary, has an infinity of rules and instructions as to what you are to do and how you are to do it. Method in education follows Nature humbly; stands aside and gives her fair play.</blockquote>
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<i>Charlotte Mason Volume 2 p. 168</i> </div>
<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to Intro</a><br />
<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-2.html" target="_blank">Next</a> Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-83559426772807420502019-04-12T20:12:00.001-05:002019-04-18T18:08:51.836-05:00Success in Imperfection - Part 1 of 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is not a post about how to do all the right things. This is a post about finding success in the midst of the impossibility of doing things right. No matter how long you’ve been homeschooling or how carefully you study and work to implement Charlotte Mason’s methods, you know the sting of imperfection. None of us is doing everything “right”, no matter how we define “right.” Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what “right” even is, especially when what’s “right” for one somehow doesn’t seem to achieve the same results for another.<br />
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I’ve been using Charlotte Mason’s methods in my home for a long time. My oldest will graduate from high school in May, and we started when she was in preschool. I take this seriously. I believe that Charlotte Mason’s principles and even her specific instructions are wise and well founded and almost always I can find a reason for why she suggested what she did. You might think that means that my home is a picture of all the CM goodness, but you’d be wrong. So many, many basic elements of a Charlotte Mason education don’t happen in our home or get implemented in non-standard ways!<br />
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For several weeks this spring, my 11 year old’s nature study consisted solely of looking out the front door at the daffodils in the front yard and drawing some generic flowers in his nature notebook.<br />
My 13 year old has been using the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (from Star Trek) as his dictation. <br />
My 15 year old is doing a lighter version of a light schedule, and we don’t always get that done.<br />
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You get the general idea. My family is a picture of imperfect implementation. All of us are, really. If we expect perfection, we’ll inevitably be disappointed. Besides, imperfection is part of the process. If we could do perfectly what we’re attempting to do, we’d be attempting too little and shutting ourselves off from growth. And often God uses our imperfection to teach us about humility and grace and how to rely on Him. Sometimes our image of what perfection would look like is actually the completely wrong course of action for our specific case, so by chasing perfection we can find ourselves going in the wrong direction. Instead of chasing perfection, we have to find success in our imperfection!<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-1.html" target="_blank">Part 2</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-2.html" target="_blank">Part 3</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-information-part-3.html" target="_blank">Part 4</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-4.html" target="_blank">Part 5</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2019/04/success-in-imperfection-part-5.html" target="_blank">Part 6</a> </li>
</ul>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-42340887008237335082018-09-19T12:09:00.000-05:002018-09-19T12:09:11.335-05:00Using Times in a Flexible Schedule<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've always used flexible schedules for our school time. When my oldest was in the early grades, one year I tried putting together a detailed schedule for her with specific times for each subject. We couldn't stick to the times, as anyone with several young children at home (especially with a baby) will understand, and my estimates for how long things would take were usually too high, but just plotting the work out like that gave us a sense of how much was realistic to expect in a day.<br />
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Since then, I've used other scheduling methods to help juggle the needs of multiple kids (I have four school-aged and one preschooler right now) as well as to train for independence. You can see more about how this has worked for us in these posts:<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2015/02/sample-term-schedules.html" target="_blank">Sample Term Schedules</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2014/06/organizing-our-ao-year.html" target="_blank">Organizing Our AO Year</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2013/10/categorizing-our-schoolwork.html" target="_blank">Categorizing Our Schoolwork</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2013/06/organizing-our-homeschool.html" target="_blank">Organizing Our Homeschool</a><br />
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This type of organization of our day really worked well for us, but for two of my four school-age kids it wasn't working as well as I hoped. One especially chafed under a system where he had certain work due by certain times, but disintegrated when given too much freedom. Another was struggling with the larger workload in the new school year and competing demands on her time. While my other two managed to find a balance, those two still hadn't, so a new plan was needed.<br />
