If you’re a disorganized homeschool mom, I have Christmas gift ideas you’ll love because I know what’s helped me become more organized. Even if you’re already in the process of getting organized, you’ll love these. If you’re looking for Christmas gifts for a disorganized homeschool mom in your life, I promise she’ll love these–with no offense taken! Be sure to read to the end for the best gift idea of all–cash! I’ve gotten together with some pretty awesome bloggers to give TWO families some CASH in the 5th annual Christmas Blessings Giveaway – $500 cash (delivered via Paypal). You’ll find the entry form at the end of the post.
Sink Reflections
I was so disorganized that I was ready to quit homeschooling and having kids when we had three. Then I found FLYLady, Marla Cilley who is the author of Sink Reflections. Her no-judgment, 15-minutes-at-a-time approach to getting organized changed my life. In fact, you’ll find my endorsement on the back of the book! If your home is in chaos, you will love this book and implementing the FLYing approach even more.
The Organized Homeschool Life Book and Planner
After creating routines and getting my home decluttered, I longed for organizing help designed just for homeschool moms. I applied the FLYLady 15-minute-mission approach to every aspect of a homeschool mom’s life (seasonal planning, school room organization, curriculum planning and much more). The result is The Organized Homeschool Life book and planner with a year’s worth of weekly challenges that will get your whole life in order. The planner helps you fit the missions into a daily task list that helps you balance family and personal needs. These tools have made me happier and more productive than ever and are the perfect Christmas gift for the Christian homeschool mom on your list.
Get Your Pretty On
If you need help decluttering your closet, simplifying your wardrobe, and putting outfits together that make you feel great, Get Your Pretty On is for you. You’re given a shopping list of wardrobe essentials (whether you want a year-round basic wardrobe, work wear, or a fresh seasonal wardrobe). First, you shop your closet. You’ll have a number of these pieces already. Then you can thrift store shop, Black Friday shop, or request the remaining pieces as gifts. You’ll have a calendar of outfits to wear using these pieces and access to a private Facebook group that is so much fun! You’ll feel fantastic in your clothes–a great goal for the new year. The winter capsule wardrobe or the annual membership make perfect Christmas gifts.
The Instant Pot
If you’re organized, you can use a crockpot. Put the ingredients in the slow cooker in the morning and dinner is done! But when you’re not that organized, the Instant Pot comes to the rescue. It’s a pressure cooker that is like the offspring of a slow cooker and a microwave. You can add frozen meat to it and in no time, your meal is ready and tastes like it’s been cooking all day. This cookbook makes a great companion gift.
Amazon Echo
The Amazon Echo can help you get and stay organized with reminders, timers, automatic ordering, and quick answers. The bonus is you can listen to your favorite tunes while you’re organizing.
iRobot Roomba
When was the last time you vacuumed? I thought so. With a Roomba, that job is no longer yours. And it works with your Amazon Echo!
Magnetic Refrigerator Dry Erase Board
Trying to get your family to check your wall or digital calendar can be trying. But everyone uses the refrigerator! Keep them informed with a magnetic dry erase calendar for the refrigerator. My daughter enjoys filling ours out each month.
Multi-Device Charging Station
If your devices or back-up batteries are frequently low on power at all the wrong times, you’ll be a more organized homeschool mom with this multi-device charging station.
Wireless Key Finder
If you frequently lose your keys or remotes, you’ll love this wireless key finder. Simply attach your keys to a device or stick one of the sensors to a remote and you’ll hear a noise directing you to the lost item. It’s a real sanity saver!
We all know it’s easier to get organized if you’re up before noon. If you’re a heavy sleeper (or your family members are), this super loud, bed-shaking alarm clock is the perfect gift for you.
Wifi Digital Picture Frame
Do you have good intentions to scrapbook? While you’re working on creating the scrapbook habit, this digital picture frame will allow you to enjoy your photos now. Anyone can email photos to it. It’s on my gift list this year.
James Brown Tufted Leather Armed Storage Bench
If you a hotspot where items collect, a storage bench can be an attractive solution. I use this bench to store the kids’ extra shoes that accummulate near the front door. It’s a great place to sit and put your shoes on, too.
Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Lipstick
Do you forget to reapply lipstick? I used to until I started wearing Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Lipstick. It wears all day and doesn’t dry out my lips. Perfect stocking stuffer for the busy homeschool mom.
Pilot Frixion Clicker Gel Ink Pens
Pencils have to be sharpened and mechanical pencil lead breaks easily. These Pilot Frixion Clicker Gel Ink pens are my favorite. Fine point, eraseable ink. Problem is other people love them, too, and they disappear. They make the perfect stocking stuffer for your favorite homeschool mom.
