- The Big Picture - Overall view of record-keeping - creating and using records. Your family is not a school and you have no need to duplicate one. If you overplan and lack flexibility, you will make yourself and your family miserable and accomplish little beyond filling out forms.
- Plan to Plan - Process of planning: (1) Decide - some clutter questions apply to forms and tools for records: What do I need? Why do I need it? Who else needs it? Make a homeschool mission statement and goal sheet for each year. (2) Document - keep an academic portfolio for each child. Keep your plan simple and uncomplicated.
- Setting Up Files - choose where to store records: file cabinet, box, etc.
- File-a-Plan - set up folders for your files, choose categories for your family. Appendix B gives a list of possible categories and forms available.
- Archive - A once-a-year clean-out is necessary to control the volume of useless papers in your files. The archive is a place for records you don't use frequently but may need in the future.
- Forms, Files, and a Final Word - Records are a means to an end not the end itself. Use records as your aid, don't become a slave to the system.
Devotion: God keeps records - generations, Book of Life, etc. He also told man to record information He wants man to remember - the Bible.
Chapter 7 - Real Life Around the House
Fit school around the family, not family around the school. Set aside time to better prepare yourself.
- Special Challenges - There are a lot of books out there on various special challenges in homeschooling; single-parent homeschooling; homeschooling special needs, etc.
- Real-Life Lessons - She shares a story of how she hardly did any school one year because they were building a house and the lessons she learned from that. *When special challenges arise, you and your family must adjust while still learning, the children and you.
- SOS Day - Declare an SOS day (Salvage Our Sanity) when overwelmed with clutter. It can be hours or even an SOS week or month. It does save your sanity!
- Ketchup Day - Institute a Ketchup day (Catch Up) to regroup when you fall behind with normal tasks. Work on your non-emergency list tasks.
- EDIT Day - Easy Does It - time of focus; time of mental, physical and emotional regrouping rather than work. Shop, take a bubble bath and read a book, etc. Anything to renew your spirit.
- God's Plans - What God wants us to learn far outweighs what we want our children to learn. Benefit from flexibility rather than seeing obstacles as diversion from what you really want to do. You ARE schooling when children learn real life around the house!
Chapter 8 - A Family - Not a School
- A Family First - God highly regards His special creation - the family.
- The Stress of Disorganization - Organization helps a family fulfill its mission in life; disorganization is stressful and thus has a negative effect on the family. It can have a domino effect - Mom isn't organized and that causes stress. Mom's stress affects the family and home and school suffer and are chaotic. Family relationships become tense and slowly erode. The family breaks down and blames the trouble on homeschooling. Organization is a family responsibility! Even if you didn't homeschool you would still have stress to deal with - schools and teachers - and disorganization would remain the same.
- Purposeful Family Life - Stochastic means lacking any definite plan, order, or purpose; depending on or governed by chance. Stochastic is the opposite of how God designed our families to function. Disorder diverts us from purposeful family living.
- Extended Family Relationships
- Grandparents Can Help - Long list of do's and don'ts for grandparents.