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Rigid times don't work for us because our schedule for life has too much variability and with so many of us at home too many "crises" come up that derail a tight plan. However, I suspected that having times laid out might help these two kids the way they had helped my oldest, by showing what could reasonably expect to be completed by a certain point of the day and by clarifying the trade-offs involved in procrastinating. So I took the schedules I had already made (using the process laid out in the links). I decided on a reasonable start time for the child in question, then made a list of subjects assigned to times. For the younger child, each subject usually got about 15 minutes, but sometimes the slot was shorter and on occasion it was longer. For the older one, in high school, we used more longer time slots, with at least one being an hour.<br />
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These two students still have the same schedule we've always used, but where the others have an untimed daily/weekly checklist, these two have a timed daily checklist. That's more restrictive, but it makes them feel more free. The older one uses this as a guide to how much extra-curricular activity will fit into any given day. The younger one now sees clearly that certain work *has to* be done before snack time or lunch time or whatever. He sees that if he's even slightly diligent, all his work can be done in the morning. And he can look at the clock, compare that to his schedule, and see if he's behind or ahead for the day. I do hold him accountable to be caught up to his timetable before having snack, lunch, or free time--if he's ahead of the table, he can do what he wants to until the next timeslot, but he usually does several assignments in a row before taking a break.<br />
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From my point of view, this works exactly the same as the old way where certain categories of work had to be done by certain times. I don't go around with a clock or timer monitoring work. But the added structure of times has helped two of my students visualize this better, so it's been a useful tool.Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-68348458619351967772018-08-14T22:58:00.000-05:002018-08-14T23:15:55.548-05:00Streamlined Meal Planning<br />
Once they turn five, each of my kids begins choosing and helping to prepare one meal each week. I work closely with each child at first, and gradually I turn over tasks for the child to perform without assistance. How fast that happens varies from child to child and meal to meal.<br />
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Five years ago, I blogged about a new way of <a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2013/06/organizing-our-household.html" target="_blank">organizing our meal plannin</a>g. I was entering the final stages of a complicated pregnancy with a high probability of complications after the birth, and I needed the meal plans to be functional without much help from me each week. This system, described in that earlier post, worked well for us with few changes for five years. But this summer I decided we needed to streamline the process more as well as to shake it up a bit since we had gotten into a rut and, although the food choices were repetitive and boring, deciding what to cook each week was too time-consuming for our current schedule.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pockets store cards not in use.</td></tr>
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I sorted through the meal cards we had collected, discarding those we never actually made. I made new cards for meals we did sometimes make that didn't already have cards. I solicited suggestions from the rest of the family and added cards. Then we went through a process of selecting various meals. Each child got to choose seven different entrees he would like to make. I made a list. I took that list and sorted it so that each child had a separate column listing the seven meals, and each row had different meals for every child. In some cases, I asked a child to replace one selected meal with something else, letting him choose the something else, so that we would have a bit more variety.<br />
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The resulting list had four columns and seven rows. Each row had four different meals that were fairly dissimilar: no two soups or two breakfasts, etc. I then made my own chart with three columns and seven rows, filling in dishes I would make. I focused on things I could make in the pressure cooker, mostly, and tried not to duplicate any of the kids' choices. My chart isn't completely filled in, but I usually don't need to make three meals each week anyway.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3CUqbggErFt2xrrzkMGDUml-P1KpKki9Ud8BXPLiyqchHi8u4-wZ9ViOlTj4NzIqZoqycuo3CjPkINs24fgkODLwIWXNpwH_PQIkYFe6KNh7Y6yKki2p5iU-OM9kebHCctR2774jN4YE/s1600/IMG_20180814_230852853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3CUqbggErFt2xrrzkMGDUml-P1KpKki9Ud8BXPLiyqchHi8u4-wZ9ViOlTj4NzIqZoqycuo3CjPkINs24fgkODLwIWXNpwH_PQIkYFe6KNh7Y6yKki2p5iU-OM9kebHCctR2774jN4YE/s200/IMG_20180814_230852853.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One clip for each day of the week.</td></tr>
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Now I made new 3x5 cards, using a different color index card for each child. Each week, we make the meals from the next row on the chart, so we don't have to do any choosing. I can easily see what meals are coming up so I can plan our shopping, and I only have to decide who is cooking on which day each week (based on work and activity schedules). I clip the cards to an organizer so everyone can see who is cooking what when for the week.<br />
