This week I'll be posting some of my "home schooling essentials", a couple of the items that I can't live without when teaching the kids at home, as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew's winter blog hop: 5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials. The items in my posts this week may seem very simple and silly and, yes, they are simple items. Home schooling, like life, is as simple or complicated as we choose to make it and I prefer to keep it simple. I know no magic secrets or products that make home schooling successful, but after many years of teaching at home I have found a few things that make my world flow well and I'm excited to share them to you.

In my bucket are two books, The Well Trained Mind, a Guide to Classical Education at Home by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer (1999), and If You're Trying to Teach Kids How to Write, You've Gotta Have This Book! by Marjorie Frank (1979).


These books are two of my most trusted resources and most well-worn "go to" books.

The Well-Trained Mind teaches using a classical approach, which I agree wholeheartedly with. The book lays out, in pretty good detail, how and what to teach each year. I've found the approach the Bauer's use to work very well with my family.


The book is divided into three stages based on the age/grade of the children - grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Each fall I open the book to the section(s) we're in and re-read each chapter, coming up with my overall plan for the year. I deviate from the books suggestions often, but it acts as a excellent starting point and their recommendations, if followed, aid in developing a well-educated college-ready child.

The second book, If You're Trying To Teach Kids How To Write ... is my absolute favorite writing book. It takes the boring monotony out of writing and makes it fun. The book was written in 1979 and it shows - in the language, illustrations, and free thinking ideas. The book is just chock full of fun and creativity. I've written more elaborately about this book here - and I have to say my opinion hasn't changed in the three years since I wrote that original post.


When I'm lacking for a creative writing prompt (we do creative writing every day) I open the book to a random page and grab an idea. We've written ransom notes, designed soup cans, laid on our back in the yard and written poetry, and created "wanted" posters for ourselves. No dry dull writing here!

Because of the frequency with which I turn to these books and the knowledge gained from them these two are a must on my "essentials" list.

*I linked to Amazon for these books. If you do decide to purchase one please consider doing so through someone who is an Amazon affiliate (I am not) so they can earn a little something from the sale.

Please visit these other Home School Review Crew members' post this week as they share their homeschooling essentials:
Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

For even more terrific blog posts in the 5 Days of Home Schooling Essentials series click the image in the top left corner.

This week I'll be posting some of my "home schooling essentials", a couple of the items that I can't live without when teaching the kids at home, as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew's winter blog hop: 5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials. The items in my posts this week may seem very simple and some even silly and, yes, they are simple items. Home schooling, like life, is as simple or complicated as we choose to make it and I prefer to keep it simple. I know no magic secrets or products that make home schooling successful, but after many years of teaching at home I have found a few things that make my world flow well and I'm excited to share them to you.

Each home schooling child has a bucket. A square storage box or bin, rather than a sand bucket - but in our house, for some unknown reason, they're called buckets. As in, "Grab your bucket and let's get started on schoolwork."


The buckets fit perfectly into my fantastic Ikea Expedit bookcase that lives in the dining room. While the dining room is an odd place to keep schoolwork it's close to the kitchen table and the pretty (at least when they were new) buckets, supposedly, hide the mess and look nice. I'm so embarrassed by the following photo, we clearly need some new buckets and the shelves are usually much more organized, but this is real life homeschooling and sometimes it's a mess ...


Ok, moving on ... Each schooling child has a bucket. Actually, each child in the family has a bucket, even Cassie still has a bucket (mostly because she hasn't ever cleaned hers out). The buckets are in order by age so I always know who's bucket is where and can quickly toss things into the right bucket.

In their bucket the kids keep their binders. They have 1"-2" 3-ring binders for Language Arts, Math, Science, and History. Some years they have more binders than others, it just depends what we're working on. The binders are divided by topic - the Language Arts binder has a section for each different area we work in in that field, such as spelling, creative writing, and the various books and worksheets we use. Every week the kids are supposed to put their completed work into their binders, with the newest work on top. In theory, when it is time for our annual reviews we can just grab the bucket with the sorted binders and run out the door. In reality, this sorting and organizing happens 3-4 times a school year, with most of it being done the morning of our reviews. Even with our less than ideal end-of-year hustle we can get ready for reviews in an hour or two, because each child's work is already in their own space and we only have to sort by subject. After reviews the binders are emptied and all the work stored away, giving the kids clean empty binders for the next year.