We hope that the prize will be a blessing to the winning families and will help them fulfill their kids’ Christmas wishes, pay off some bills, or to save for a rainy day. Whatever the money ends up being used for, our prayer is that it helps to lessen any financial burden and/or fills a specific need.
There are lots of entry options in the Rafflecopter form below – the more you enter, the better your chance of winning! I know it can seem tedious and time consuming to go through all the entries, but isn’t a chance at $500 worth it? I think it is! Plus, all of these generous bloggers donated their own money toward the cash prizes and this giveaway wouldn’t be possible without them. So I hope you’ll take the time to check out each one. Who knows? Maybe you will find your new favorite blog.
The giveaway will run from Monday, November 12th through Wednesday, November 21st (ends at 11:59pm EST). Winner will be notified by email shortly after the giveaway ends and will have 48 hours to respond to claim the prize or another winner will be drawn. You must have a Paypal account to win. Please be sure to read the Rafflecopter terms and conditions upon entering.
I hope I’ve convinced you that planning makes homeschool moms happy. If you haven’t yet read the reasons planning rocks for homeschool moms, do that first. Today we are talking about how to keep happy planning going. If you’re like me and you have begun using numerous planners only to leave them languishing on the shelf, you’re going to love this post.
My guest on the Homeschool Sanity Show, Diona Navarro, had these tips for continuing to use your planners.
Buy a planner that works the way you do.
“Don’t just buy a planner because it’s cheap, pretty, or other people are buying it,” Diona says. She explains that the right planner for you should allow you to record your thoughts. Her preference is for a planner that allows checklists and is something she can make pretty with her supplies.
Keep it simple.
Diona sets up her planners so others could take them and use them to direct her family’s day. That means it has to be easy to understand and not overloaded with tasks.
Keep it accessible.
Diona advises leaving your planner out where it’s visible. Leave it on the table in the kitchen, for example. The more you see it, the more you’ll rely on it.
Plan to plan.
Diona takes time every Saturday and Sunday to use her various planners. Without set times for planning, it wouldn’t happen. Diona advises that you plan more than one week at a time in case you can’t do your regular planning time.
I love the tips that Diona gave us. I have a few of my own to add.
Use your planner as a guide, not a boss.
You’re the boss. And no matter what you said you wanted to do in your planner, you get to change your mind. Like a tour guide who has ideas at the ready for you, your planner is happy to take you on any side trips you want to take. A tour guide is not evaluating you and neither is your planner. Planners don’t grade our performance.
If we view our planner as our boss, we will resist opening our planners and having a performance review. Here is how I solved this very pervasive problem for myself. After I have made my plan for the day, I close my planner and walk away from it. I take a picture of my planner, so I can refer to it later in the day when I feel a little lost. But closing my planner gives me permission to take the route I feel led to take through my day. Like a map, my daily plan is there to refer to if I need it. This perspective and approach have made me more likely to follow my plan for the day.
Make planning the best part of your day and week.
My planning always begins with time with God. I am in prayer and in the Word and I have peace. I recognize small matters for what they are. I am reminded of the power I have in Christ for the big matters that are facing me.
I love beginning my planning time with gratitude. That attitude is proven to improve mood even in those who do not recognize a sovereign God. My monthly plan gives me a picture of all my family’s activities and how much I have to be grateful for. I love that I have the opportunity to assess areas where I have missed the mark as well. I can leave any guilt or fear that I have right there on the page.
Once I have spent time with the Lord, I feel ready to consider my priorities for the day. I make this part of planning so rewarding that I don’t want to miss it. I sit in a comfortable chair with excellent light. I have blankets at the ready and often a cute little dog to cozy up to at the same time.
I allow myself to use stickers and colorful pens and motivational quotes as I feel led. I end with a realistic view of how my day will go that gives me peace.
Conclusion
Using these tips, I believe that you can continue as a happy planning homeschool mom. To get even more from your planner, make sure you subscribe to learn the habits of the organized homeschool mom and how to make adopting them easy.
Which of these tips will best help you keep up the planning habit? Comment and let me know.
Planning has made me so much happier in my homeschool. I want every homeschool mom to have the same happiness. I hope to convince you to start planning for the first time or to resume your planning habit.
I asked Diona Navarro, homeschool mom and planner extraordinaire from AllDayEveryDayMom.com, why happy homeschool moms are planners. I’m going to share her reasons as well as my own in the post below. But you’ll love listening to this podcast episode even if you read. Diona is so inspiring.