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*If someone wants to change his plan for that week*, I don't mind *as long as* the new selection doesn't duplicate someone else's plan that week AND either no special ingredients are required or I am given enough advance notice to add things to the regular shopping trip.Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-4388794428878858412018-06-18T23:23:00.002-05:002018-06-18T23:23:58.383-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 9 - Envelopes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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When you budget based on your annual income and expenses, using an "envelope system" can work to your advantage.</div>
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You have probably heard about people putting money into envelopes to put that money aside for different types of expenses. You might have an envelope for clothing or one for groceries, for instance. When a paycheck comes in, certain amounts are allotted to go in each of the envelopes. Then those expenses are paid from that amount.</div>
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Using a system like this lets you consider your whole year when you budget while still managing your money month by month or paycheck by paycheck. Putting certain amounts of cash into designated envelopes throughout the year allows you to plan for future needs while still meeting your immediate obligations.</div>
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If you budgeted for annual expenses that are flexible or unscheduled or infrequent (haircuts that are less often than monthly, clothing, gifts, car maintenance, vehicle registration, and other similar types of expenses), you know in advance that some time during the course of the year you will need a certain amount of money (maybe an exact amount or maybe an estimated amount) for each of those expenses. You can take that list of expenses that are less frequent than monthly and divide each one by 12 to get a monthly amount (or by 52 for weekly or by a number that represents the number of paychecks you have each month). That tells you how much money needs to be put aside each month (or each week or each paycheck) to help prepare for that expense. Each month (or each week or each paycheck) that much cash is put into an envelope marked with that category. Then when that expense comes due or that money is needed, the cash is already set aside and available to be used, without affecting the other regular expenditures.</div>
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Clothing, gifts, and school supplies inevitably must be bought. Looking at your annual budget lets you know how much you can reasonably spend on each of these categories while still meeting your other financial goals (including saving for emergencies, retirement, and other needs). Putting aside a small amount each month (or each week or each pay period) lets you spread the cost throughout the year, and then when you have an opportunity to buy at a discount or you have a pressing need, the funds are available to take advantage of that discount or meet that need.</div>
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The envelope system can be helpful for more frequent expenses too. For instance, if you take out cash to pay for groceries, you can easily see how much money is available for groceries even if you shop more than once per pay period or have multiple people shopping or shop at more than one store. You can save some of that grocery money until there is a sale or other opportunity to buy a large amount of some staple at a low price.</div>
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Using cash in envelopes eliminates the need to track what each person is spending on what--when the cash leaves the envelope, no more can be spent until the next set of cash comes in. This helps prevent overspending, so that you can actually stick to your savings goals.</div>
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If you see that an envelope has "enough" cash in it already, you can stop adding money to that envelope and use the designated amount to fill some other envelope or to apply to paying down debt or to reaching a savings goal. You can even put an amount on the envelope to remind yourself how much you are needing in it. Once that amount has been reached, instead of adding to that envelope each month (or each week or each paycheck) you would allocate that amount to a different goal until the funds in that envelope drop below the target amount.</div>
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If you are only able to put very small amounts of money toward some goal each month (or each week or each paycheck), that's ok. Once you have saved enough to be able to purchase what you were saving for, then you are able to make that purchase with a clear conscience, knowing that you aren't jeopardizing any other financial commitments.</div>
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If you are very disciplined and organized, you can do this without putting cash in envelopes. But before you try "virtual" envelopes, you might try the physical ones first to be sure you can do it, and if you start slipping up when you try the virtual kind you should return to the physical model before you get your finances out of whack.</div>
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Physical envelopes don't have to be envelopes. They can be jars or coffee cans or folders or whatever will securely keep your money organized. We use pencil pouches that are meant to go in a three-ring binder. My brilliant husband took the cardboard that was inside the pouch showing through the window on the front, turned it over, and wrote the label on the back. Now the label shows through the window on the front of the pouch.</div>
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Not all the money you are saving should be kept as cash. Money you'll be saving for a long time (such as saving for a vehicle or vacation or a new large appliance) can be kept in a savings account, either a separate account or in an account with other funds where you keep track yourself of how much of the money applies to what goal. Also, if some categories start accumulating really large amounts, you'll have to decide if you should put that money in savings, stop adding to that category until the amount in it drops below a certain threshhold, or go ahead and use the money.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
