Make the Week(end) work for you

Leave a comment October 20, 2018 Umm HMH

Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu my dear Mamas

I hope you are all having an enjoyable weekend. I’ve intended to write this post for some time and asked on Instagram if you would be interested in reading it, to which several of you replied “Yes!”. And like one sister pointed out, the struggle of finding time to enjoy our time is an issue Mamas in general face so much needed!

Before I start, let me explain the reasons as to why I personally made some changes and why the weekend wasn’t working for me. See, I’d trained myself to see as the weekend as a break up of two things. The first day was the ‘I’m not lifting a finger at all’ and the second was ‘Oh my gosh, its time to get my house back in order’ day. Which meant I’d be deep cleaning all day, spending little time with my family: stressing myself out before the new week had even started. And then homeschool planning after all the cleaning and cooking wasn’t exactly what I looked forward to either, especially if I just realised that I didn’t have the supplies I need!

So, I made some changes. which have helped me regain that balance I was craving, Alhamdulillah, and I hope they help you too.

1) Change the view you view your week.

Mindset is a powerful thing, and the way we perceive something directly impacts our behavior. Like I mentioned before, the way I broke down my week in my mind was usually comprised of the something like this.

busy homeschool week x 5.
day off where I don’t even want to think.
and finally, the day to get everything back in order i.e Mama doesn’t sit down today.

Admittedly, Id adopted a very rigid way of looking at my days. Where I’d spend 5 days looking forward to my ‘day off’ and 6 days dreading my ‘back to order’ day. And I remember reading this quote that summed up how I was feeling.

“We waste so many days waiting for the weekend. So many nights wanting morning.
Our lust for future comfort is the biggest thief of life.”

So, now I no longer view homeschool days as just busy. Because even though they are hectic, they are also the most rewarding. And I remind myself, the opportunity to educate my children myself in today’s world is a blessing not a burden, Allahuma barik. And homeschooling is a lifestyle, not something to be ticked off. So being present, enjoing the moment ensures it remains joyful.

So no longer do I feel obliged to feel bound to lesson plans and cooking meals all day long. I take time to pause regularly, so I don’t need to look forward to one day of the week to ‘wind down’ because I already do it every day.

2) Plan your week at the end of the weekday, not the weekend.

Rather than pull put your planner and panic the night before school starts, try and plan the next week just as the current week is finishing. Whilst the kids are wrapping up, grab a cup of coffee and just spend half an hour or so planning out your week. Its much easier since your already in the ‘teaching mode’ and it gives you time to grab any supplies your missing over the weekend. And you’ve just freed up a weekend slot, yay!

3) Cook once eat twice

Yep, the old cook once eat twice is a super time saver, but the day you cook can also help. So, I like to cook on the last day of our school week, which means lunch for the first day of the weekend is already sorted and dinner we usually have out on that day – so a whole day of not cooking which means Mama can relax!

4) Climb the laundry mountain daily

A load a day helps to keep the mountain small! And don’t wait until the night before school to get all the bedding and towels washed either. Take some time during the week to get the extra laundry on. The point is not to wait till the night before to get everything done, space things out over the week. It will help keep your sanity and things will still get done!

5) Freezer breakfasts

So, we’ve had a whole day off cooking, and now its the night before school.
So whilst your cooking today, why not cook up few days worth of breakfasts too? Mornings tend to be busy, and if you’ve cleaned up the night before its nice to be able to enjoy that a little and that’s where some pre-cooked breakfasts come to the rescue You can enjoy your breakfast without the mess, and start your day feeling more relaxed rather than the dreaded panic of ‘what do I cook!’. I find meal planning in general is very handy but I’l dedicate another post to that entirely!

So there you have it; a few tips to keep your week balanced, both the start and the end. I have some more but this post is already getting quite long so let me know if you’d like to read a part two. And share any tips you may have below!

Have a relaxing weekend!

A-Z of Islam Handwriting Sheets

The Three Cs

Homeschool Supplies organisation

Leave a comment August 26, 2018 Umm HMH

Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu

I hope you all had a wonderful Eid with your families. I apologise that this post has taken so long to write; we are in the process of potentially moving house hence why I haven’t posted as much. I did think about waiting till we moved to show you how I organise our school supplies, as our shelves are not quite how I would like them to be, but this is real life – maybe I’ll do a before and after post at some point insha’Allah!

So here are how our current homeschool shelves look like.

Like I said, our shelves don’t necessarily look aesthetically the way I would like, but the organisation does work for us.

Subject boxes
I used to organise our books directly on the bookshelf, separate from extra manipulatives, and then when we came to each lesson I would piece together all the books I needed and the manipulatives. The problem I had was that books would go missing, and I would forget to use the manipulatives! So now I organise all our subjects into boxes. A typical box will include any teachers manuals/ textbooks, books we use as the main spine for the subject such as Usborne Encyclopedias, and manipulatives such as games/flashcards. When its time to study, I just pull out the box, spread out all the books we need, and then when we’re finished everything goes back in the back and stays organised. Extra reading books are placed directly on the shelves so kids can read these whenever they like and I occasionally will sift through these and pull out any relevant books for lessons I have planned. I will be colour coding books in the future according to subject, to make it easier to do this too insha’Allaah.

Hands-on subjects
I also organise all our arts and crafts in one box, which the kids have access to at all time. I used to have everything laid out on the shelf, but again I found things go missing. For artwork, the kids each have an A3 sketchpad for school only, and a different A3 sketchpad for their own drawings. This has helped save paper, keep their work together and clean up time! Keeping supplies in boxes works really well for Science too as I keep all the supplies we need for our Science experiments together. When I need to check if we are running low on supplies I can quickly look through the box, and not scramble through different draws.

Individual work
We used to implement the infamous workbox system, whereby a child has their own draw for each subject, and then a velcro label system to show what has been completed. It worked a treat at the beginning but then my kids began to lose labels or forgot to stick the tab to complete, it eventually fizzled out. It also may not be suitable if you have several children as each draw takes up quite a bot of space. So went back to a simple drawer for each child.

Currently, my kids use this silver draw to store all their work. The top drawer they share to keep their mushafs and Quran pens, and then they each have an individual draw where they store their own workbooks and supplies. When lesson times come, they pull out the relevant workbooks. It’s up to them to keep their books in order too, so once in a while, they will pull out their drawer and give it a quick tidy. Any marked test sheets are not kept in these draws though, these are filed separately in my homeschool planner. We will be changing this drawer at some point as it is too small, hence some subject folders are on the main shelf.

Writing supplies
I used to love the idea of a rotating caddy in the middle of the school table filled with sharpened pencils and new crayons. But again, that didn’t work for us! My kids would constantly lose things, crayons would disappear, and there would be an ‘im using the red pencil first’ conversation at almost every lesson. So, we went back to good old pencil cases! My kids have their own pencils, sharpeners and crayons etc which they keep in their drawers. I’ve found that they are more responsible this way and look after their supplies better. I do have a caddy with extra supplies on hand, but for the most part, they kids take out their pencil cases and put them back when done.

So there’s our homeschool supplies organisation in a nutshell. The boxes are overflowing, there are no labels, but it works for us. Let me know if you’d like to see an updated picture once we’ve moved!