52 Weeks of Organizing Our Homeschool Challenge, Mini-Projects 9-11

Two weeks ago, I officially began participating in 52 Weeks of Organizing Challenge by focusing on Our Homeschool.

Jumping in on the initiative 15 weeks into the year meant budgeting a bit of extra time to “catch up”, so I might have a hope of actually completing 52 mini-projects to improve our homeschool organization by the end of the year. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, life's course and my plans did not mesh.

A week ago Wednesday, a stomach virus hit our home. It mandated that organization efforts make way for caring for sick children and doing crazy amounts of laundry. That is, until our Easter weekend in ER began, when even much of  the laundry had to be let go

Since we got home from the weekend, most of our energy has been focused on simply getting healthy and returning to a sense of normalcy.  That is till in progress.

Fortunately, there has been some minor progress on our 52 weeks, too.  I the past two weeks, we:

9. Organized a Quiet Time and Bedtime Bookshelf:  Too many books were only adding to clutter in the kids’ room, so we revamped a bookshelf to create a kid-friendly system to help with limits and living by the adage “a place for everything and everything in its place”.  (Now, we just have to apply that adage to the rest of our home!)
10. Created an Accessible Kids’ Art/Craft/Office Supplies Area:  The kids and I hung a shoe sorter on the back of the door to house art, crafts and office supplies I want to keep accessible for the kids.  I decided not to fill it all at once, but to only put out a few materials at a time until the kids prove that they can use them respectfully, accessing them and putting them away by habit.  So far, so good. They are doing so with their crayons!
11. Created a CGS Corner:  I unburied a piece of furniture to repurpose as “altar” space for a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd corner in our Play and Learning Space and have designated a nearby work shelf to house a rotation of CGS materials.  (Honest disclosure:  I am still trying to figure out where to store the materials that are not in rotation and would appreciate ideas.  Also, actually putting the corner to use is still more a want-to than an am-doing.  One step at a time...)  

On a note-so-easy-to-admit note, I also returned to my bad habit of starting too many things at once.

Yes, as I reflect back on the past two weeks,I recognize that I have begun, but have yet to finish, the following mini-projects:

• creating a Sensory Activities Organizer
• creating a system for tidying and purging the kids’ drawings
• designating portfolios for the kids’ creations
• beginning routines and rhythms binders for my eldest two
• making a plan for work shelf rotation
• culling and organizing assessment files
• creating Assessment Binders

What's the sense of starting something you don't finish?  It doesn't help to organize anything.  In fact, it can make both mind and home more cluttered.

I know some may disagree, but I am discovering that multi-tasking does not always work!  Juggling a variety of projects at once always worked well for me as a Singleton, but as Wife, Mom, Homeschooler and Crumb Winner*, it doesn’t. Simply fulfilling the basics of each of these roles is multi-tasking enough!  When I throw working on more than one other project -even a related one - into the mix, things go awry.

So it is that in the past two weeks, I realized that, outside of the regular juggling all wife-mom-(insert role)'s must do, for me, becoming a uni-tasker may be the most productive and pleasant way to live .  So, this week, my goal is to pick ONE mini-project to complete, before moving onto another. Whether that project will be one of the unfinished ones listed above or something completely new depends on how life unfolds.

How about you?

• What progress do you hope to make with your 52 Weeks?  
• Have you recognized a need to change any long-ingrained habits? 
• How are your own organization efforts going?

As always, tips, encouragement, shared challenges and successes are always welcome. Do comment!

*NOTE:  Daddy is the true breadwinner of the family; I just work for extra crumbs for us.