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Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-61092750063219215862018-06-18T23:23:00.000-05:002018-06-18T23:23:03.397-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 8 - Big Picture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Why should you base your budget on your annual pay rather than budgeting around each individual paycheck or month?</div>
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Many expenses are weekly or monthly, and it seems reasonable to manage those based on your individual paychecks or each month. Then for the expenses that are infrequent or not scheduled, you pay out of the surplus of each paycheck or each month's pay.</div>
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When you do that, it's hard to plan for expenses that come less often but are fully foreseeable. Also, when you budget based on a short period of time, it's hard to save for those expenses that can be expected but can't be known in advance.</div>
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Examples:<br />
Vehicle registration comes only once per year, but you know exactly when to expect it and how much it will cost. This is a fully foreseeable expense that isn't monthly.</div>
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Christmas and birthday gifts and celebrations each come once per year at times that are known in advance. You get to choose how much you spend on them, but you can plan that in advance based on your annual income and expenses.</div>
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Clothing purchases have to be made, especially with growing children to buy for, but exactly when they have to be made or how much they will cost isn't definite. (You can of course decide how much to spend and when to buy, but it isn't necessarily scheduled.)</div>
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Most families can expect to have some medical or dental expenses during each year. You can't necessarily know in advance when they will occur or how much they will be, but you can guess at an amount that will cover some of them.</div>
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Car repairs aren't usually foreseeable, but cars do need them regularly, especially repairs such as new tires or belts and hoses. It's reasonable to have a sum of money on hand to help pay for those expenses even though you can't know in advance exactly when they will occur or how much they will cost.</div>
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When you budget based on the entire year's pay and the entire year's expenses, you can make an attempt to include those less frequent or unscheduled expenses. That allows you to be prepared for them ahead of time rather than scrambling at the last minute.</div>
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The next step will explain how the "envelope system" can help you use the annual budgeting method to your best advantage.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-4123476391918652762018-06-18T23:21:00.002-05:002018-06-18T23:21:43.293-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 7 - Allocating the Surplus (Margin)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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When you have a realistic list of income and expenses that has income higher than expenses, you next need to allocate that extra income. It's tempting to use that extra money for spending on things you want to do but haven't budgeted for. In a way, that's what we're going to do, but not as free money.</div>
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You need to have a nest egg, some money put away for emergencies. To start with, you need to get $1000 put away that can be used to cover those totally unexpected expenses like a plumbing repair or bail. </div>
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<span class="_47e3 _5mfr" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;" title="smile emoticon"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_7oe" style="display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0px; width: 0px;">:-)</span></span></div>
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Some of you will say, "That's easy! Already have that!" Those people can read on after this paragraph. Some of you will say, "That's impossible!" No, it's hard but not impossible. It requires you to take every dollar you can scrape together and put it aside in a safe place and not touch it except when you have an actual emergency. It means you have to do without some things you would really like to have. But it *can* be done, and it *must* be done. Emergencies come along whether we want them to or not, and you must have money available to deal with them.</div>
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Once you have your $1000 saved, it's time to think of big expenses that come along periodically that aren't really unexpected. You know that appliances will break and need replacing, so you should plan for that. Some of your surplus needs to be saved so you have money to pay for the new appliance or the repair. You know that your vehicles will need repairs periodically. You know you need to do maintenance on your home.</div>
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Make a list of these sorts of items. You can even include vacations and other "fun" things here. Put down next to each item how much money you would like to have on hand all the time to cover that expense. For instance, you might want to keep $700 or $1000 on hand to cover an appliance repair, and probably at least $500 for auto repairs.</div>
