Planning a Homeschool Year with Pinterest

Are you on Pinterest?


How do you personally use Pinterest?

• Do you pin great ideas to later incorporate into your homeschool lessons?
• Have you pinned full lesson plans or resources?
• Do you pin all of the homeschool ideas onto one board?

Whatever way you use Pinterest, it can be a great organizing tool for homeschoolers. In fact, last year, Sam wrote an article listing ways homeschoolers can use Pinterest to help find and organize ideas. You can read it here. I'll wait.

Personally, I use several of her suggestions. Many of my boards are set up for subjects, units, and special days.

The more I use Pinterest, the more ways I find to use it. I have even started using it to plan our next school year.


Using Pinterest to Plan for an Upcoming School Year

I know it sounds a tad crazy. It is only February and I am planning next school year!

However, I keep running across some great ideas which I want to remember for subjects we will be studying next year.

Not only that, I opted to create curriculum boards for each grade I will be teaching and another for multiple grade classes. On these boards, I pin curriculum or ideas which will be helpful in planning the upcoming school year.

I consider these boards my brainstorming. I add to them when I come across an idea or book I could use. My goal is not to have a million pins, but actual useful-to-me pins.

My plan is to have one place to store all these great ideas. Then, when I do begin the hard work of making actual decisions for next year, I can weed through the pins and decide which ones to include and which ones will not be used.




A word of caution: Pinterest has a lot of ideas and resources. One can easily get swept up in all of it. I try to pin only ideas and resources that my family could actually use and do. Though that trip to Australia does look mighty nice...and it is summer there now...

Five Reasons To Try Notebooking

Notebooking, or (or lapbooks, as they are often called) can be a great addition to your homeschool.  Here are five reasons we tried to (and will continue to) notebook in ours.

1)  Notebooking is a great tool for retention, as well as encouragement toward further learning on a topic.  Notebooking is a way of retelling what has been learned in a way that appeals to a specific child's learning style.

2)  Notebooking has no rules.  Whatever your child likes best (coloring, writing, drawing, painting, cutting, pasting) can be included.  However creative or utilitarian they desire their work to be is just fine.

3)  Having control is inspiring.  The less direction I have given my children, the more elaborate and detailed their notebooks have become.  I have also been shocked at the amount of work they will do without being assigned.  My dyslexic/dysgraphic child is writing up a storm.

4)  There are endless ways to add to a notebook.  One of my favorite resources has been this list of suggestions from the Notebooking Fairy.  There are also reams of Pinterest boards and web sites dedicated to notebooking ideas.

5)  Notebooking is fun.  So much fun, that my children have been working on their notebooks in their free time.  Notebooking is fun because it, like homeschooling itself, can be tailored to the needs, desires and talents of the individual child.

Have you tried notebooking as a part of your homeschool?

Seeds of Wisdom - Favorite Resources

You know you have a favorite!  Not all were created equally.  There is one, or maybe two, which you just love to pieces, and maybe more than all the rest.  They make your days easier.  They help your schedule run smoother.  Or maybe they just hold everything in its place for you.    Ah, come on admit it, you have a favorite resource.  Today, we are sharing a few of our favorite homeschool resources...



Sam - My favorite resource this year is the simple - yet wonderful app Homeschool Helper!  It is now available for Android phones as well as the iPad, and it is only $4.99.  I have been sharing it with everyone.

Beth - Hands down my favorite resource is Signing Time.  We have been usinig this for a long time.  It does so many things.  It increases vocabulalry, literacy skills, teaches music, science, and most importantly gives your child a second language.  If you have children with special needs, giving them a way to communicate with their family is of absolute importance.  I would recommend this product to everybody.

Marla - Our favorite resource is the iPad.  Since we moved, we have relied on it heavily for access to new books through the iBooks app.  Abigail does independent math and reading work using some fabulous apps, and Charlotte and I work together on some toddler skill apps.


Looking for more favorite resources?  Check out the weekly link-up at Learning All the Time.