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Lorraine Curry's
Easy Homeschooling Eletter
Issue #78 October 2006
Look ahead to Spring 2007 Convention Season! Lorraine Curry, representing Easy Homeschooling and Bolchazy-Carducci (Artes Latinae), will tentatively will be at the PA, MN, NC, IN, OH, IL, & CO state conventions. Confirmed locations to be announced later.
In this Issue
By Mike Boyd
Finding storage in your home can be a challenge by itself. But
finding storage in your kids room can sometimes seem impossible!
Fortunately there are many storage choices available today to
make the task possible.
Furniture:
Youth single bunk beds offer more space and storage then traditional
beds. Units usually come with a bed on top and storage space below
that include a desk with lots of drawers. Also included is a hutch
with shelves for storage space that help organize clutter and
provide space for a computer and video game. These multi units
reduce the need for additional furniture and allow space for book
shelves or other accessories that can be used for storage.
Other furniture storage ideas to look for are toy boxes that can
hold toys, bench style chairs or window seats that include a storage
area underneath the seat.
Closets:
Probably the most useful and convenient storage space in a child's
room. Use of wired shelves can double for storing boxes, toys,
games and other items while allowing space to hang clothes. Hooks
on the ceiling or walls help keep items off the floor.
Hanging closet organizers are perfect for storing seasonal clothes,
or holding sweaters, shoes, and accessories on extra deep shelves.
Bins, boxes or crates can hold many loose items or toys and are
space savers when stacked on top of each other. If your child
is small, put the things they can get themselves, down low. By
making it accessible, they will be able to put things away more
easily.
Shelves:
Need a great solution for displaying all those knick-knacks or
trophies? Install shelves, side by side, around the perimeter
of the room, a few feet below the ceiling. You will have yards
of space for lots of storage and give your kids room a finished
looked.
Recessed shelves are another great idea to create storage. By
building shelving units in between studs in the walls, you can
gain additional storage space for your children items, while not
sacrificing space.
Underbed Storage:
An often over looked area when looking for space. When combined
with flat boxes or drawers, items such as board games, legos,
etc, can be organized and stored while accessible for your kids.
Many length and styles exist that can make use of this valuable
storage space.
Bins:
Also known as cubby units that comes in a variety of styles and
shapes. Bins can be stacked, mounted on walls, or stored in closets.
Mobile bins also exist that allow you to move them out of the
way or allow you child to take them from room to room, while keeping
their favorite items organized.
Hooks:
Many styles exist for hooks such as trellis style hooks, shelves
with hooks, and over the door hooks. For more style, choose wooden
peg racks which can be painted to match the decor of your kids
room. Hooks are a good solution to hang up book bags, coats, or
anything that you kids imagination will dream up!
Cork Boards:
Need a place to hang up those book reports or paper notes, find
cork and make your own pattern or design. By breaking the traditional
style that bulletin boards are known, you can design an easy but
simple way to organize the paper clutter. Spell you child's name,
or create a random pattern and watch that pile of paper disappear.
Many solutions exist to help keep you child's room organized.
Look for ideas that blend in to the room and do not stand out,
while being functional. Keeping storage for kids rooms simple
and accessible, will provide an easy way for them to clean up
at the end of the day.
About the Author: To discover more storage ideas
for kids rooms
visit http://www.homedecoratingbooks.2clixs.com for our great selection of home
decorating books and ideas.
Source: www.isnare.com
See Easy Homeschooling Companion
for ideas
on building literacy through the classics.
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Homemaking school will not only
help the house stay tidier, but will also give your kids valuable
lessons in housecleaning and responsibility that they need now
and later in life.
As I was growing up, I didn't have many
chores. All that was expected of me
was to do the dishes after dinner and keep my room clean (which
I barely did).
Later when I got my own place, I discovered a few problems as
a result of not
learning how to do certain household tasks.
One of these problems was lack of organization.
In my parent's home as I was
growing up, most everything was kept for later use or for sentimental
value.