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Now take the surplus amount of money that wasn't needed for your more regular expenses (listed as Cash Flow Margin on <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zbLw7XU8kFByucbuXnypdHEmL_jBb1RSJB_qjXqfzoA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">the spreadsheet I shared</a>), and start applying it to those categories. You might make jars with labels to keep in your house, or you might have separate savings accounts at the bank, or you could put the money in your main savings account and keep track of how much belongs to which category. You might have only a very small amount to put towards these expenses, but if you put it faithfully where it belongs, you will eventually reach the amount you specified. Then you can start putting that surplus into another category.</div>
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If you have reached the amount you wanted for each of these extra categories, start putting the surplus into your emergency fund. You actually need enough money in your emergency fund to cover 6 months of living expenses!</div>
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And when you have to spend some of the money you've put aside in these funds, use the surplus to start replenishing the category you had to pull from.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-54047916115514477652018-06-18T23:20:00.001-05:002018-06-18T23:20:50.440-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 6 - Adjusting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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When you completed Step 5, you had an estimate of your annual income and outflow, how much money you bring in and how much goes back out again.</div>
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If your income was higher than your estimated spending, things look pretty good. But check your estimates. Did you forget a category? Did you estimate too low? Did you include expenses you know will occur but not exactly when or for how much, like car repairs (make an estimate for the year, even just a few hundred dollars) or school supplies?</div>
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If your income was lower than your expenses, that's not surprising. Now we need to fix that!</div>
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One way to fix that is to look at those discretionary or variable expenses and see if they can be reduced. But don't be unrealistic! You can't budget $20 a year for clothing for a family of 5 unless you are a super thrifty clothes shopper who receives lots of hand-me-downs. </div>
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Another way to get your spending in line with your income is to look at some of the bills we listed to see if some of those can be reduced or eliminated. Do you need all the insurance coverage and other options that are deducted from your paycheck? Would it make more sense for you to pay cash for some things or purchase them from a different source than to pay the price for coverage through your employer? Only you can determine that for each item on your list.</div>
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You must get your spending estimate down below your income estimate, and you must stick to that spending estimate (or less). If you spend more than you earn, you will experience financial disaster. In fact, we have to have some leeway, some excess income (no matter how small) because we must save money to cover the inevitable large expenses that occur sporadically.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-77724922601128566062018-06-18T23:19:00.001-05:002018-06-18T23:19:45.837-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 5 - Total Expenses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Now we add up our numbers, all the amounts we put into our flexible categories plus the amounts we previously listed for regular bills and known expenses.</div>
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Make sure you are adding up numbers for the same time frame! I think it's easiest to do this initially based on annual numbers, so if you have a monthly number, multiply it by 12 first. Weekly numbers get multiplied by 52, etc.</div>
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If you're using <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zbLw7XU8kFByucbuXnypdHEmL_jBb1RSJB_qjXqfzoA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">my spreadsheet</a> as a template, the numbers should already have added up automatically. Now is a good time to check the math and make sure all the numbers are adding correctly. If they are not, you'll have to troubleshoot the formulas on the spreadsheet.</div>
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When you have added all of these up, you have a rough idea of your annual spending. How does it compare to the annual income we calculated long, long ago? If your annual spending number is smaller than your annual income, you have a surplus that you can save. If it's bigger than your annual income, you have a deficit and need to reduce some of your spending amounts. On the spreadsheet I gave you, that number will show up as Cash Flow Margin down near the bottom. If it's positive, that's good. If it's negative, we've got more work to do.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-21781420117710693562018-06-18T23:18:00.002-05:002018-06-18T23:18:51.336-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 4 - Other Expenses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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We've figured out how much we have coming in, and we've recorded all our regular bills that we're committed to spending.</div>
