More Hours Please

I could use about 3 more hours in a day please. I have so many cool ideas and projects for this year that we keep running out of time. We are supposed to have a 6 hour day and I try to keep instruction (do not picture me talking or instructing for that long!! It is more along the lines of read alouds and doing work that sometimes requires teacher assistance) time to about 4-4 1/2 hours. That gives us time for supplemental projects, experiments, movies, etc. However, we keep going over and I refuse to school longer than 6 hours a day although on historical movie night, we are off the charts over that. I suppose the answer is just being more diligent in keeping to a "schedule" but I enjoy the looseness of our day-it is structured but not rigid. However, if I don't get more rigid we are going to be lucky to finish school before bedtime.

Yesterday we got caught up on all we were supposed to and so today is going very well. We have begun our election unit study and will spend the afternoon being artsy with our supplemental activities. Nothing seals in a lesson like a good cut and paste project-at least for my crew.

Organizing tip of the day:

I've been doing this so long, I can't remember how I got the idea. I think I wanted a Rolodex-but I made do with this until I could get one. Then I liked it and never got a Rolodex.

For years I tried to keep an address book. It never worked out. When I would finally get it done, several of my friends would move and I would become frustrated with the book and all the crossed out names. So I would buy a new one and start over. The same thing would happen again because all of my friends were young and not yet finished with college, much less established. So I put everyone's info on an index card and then bought an index card organizer with the alphabet tabs. It work great. Everyone doesn't go in there-few people from church are in there because I have a church directory in my directory file. Few people from my homeschool group are in there because I have a homeschool directory as well. People who go in there are people I call alot, invite to birthday parties, send encouraging cards to, Christmas card recipients, etc. This has been so handy because as people divorce, move away, even die (not too many of those but more than I like)- I can just pull that card out and make a new one. It is the best way to keep track of names, addresses, phone # and cell phones. I also keep important emails on there because we lost the desire to keep a good e-address book a few computer changes/email addresses changes ago. The best feature is that if someone writes their name and info on a piece of paper and I can actually make it home with the paper-I can just drop it in there under the right letter and make a card later. Foolproof for people like me who have to be very diligent to remain organized.