Since I grew up this way, this is how I ran my household; I didn't
know any
other way. I found out after a period of time that this was not
going to work for
me. My tiny apartment wasn't as big as mom and dad's house and
it wasn't long
until my place was bulging with too much stuff. It has taken me
years to
train myself to be more organized and the job is even more challenging
with
children and husband. I'm still 'in training' and still not that
organized, but
there has been a lot of improvement. The point is that if we can
begin training
our children early, they can have an easier time when they get
out on their own.
Organizing was only part of my housekeeping
problems. There were many other
things I didn't know how to do correctly that I had to teach myself.
Home
magazines were my partner through this and they helped me tremendously.
I don't blame my mom and dad because they
were doing their best at that time,
and besides, I've learned a valuable lesson from it and that is
to be sure to
teach my kids how to do this stuff.
The most effective way for me to get my
chores completed is to schedule or
list them. This is probably the best way for the kids to get their
chores done
also. There are a couple of ways you can do this, but the first
step is to
figure out what you want each child to do.
To do this, think of age-appropriate jobs.
You don't want to give a job
that's too difficult to your child because this will end up in
disagreements and won
't be worth it in the long run. You may even feel your child is
too young for
chores yet and that's perfectly fine, it's up to you when they
start. If you
feel they are ready, start thinking of what type of jobs around
the house they
could manage. The way I do this is to look at my own chore schedule
and try
to imagine my kids doing each chore. If I can't imagine it, they
probably
aren't ready for it yet.
Younger children are perfect candidates
for dusting and wiping. They can wipe
lower kitchen cabinets or dust low bookshelves. They can pick
up stray items
from rooms if shown where to put the items away; after a while,
they will
learn where everything goes. If they don't do it perfectly at
first, let it go,
they will get better as time goes on. The important thing is that
they are
learning to keep house and help mom keep it clean.
Older children can do dishes after dinner
and pick up the dinner mess. They
can dust the higher stuff. Mopping floors, disinfecting the toilet,
sweeping
porches, vacuuming, cooking they can do most everything you can
if shown how.
Once you have decided what you want your
children to do as chores, you can
make up a chore
schedule or list either by hand or on the computer. You can
make
it as a table with days of the week going across the top and the
chores
listed down the page. It could be just a simple list hanging on
your refrigerator
by a magnet. Or, you could make a fancy, colorful list from a
computer program
that can be hung in a frame. The list can be laminated so it can
be used over
and over. One final idea is to get a dry erase board or chalkboard
and write
chores on these. The important thing is to get it written down.
This will serve
as a reminder to you and the kids.
Once you have established which chores
each child will be doing, it's
important to show them the correct way to do each task. It may
take a few times of
showing them, but they will get it right eventually, so don't
give up.
If you'd like you can pay them. Some people
feel children shouldn't be paid
for chores because children should learn they are part of the
household and it'
s their responsibility to help out. Some people feel it's fine
to pay children
for the work they do. One important note here is if you decide
to pay them,
be sure they know they won't get paid for EVERYTHING you ask them
to do. They
do need to know that they are part of the household and they need
to do their
part. Paying children for chores is up to the family and based
on their
particular values, don't let someone else decide this for you.
How much you pay them
is also up to you.
Remember, chores are really life lessons
for our children. Think of it as
homemaking school.
Check out Monica's Chore Schedules that
have the following 4 printable
schedules made up in a table format (like a calendar) so once
a chore is completed,
it can be checked off for that time: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and
1, 2 or 3
times a year. Includes a way to have a fun family chore race so
your family will
have fun quality time together and get the house cleaned at the
same time and
more! Click here for details: http://homemakersjournal.com/choreschedules.htm
Get Monica's FREE weekly e-zine for homemakers! Each issue includes
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I worked at an office job up until my
son was two struggling with the guilt
and yearning of wanting to be home to raise him full time. I was
extremely
lucky because my grandmother watched him, but I still would rather
be home raising
him myself. I felt my son and I were both missing out on things
that would
never happen again such as his first step or mommy kissing boo-boos.