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Now sit down and think about what else you spend money on regularly. Just make a list of everything you can think of. Don't include monetary amounts, just the label.<br />
- clothes<br />
- groceries<br />
- eating out<br />
- gas<br />
- auto repairs<br />
- school supplies<br />
- Christmas gifts<br />
etc.</div>
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You can see some items on <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zbLw7XU8kFByucbuXnypdHEmL_jBb1RSJB_qjXqfzoA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">the spreadsheet I showed you</a>, just as examples. You can add your own in place of mine or in addition to mine, if you're using that spreadsheet.</div>
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Let's put some numbers into the categories you listed. For some things, you can make a rough estimate. For instance, how often do you fill up your vehicle's tank with gas, in general? How much does that roughly cost? Multiply that out for the year, and put that number down for fuel (or whatever category you are keeping that in).</div>
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How many people do you buy Christmas presents for? How much do you intend to spend for each of them? What about birthday presents? How many household members get haircuts for which you must pay? How often? How much does that cost each time? Each of those amounts can go in the Annually column in the appropriate row, unless it's an amount that is spend monthly or even more frequently.</div>
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It's proba<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">bly best to do these as annual amounts for now. Some of these categories are infrequent, so making estimates for the year will be simpler than trying to do them for the month or for a two-week period.<br /><br />If you aren't sure how to estimate an expense, or if it's pretty flexible (like "gifts" or "clothes"), take a look at <a href="http://www.michigancounselingassociation.com/uploads/2/6/3/4/2634297/budget__financial_education.pdf" target="_blank">this list</a> to get an idea of a reasonable amount to start with as an estimate.</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></span></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-4931879013089273162018-06-18T23:17:00.002-05:002018-06-18T23:17:45.056-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 3 - Bills<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Find every recurring bill you have. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">* If the amount is the same each time you pay, then one copy of that bill will do. Car payments, mortgage payments, and phone bills often are the same each month.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">* If the amount varies, gather several copies, ideally a year's worth. Utility bills, especially electricity or gas, often vary from month to month.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Take that stack of bills and sort it. Bills that are the same every month go in one stack. Bills that change each month go in another.</span><br />
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We're going to list these bills on our budget. If the bill is the same every month, list that item and put the amount in the column for monthly expenses.<br />
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If the bill changes, take all of the examples you've collected, add up the amounts, and divide by the number you have. That will give you an average amount. List the bill on your budget and put that average in the monthly expense spot.<br />
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If you have bills that are more frequent than monthly or less frequent than monthly, you can convert them to a monthly expense to list them in the Monthly column or you can convert them to an annual expense and list them in the Annually column.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-56810399505585192912018-06-18T23:15:00.000-05:002018-06-18T23:16:00.455-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 2 - Deductions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s1600/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRy6WEFlO53WyWOXzmBIE4ntsRWC5COHWCoAhZVqtzdKsASiU1Y4wXB9H-f6G1uyeWgZ7booKMvxtYeV3tqAV8kjCwYdvPFOpUJAghX_yjJzOz_Ar6i3025fSILD-smSRe-t2mw13SSE/s200/Budgeting+Basics.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">Now that we've gathered pay stubs or records and we've recorded gross pay over a period of time, let's see where the net pay amount comes from.</span><br />
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Look at your pay stubs over a full month, a recent month. Amounts deducted may not be the same for each pay period! Make a list of what items are deducted from the pay and how much. Do that for each of the pay stubs.</div>
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Some items are a fixed amount, like insurance.<br />
Some vary based on the amount of pay, like taxes.</div>
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*If* your gross pay is consistent, the same each pay period, then for variable items you can just use the amount from one check for your budget.<br />
*If* you have a consistent base pay or your pay is variable, then use the amount from your base pay or the lowest check from the last couple of years (the gross pay you're using to budget from).</div>
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If you aren't sure what to put for the deductions, you can work off of your net pay (the pay you receive after deductions are withheld) or you can make your best estimate.</div>
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Enter these amounts (gross pay, and all deductions) on the form you're using to record your budget.</div>