We are happy planners because we experience freedom.
We homeschool moms enjoy tremendous freedom with our schedules. What a blessing! We enjoy even more freedom when we plan. We can make sure the must-do’s are accomplished in the most efficient way possible, so we can enjoy teaching and learning with our kids in the way that makes our heart sing.
We are happy planners because we make time for the best things.
When we plan, we are intentional about making sure the seasonal activities, the great books, and the fantastic field trips happen. When we don’t plan, we often find ourselves disappointed in our homeschool.
We are happy planners because we don’t forget.
Planning makes it less likely we forget appointments and invitations and to-do’s. No one likes the embarrassment of forgetting these things. But even better, because we plan memory-making activities, we are more likely to remember them. We can even keep our planners to remember the good times we’ve had.
We are happy planners as we anticipate activities.
We envision our planned activities and we get a hit of dopamine that makes us feel great. We imagine how excited our kids will be when we go on that field trip, do the cool science experiments, or read a fantastic book together. In fact, anticipating is often better than reality!
We are happy planners because we reduce anxiety.
When we feel that we have so much to do (and isn’t that ALL the time?), but when we get it on paper, it feels manageable. We can control it. We can make decisions about which tasks to delete and which to defer so we can have a reasonable achievable day.
We are happy planners because we’re actually doing something.
That sense of peace we have in planning can lead to another source of happiness: doing. Research is clear that we are more likely to do something when we have planned when we will do it. Furthermore, we are happier actually doing things. We may enjoy talking about our homeschooling or life plans, but nothing boosts our mood like being productive. When I follow my plan for the day, I feel fantastic. I want you to experience that same happiness.
But what if you’re not actually using your planner?
Make sure you subscribe so you’ll be notified of my next post / podcast episode that will share how we can keep the happy planning going!
What makes you happy about planning? Comment and let me know.
Want to read this again later? Pin the image below.
Christmas is my favorite time of year to play games. You’ll find a list of 100 Christmas games for families to play, for kids to play, or for Christmas parties. Be sure to pin this post so you can refer back to it every year.
Family Christmas Games
Christmas Family Feud is a fun game based on the popular TV show. This link includes directions and common holiday questions.
Super fun Christmas Drawing Game where all you’ll need are sturdy paper plates, pens, and your family and friends.
Fun Christmas Tree Trimming Game Decorate your best friend or youngest child and turn them into a Christmas tree with crepe paper.
This Christmas Smell Game is so much fun and will challenge everyone at your party. Place your favorite Christmas smells in jars, blindfold your family or friends and see if they can identify what they’re smelling.
Stick it Fun Christmas Game Players have a designated time to throw as many mini-marshmallows as the can into Santa’s shaving cream beard.
Do You Hear What I Hear Players will rearrange the gift boxes based on the number of bells they hear in each box.
Christmas Games for Children
Don’t Ring the Christmas Bells is a fun sensory game for small children. This game will allow even the youngest children of the party to join in the fun.
Christmas means snow in many areas but if you don’t get snow your kids can still have fun with this Snowball Toss Game!
The Poke-A-Tree Game is perfect for the kids at your party. Included are video instructions and free printables for this game.
Christmas I Spy Game is a fun Christmas game that will keep your kids busy as they search through the colorful free printable.
Candy Cane Catch is a fun game where your little ones will fish for candy canes. This simple game only requires a few supplies.
Naughty or Nice Christmas is a children’s version of the game which involves throwing coal into Santa’s buckets.
Candy Cane Hunt. Hide a bunch of candy canes and the child that finds the most candy canes wins.
Christmas Mad Libs will be a fun game for kids all the way to adults. You can print out Mad Libs according to Christmas Themes. There’s even a Mad Libs for preschoolers.
Snow Shovel Race is a simple game to plan and a fun game to play and will also help with fine motor skills.
The Snowman Slam Game is a fun game made with Styrofoam cups. Simple to make and hours of fun.
Candy Canes is like the classic game Spoons but exchanges those spoons with candy canes. You might want to keep this game for older kids and adults, it could get a bit rambunctious.
Christmas Who Am I? Each guest will have the name of a fun Christmas character taped to their back. They will try to guess who they are based on the clues the other guests give them.
Christmas Charades is a must for your Christmas party! Charades is a classic game enjoyed by families and party goers everywhere.
99. The Impossible Test Christmas is a free app that can be played with family and friends. It features Christmas trivia, holiday jingles and unique games. Available on iPhone and iPad. 100. Christmas Bingo Santa’s Gift is a Christmas Bingo game you can play on your devices. Available on Windows, iTunes, Android, and Google.
