Tag Archives: scheduling

The Case For Following a Traditional School Schedule

I have to say that in homeschooling, there really are more options than just schooling year round or following a traditional school schedule. There’s no law that says you can’t school and take off December, January and February instead of summer months–it’s really about what works best for the individual family. But obviously, with infinite possibility, I can’t cover everything. Thus, here are a few benefits of following a traditional school schedule with summer break, winter break and spring break. A Traditional Mentality Sometimes we have a tendency to think of traditional as ‘bad’ but that’s not how I mean … Continue reading →

The Case for Schooling Year Round

On one of my other blogs the other day, someone asked how we approached schooling; whether or not we went year round or followed a school schedule. There are reasons for doing both schedules, but since my family schools year round, I thought I’d talk about the advantages of doing this first. Historically Speaking. . . Our current school calendar, with summers off, is reflective of our agrarian routes. It used to be that children were let off of school during the harvest season to stay home and help with the harvest. Often times, the only way teachers could convince … Continue reading →

Tips for Sharing Information

Making sure that everyone gets where they are supposed to be and that all the details are taken care of is challenging for a single parent family. Coming up with communication systems to make it easy for family members to share information can make single parent family life a lot more efficient and smooth… It might seem obvious–but bulletin boards and notepads are still a fine way to communicate in a busy household. Setting up a whiteboard (dry erase) or chalkboard where family members can leave notes for one another (and to themselves) is another tried and true way to … Continue reading →

Giving In to Distractions

I know that I normally try to write about ways to stay focused and fight off all the distractions that can pop up when one is trying to work from home. It hit me, however, that we are just people and there are those times when no matter how hard I try, the world just seems to be conspiring against my actually getting any work done. Sometimes, the best thing for me to do is to stop fighting and give in to those distractions… I tend to cling to an idealized vision of what working at home COULD be like–quiet, … Continue reading →

Working Internationally—Expect More Holidays

No, I do not mean that you should expect more holidays for yourself if your home business takes on a more international twist, but that you will need to keep in mind that other countries and cultures have different holidays than we do and they tend to take much more time off on the whole. I have been working to get the initial planning stages of an international conference in Spain off the ground. The conference won’t be for a couple years, but it can take that long to pull off a successful event such as a conference. I was … Continue reading →

Keeping Track of Everyone Without Losing Your Mind

If you are single parent like me with multiple children (and even those of you who may only have one child, but also have work, house, family, and other obligations to juggle), there may be those days when you think it is absolutely impossible to keep track of everyone. As children get older and head off in all sorts of different directions, just keeping a tally on who is where, which permission slips you have to sign, and the phone numbers for all the friends’ houses can seem like a full time job! I think the sooner you can put … Continue reading →

Making Adjustments to “Transfer Day”

In the many years that we have been a single parent family and I have shared custody of my three children with their father—we have called the day that the kids go from one house to the other “transfer day.” Transfer day in our world has not been set in stone, however, and we have made changes over the years to our living and custody arrangements as the kids have grown and changed, and both households have evolved and changed as well. The important thing I learned about making changes and adjustments to transfer day—even seemingly minor ones like to … Continue reading →

The Fresh 2008 Calendar

This morning, I unwrapped my 12-month, poster-sized wall calendar and put it up over my desk—there they were—the twelve months of 2008 stretched out ahead of me like a blank slate. But then, I took my little black Sharpie and started to write in deadlines, scheduled business trips and other work details and I realized that I’ve already started on the coming year—even if the first day of 2008 hasn’t even arrived yet! For me, until I actually “see” the dates and weeks start to stack up, the coming year is still just an idea—a clean slate with no mistakes … Continue reading →

Working on Christmas Day

I confess it…I admit the truth…I really do work a bit on Christmas Day…does that make me a greedy Scrooge? The fact is, my kids spend Christmas with their father and his family and for the past few years, I have been alone on the actual holiday. I don’t travel since I see most of my extended family either before or after Christmas, and I haven’t been involved with anyone for years so Christmas Day is generally a pretty quiet day for me. I spend it cleaning up after a bustly week and our Christmas Eve family celebrations, thinking about … Continue reading →

Allow for Last Minute

No matter how organized you are or how much planning you put into scheduling as a single parent, the truth is—there will always be some last minute stuff to attend to. As we get into the “thick” of the holidays, I think we need to remind ourselves that we need to allow for some last minute changes—whether it is stuff that comes up with our kids, relations, or work, chances are we will need to do a little “shucking and jiving” in the next few days. For the past few weeks, I have been moving along, checking things off my … Continue reading →