Adam had just finished organizing his bucket

Also in their buckets is the work they've just completed or are working on, as well as texts, pencils, calculators, and rulers.

Kaden's bucket, below all this paperwork it's very organized, he's just hard at work

Each morning their buckets are brought out and they can get to work. There's no digging and searching for anything, it's all just there in their own buckets. Also, clean up at the end of the day is simplified as everything can go straight in their buckets until the next morning.


I too have a bucket. My bucket contains the answer books for their texts, joint books the kids are using such as History and Science texts, the schedule binder (more on that later this week), some of my favorite idea books (also to be discussed in more detail later), my "must have" writing utensils, some of River's workbooks, and, and I give River the credit for this one because I have no idea where it came from, quite a bit of glue.


Each morning my bucket comes out and sits next to me. Everything I need is right there with me.

We've used the buckets for about six years. Before that we used a kitchen island and everything got stacked with each child having their own pile. The island was wide enough for 3 children's work. When Adam reached school age a new plan became absolutely necessary or schoolwork was going to be all over the place, and that plan was the bucket system. It has worked wonderfully for us.

If you have any questions about anything I mention this week feel free to ask.

Please visit these other Home School Review Crew members' post this week as they share their homeschooling essentials:
Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

For even more terrific blog posts in the 5 Days of Home Schooling Essentials series click the image in the top left corner.

This week I'll be posting some of my "home schooling essentials", a couple of the items that I can't live without when teaching the kids at home, as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew's winter blog hop: 5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials. The items in my posts this week may seem very simple and silly and, yes, they are simple items. Home schooling, like life, is as simple or complicated as we choose to make it and I prefer to keep it simple. I know no magic secrets or products that make home schooling successful, but after many years of teaching at home I have found a few things that make my world flow well and I'm excited to share them to you.

Every morning, after getting my bucket, I grab my writing instruments - a black or blue ink ballpoint pen (preferably a nice one ... I love a nice good pen but so do my children, so typically I find myself with something basic grabbed at a back-to-school sale), a red ink ballpoint pen, and a yellow highlighter. I also grab my water bottle and phone, but it's the writing instruments that I absolutely must have to get into my groove.


The black or blue pen is used to write the schedule on Monday morning. I also use it throughout the week to take care of my business stuff and notes for myself. When the boys have questions and need help with their work this is the go-to pen for math examples.

The red pen is for checking. The majority of our schoolwork is still done with pencil on paper, the boys have a few online classes but 85% of their work is done at the kitchen table with pencil to paper. All mistakes are circled and all must be corrected. Yes, much to the dismay of my children, they do all their work until it's correct, and I just keep circling until they do. The red pen is also used to check off work on the schedule, it stands out from the blue/black the schedule was written in so I can easily glance and see what's done. I also use the red pen to put a checkmark on their completed work. This way if I forget to check something off on the schedule they can show me, easily, that they did the work.

The yellow highlighter is for my green-brown-red colorblind child (the three youngest boys all have varying colorblindness issues - if you play "I Spy" with them don't let them pick anything red or green ... just saying). I can circle his math errors til my red pen runs out of ink, but he still won't easily see it. He sees the shape, but he also circles his problem numbers and answers, so my red circles just blend in with his pencil circles. As a result, all his mistakes or things he needs to be aware of are circled and highlighted.

So there you have it, as simple as it sounds those three pens are very essential to me and I do not sit down and begin the home schooling day at the kitchen table without them.

Please visit these other Home School Review Crew members' post this week as they share their homeschooling essentials:
Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

For even more terrific blog posts in the 5 Days of Home Schooling Essentials series click the image in the top left corner.