Here’s a bonus if you love Karaoke. Try the karaoke app called Smule. There’s a large collection of Christmas songs to keep your party lively! Download on Apple products, Android, and Windows.
I believe you should study movies as literature with your teens! Here are six reasons why and then I share my review of Cinema Studies, the best way to study movies as literature with your kids.
#1 Movies really are literature.
At one time, novels weren’t considered worthwhile for instruction. Imagine! Now we know that reading novels improves vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, and writing.
Today there is a continuing stigma that movies can’t add to our children’s education. Movies are what our children should watch in their free time, right? Wrong! Movies, like plays, are based on written scripts or books. Because they are literary, movies can be used to teach concepts like character development, plot, setting, and much more.
#2 Movies are taught as literature in the public schools.
Many homeschool parents I talk with are afraid that watching movies isn’t worthy of high school credit. I assure you: The study of movies is credit-worthy. My son took this course as a public high school junior. Because he was taking a number of AP (read time-consuming) courses, his guidance counselor recommended that he take an easier class like a movies as literature course to complete his schedule.
Movies as literature courses count as English elective credits and are an excellent addition to a college-prep transcript.
#3 Movies create great opportunities for discussion.
Kids are used to talking about the movies they see. If you have a teen who isn’t a talker, discussing a movie is a great way to understand your teen’s views on life. Movies can expand your teen’s understanding of others’ motivation and can be used to teach social skills. Teens are more likely to talk about movies than other topics because there are few wrong answers–just opinions.
#4 Movies provide excellent writing prompts.
A movies as literature study provides interesting and personal writing subjects. Writing prompts are rarely dry and students with multiple learning styles can recall and respond to the movies they’ve seen in writing.
#5 Movies are fun for kids to watch.
Even though your kids are learning, they think of watching movies as inherently fun. You’ll get less procrastination and pushback on watching a movie for homework than nearly any other assignment you might give.
Movies mimic the more entertaining lessons of childhood and can be enhanced with great snacks!
#6 Movies are a fun family and friend activity.
Parents of teens rarely do math with them just for the fun of it. But a movies as literature course can get parents involved in the learning process. Some movies have mature themes and aren’t appropriate for younger kids (or you may want to save the films for when they’re older). But the teens and adults in your house can enjoy time together while still putting in homeschool hours.
A study of movies as literature is also a lot of fun in a group setting. It’s the perfect class for co-ops and learning centers. Your teen will enjoy discussing the movies watched with their homeschool friends.
Why Cinema Studies is the Perfect Way to Study Movies as Literature with Your Teen
I used another movies as literature course in the past and highly recommend Cinema Studies instead. Here’s why:
It includes some more recent films teens enjoy. Studying movies as literature doesn’t mean that the films have to be painful to watch because they’ve become culturally irrelevant. While Cinema Studies includes classics like Casablanca, it also features Rudy — a personal favorite! The movies are easy to find, unlike the previous curriculum I used.
It doesn’t require you to stop the film over and over again to answer trivial questions. If your teen watches the movie (especially with the questions at hand), answering questions correctly should be no problem. Your student may need to watch the movie a second time (as recommended) to write the paper. In our co-op, we discuss the movie one week and review papers the next, so students may forget specific examples to use in their writing.
Writing assignments are short and engaging. Writing a long paper on every movie is way more work than students in traditional schools are required to do. Tedious writing assignments can kill interest students have in studying movies. Students always have a personal response option for their papers, which they love.
Cinema Studies is digital and economical for more than one student. I am able to make copies of the materials for all three of my kids using Cinema Studies.
The answers are in the teacher’s guide. I have been loving watching the movies with my kids and my husband has joined in too. BUT if I wasn’t able to watch the movie for some reason, the discussion question answers are right there for me.
Be sure to check out Cinema Studies and get ready to teach movies as literature in your homeschool! What is a favorite movie you would love to study with your teens?
I didn’t intend to homeschool. I had a Ph.D. in psychology and I planned to practice part-time and be home with my young children the rest of the time. But then I started homeschooling. I found a way out of the CHAOS through FLYLady and routines, and eventually found that I loved it. Surprised, I found it was a fulfilling career. But as I came to love homeschooling, legalism threatened to destroy it. Here’s how.
Even though I hadn’t wanted to homeschool and only did it at what I believed was the Lord’s urging, I found myself wondering why everyone wasn’t doing it. Scratch that. I found myself judging other Christians for not homeschooling.