My grandmother knew that I desperately
wanted to be home raising him and at
one point she told me she couldn't watch him anymore because she
couldn't keep
up with him; she used this as an excuse to get me to take action
because she
knew I wanted to stay home, but I was afraid to take the first
step. This is
the point a decision had to be made. Did I want to continue to
have someone else
raise my child during the day or did I want to follow my heart
and raise my
son myself? I knew all along that raising my boy was the most
important thing
to me, but I was afraid to quit my job because I thought we wouldn't
have
enough money to live on.
It seemed my husband didn't make enough
money for us to live on because of
our spending habits at that time. Not so much his, but mine. I
would go out to
lunch daily at work and freely spend the money I earned on cosmetics,
things
for the house or other unnecessary items, rarely looking at prices.
I was a
spendthrift that wasn't sure if I could change. I tried to think
of ways to make
money from home and thought of a lot of ways, but they all seemed
out-of-reach
for me at the time.
Finally, even though I was still afraid
of not having enough money to live
on, I made the decision to quit my job on the good faith of my
abilities to cut
back or drop my spending habits, and to save money in every possible
situation
I could. I had it all planned out. I'd save coupons, shop only
sales and cut
dollars at every angle I could. I would consider this my new 'job'.
It wasn't easy. We didn't have the money
to do the things we used to do like
go to the movies or order a pizza, but the rewards of teaching
myself a frugal
way of life were worth more than I can say. I was no longer torn
inside and
felt I was where I wanted to be. I found that nothing was more
important to me
than being home raising my son. I learned how to be a good, thrifty
homemaker.
As time passed, my husband started making a little more money,
which offered
a little more freedom in spending. Soon, we were planning our
second child and
she was born and I got to stay home and raise her too!
These were treasured times for me and
I'm still home even though the kids are
in full-time school now. It's nice to be here when they get home
so they
don't have to come home to an empty house and I have time to prepare
home-cooked
meals and keep the house up. When they get days off, I'm here
and we don't have
to worry who's going to watch them.
If you're a working mother that yearns
to be home raising your children, here
are some valuable lessons I learned from my experience. I hope
they help you
in some way.
Take a good look at where your money is
going.
First, sit down with a piece of paper and pen and add up how much
it is
costing you to work. The first and biggest place to look is day
care and
transportation costs. Also write down what you spend on lunches.
Try and think about '
hidden' costs such as ordering pizza because you worked and don't
have time to
cook a meal or your wardrobe. Add these and any other working
costs up and
subtract it from your income.
Find Ways to Save Money
Take another piece of paper and write down ways in which you can
save money
and estimate how much. For example, by using coupons and shopping
sales you may
be able to save $100 a month on groceries. Write it down along
with other
ways such as 'close doors of rooms not in use to save electricity',
or, instead
of going to the movies 4 times a month, go once and write in the
amount saved.
You have to think of everything you currently spend money on and
figure out
ways to cut back. You'll find you can get very creative when you
need to be.
Add it up
Now add your lists together and see if you can 'make' as much
as your job.
Most of the time you can get pretty close, but if you can't, don't
fret because
where there's a will, there's a way. If you haven't met your income
by the
above savings methods, consider other ways to make money.
How Can you Make Money from Home?
The first thing to do is ask yourself what you're good at and
what you enjoy
doing. Everyone has a special talent. For some people it may be
a craft, for
others, it may be writing, grooming pets or planning trips among
many other
possibilities. Whatever you do well, find a way to make money
with it. Someone
who's good at crocheting afghans may make up a website about crocheting
and
selling these afghans or take the finished afghans to a craft
bazaar to sell.
Someone who's good at writing may begin writing in their preferred
subject and
start submitting to magazines or look on the internet for other
ways to make
money writing. If you're interested in publishing an e-zine for
profit, I have
written an e-book titled 'How to Create an Ezine for Profit' and
you can find out
how to get this e-book here: http://homemakersjournal.com/intro.htm
Don't let fear get in your way.
The biggest thing I learned is to not be afraid of change. Sometimes
we have
to take what seems to be a huge step to be able to get what we
want. I took
that step and made it, so can you.
The most important thing I can say about
all of this is to follow your heart.
Do what is right for you; not what someone else thinks is right
for you. If
being home is what you want, then pursue it with all your heart.
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