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If you're using <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zbLw7XU8kFByucbuXnypdHEmL_jBb1RSJB_qjXqfzoA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">the worksheet I provided</a>, you can enter a monthly amount in the Monthly column and the sheet will convert it to annual, or you can enter an annual amount in the Annually column.</div>
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When this assignment is complete, you should have your monthly gross pay and monthly paycheck deductions recorded on your budgeting worksheet.</div>
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></div>
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Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-19813576015447673462018-06-18T23:13:00.001-05:002018-06-18T23:13:49.877-05:00Budgeting Basics - Step 1 - Income<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Think about your sources of income. Where does the money come from? How often?</div>
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<a href="http://www.home-budget-help.com/creating-a-household-budget.html" target="_blank">Here's an article that helps clarify</a>, especially if you have a more complicated situation such as a variable income.</div>
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<ul>
<li>Don't figure your income on a monthly basis unless you get paid once a month. Figure it based on the pay period you actually have.</li>
<li>If your pay is variable, do look back to find your smallest check over the last two years, but also try to get an average amount for the last couple of years. Both pieces of information can be helpful in planning.</li>
<li>This is gross income, not net. Don't deduct taxes or other items that probably are withheld from your check.</li>
<li>Ultimately we will be planning based on annual income, so keep that in mind.</li>
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Have you collected some paystubs? (These are probably stored online somewhere. That's good, because once you find that "somewhere" you can easily review a series of paystubs.)<br />
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Start with either an exact figure, exactly how much is earned in each pay period, or with a worst case scenario, the lowest amount earned in a pay period over the last two years.<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /><br />*If* the income is totally predictable, such as a flat salary with no overtime, then use this exact figure in your calculations.<br /><br />*If* the income sometimes varies, then use the lowest amount from the last two years or use your average annual income for the last two years or some other reasonable amount that reflects what you expect to earn.<br /><br />Now it's time to start making a list! You can use any budgeting worksheet you want to use. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zbLw7XU8kFByucbuXnypdHEmL_jBb1RSJB_qjXqfzoA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">This link</a> is to a format that *I* use, and you may copy it to your own Google Drive or download it to your computer. Then you can start filling it in.<br /><br />Just fill in the Projected Income - Gross Wages section. It's set up for you to put in a monthly amount and it will calculate an annual amount. If you fill in an annual amount in Annual spot, a monthly amount will be calculated to the right.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">We're working with gross income, before any deductions have been taken out. I like to work with this figure because I want to see the deductions on my worksheet so I can consider changing them if I need to. If you don't want to work with these right now, you can use the net income instead and simply skip the step where deductions are recorded.</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-intro.html" target="_blank">Back to the Beginning</a></span></div>
Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5894576947582181442.post-37660668736885820002018-06-18T22:01:00.001-05:002018-06-18T23:24:18.614-05:00Budgeting Basics - Intro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Money matters. When money comes in, we can spend it however seems best at the time, but unless we make a plan ahead of time we'll never be able to accomplish longterm goals with it or make sure that our important priorities are taken care of.<br />
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Budgeting is not a mysterious process. There's no one right way to do it, either. I am going to describe what I do, simply because it's what I know best and because I think it works or I wouldn't keep doing it. Mostly I think it's critical to know what comes in and goes out, to plan for future needs, to focus on the most important priorities, and to set reasonable limits. Then money becomes a tool, not a master.<br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-1-income.html" target="_blank">Step 1 - Income</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-2-deductions.html" target="_blank">Step 2 - Deductions</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-3-bills.html" target="_blank">Step 3 - Bills</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-4-other-expenses.html" target="_blank">Step 4 - Other Expenses</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-5-total-expenses.html" target="_blank">Step 5 - Total Expenses</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-6-adjusting.html" target="_blank">Step 6 - Adjusting</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-7-allocating.html" target="_blank">Step 7 - Allocating the Surplus (Margin)</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-8-big-picture.html" target="_blank">Step 8 - Big Picture</a><br />
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<a href="https://pineywoodshs.blogspot.com/2018/06/budgeting-basics-step-9-envelopes.html" target="_blank">Step 9 - Envelopes</a>Kathyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898153617546385281noreply@blogger.com0