It was clearly what God meant in Deuteronomy 6:7, wasn’t it? That’s what so many speakers at Christian homeschool conferences said. It was like the 11th commandment. So why wouldn’t loving Christian parents stay home to make sure their children were raised in the faith? Yes, I knew people who sent their kids to Christian schools. But you couldn’t be too sure what teachers would teach, and you certainly couldn’t be sure of the influence the other kids in the school would have.
My husband and I had a community of like-minded homeschooling friends. When we heard stories of Christian kids gone bad, we trusted in the admonitions of Christian homeschool speakers and authors who served as mentors. If we would keep our children out of Sunday school, youth groups, and the dating scene; if we would keep them from summer camps with public school kids; if we would keep them from reading the books, listening to the music, and watching the movies that other kids did, our kids wouldn’t be like those other kids. They would be better.
If we followed the Christian homeschool plan for our families, we could rest easy that our kids would be Christians (many of them pastors and missionaries) who wouldn’t have premarital sex, wouldn’t have a substance abuse problem, wouldn’t end up living in our basements at 30, and wouldn’t reject us. That was the plan, and we felt great about it.
My husband and I frequently talked about families who weren’t following the Christian homeschool plan like we were. Many of them already had problematic children. We shook our heads with a tsk-tsk. They should have homeschooled or homeschooled the right way.
The homeschool plan failed
Our homeschool went smoothly for years. The kids were agreeable to our plans for them. They would complete a college degree while in high school. They would graduate early without debt or the negative influence of college. They would begin dating when they were ready to marry. Our kids would homeschool their kids.
And then my oldest, a smart, strong-willed child, entered puberty.
I don’t have to tell you what happened next, because you won’t be surprised. Yes, he rebelled against everything. Everything. He wanted to go to college far from home and visit us once or twice a year. He wasn’t sure about the Bible and he didn’t agree with our politics. He wanted a girlfriend in junior high. He became defiant and disobeyed us frequently.
Another homeschooling mom we had just become acquainted with talked to me about his behavior. Underlying every word she said was her judgment:
“You’re not homeschooling the right way.”
I was devastated. I didn’t see the irony at the time, nor did I recognize the truth: I wasn’t homeschooling the right way.
Through many tears, we and our son realized that we were terrified and were acting out of those fears. We were afraid our son would reject the faith, our family, and everything we believed in. He was afraid that if he didn’t see things our way that we would stop loving him.
By the time our oldest asked to go to school, he had become less oppositional. We knew that this was God’s calling for him, and we agreed to it.
But the damage had been done. Here’s what I mean: our oldest son had made our legalism clear. We cared more about our homeschool plan and looking good as parents than we did about him, than we did about our other children, than we did about Jesus. Our son’s period of acting out (which he later related to hormones) tore down our idol of homeschooling. We are so grateful.
What homeschooling without legalism looks like
The first change I noticed when we left homeschool legalism was far less judgment of others. We stopped talking about how this or that family was allowing a teenager to date. We prayed more compassionately for those whose children were struggling. We gave advice less and listened more.
The second change I noticed was far less judgment of ourselves. A legalistic homeschool is very tough to maintain. Everyone has to do good and look good because when they don’t, the parents (as the homeschool leaders) are to blame. Bad behavior led to fear which led to anger. We started taking ourselves less seriously.
The third change I noticed was a shift in responsibility. We had felt entirely responsible for how our kids “turned out.” We came to recognize that we took ownership of responsibilities that were rightly God’s and our children’s. Ultimately, we realized that we couldn’t homeschool our kids into the faith and godly living.
Is Leaving Legalism for you?
What’s funny is that at one time I would have believed it was my responsibility to help you leave legalism. I now know that if God is calling you out of legalism, He is far more effective at that than I could ever be. If the Lord brought you to this page, I do want to suggest that you read the book Leaving Legalism by Kendra Fletcher.
Like me, Kendra is a homeschooling mom who fell for the trap of legalism. She calls legalism “hope shifting.” I love that. When we shift our hope from the finished work of Jesus in our lives and our children’s lives, we are destined to wander in the homeschool desert.
It’s so disappointing, but there aren’t six steps for leaving legalism. 🙂 Instead, like the Underground Railroad, there is a Conductor Who will lead us out of it. I pray you will follow Him.
Conclusion
If our son hadn’t made our homeschool legalism clear, I hate to think what the results would have been for our family. We still love homeschooling but not more than we love our kids and our Lord. Have you ever fallen prey to homeschool legalism? Tell me in the comments.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
