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Two Resource Highlights: a Timeline Notebook to Study Catholic History in the 14th Century and an easy to print Academic Diary

Are you prepping for next year? We are too, and I thought that these resources shared by Shell of Thinking Love, No Twaddle blog might be useful as you think about your needs and requirements for next year.

St. Francis of Assisi reminded us to preach the Gospel at all times and to use words when necessary. Perhaps you may be like me and need of some words to help you remember historical facts and especially those events dealing with the Catholic Church. You can download and incorporate a five-page resource to create a 14th Century Timeline Notebook. This resource offers a peek at key events of the 1300s. It begins with the 1300 Jubilee year when coins of Florence were accepted as first International currency and ends with the death of Death of Bl. Raymond of Capua in 1399. Catholic events are highlighted in blue, and space has been left to write about additional events of the 14th century.

The second resource shared by Shell today is an Academic Diary for 2012-2013. This 24 page printable resource can be printed single or double sided and can be the simple help you need to keep track of events in the church calendar, the liturgical year and, of course, your own daily or weekly activities. The calendar runs from September 2012-August 2013. The accompanying diary pages are laid out with a simple design allowing for lines and spaces and some poetic inspiration.

Thanks so much for generously sharing these resources with us, Shell! Your charity reminds me of a little gem my pastor spoke to me this week, "Generosity is how we show our love to God."

Blessings,

Kalei

Resources to Help Organize Your Learning Year

If you haven't yet explored our calendar page, now might be a good time. We have updated our at-a-glance yearly calendar, our angel themed calendar, and the bright weather themed calendar to help younger children with tracking the weather among others. If you enjoy bright colours, then our thematic calendar may be just what you are looking for with a simple layout and a background that changes monthly. Lastly we offer a newly designed calendar which celebrates the liturgical year. This is a great addition to your learners three ringed binder or learning log. You can find all of these calendars and more on our predated printable calendars page.

View our Printable Predated Calendars page.

A quick word on our weather calendar and additional go along resources:

If you need or want your kiddos to track the weather this coming year or even for the summer, then you may want to take a peek at our weather calendar, cut out pieces to glue on it and our weather worksheets for junior or senior learners. Weather you are simply looking out the window, using a thermometer, or using a digital weather gauge to see God's glory in action, our printable resources can come in handy. The picture at the right shows the calendar on the bottom with stickers glued on. The page at the top is from our incentive page collection.

Visit our Weather Resource page.

View our Collection of Incentive Pages.

If you are looking for other organizing helps such as an assessment log to store grades or marks, vendor sheets to help with ordering and comparison shopping from curriculum catalogs or colourful attendance sheets, then perhaps we can help with those needs as well.

Visit our Free Planning Sheets for Homeschoolers and Educators resource page.

We hope these free printable organizing sheets help make your job of preparing for your next learning year easier and quicker.

Want to keep up with even more of our resource additions? Why not join us on Facebook!

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team

Resources to Help Organize Your Learning Year

We have tried to offer some free printable planning sheets to help you organize your year. To help even more, we thought we might offer a few more highlights on other resources you may find useful.

If you have joined us on Facebook, then you already know that we have updated our printable calendar selections for your next learning year. If you haven't yet explored our calendar page, now might be a good time. We have updated our at-a-glance yearly calendar, our angel themed calendar, and the bright weather themed calendar to help younger children with tracking the weather among others. If you enjoy bright colours, then our thematic calendar may be just what you are looking for with a simple layout and a background that changes monthly. Lastly we offer a newly designed calendar which celebrates the liturgical year. This is a great addition to your learners three ringed binder or learning log. You can find all of these calendars and more on our predated printable calendars page.

Click HERE to visit our printable predated calendars page now.

A quick word on our weather calendar and additional go along resources:

Click HERE to visit our weather resource page now.

Click HERE to see our collection of incentive pages now.

Click HERE to visit our Free Planning Sheets for Homeschoolers and Educators resource page now.

We hope these free printable organizing sheets help make your job of preparing for your next learning year easier and quicker.

Want to keep up with even more of our resource additions? Why not join us on Facebook!

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team

Need Clarity? See Your Entire Learning Year at Once

See your learning year at a glance

As we get set to go back to school here in a few weeks in our little homeschool, I am just finishing up making my lesson plans. I find that many times I get overwhelmed with the task and need to break things down. In the years past I, like many mums, started off with detailed lesson plans only to lighten them up later in the year and leave the details by the wayside. This year I have fought the urge to over-plan as the kiddos are now even older. I decided to use an at-a-glance planning style to help remind me of the topics being covered and when they were going to occur in my learning year. Perhaps this style may help you too.

I am an extremely creative person, I can't find my way out of a box, but I could easily come up with ten ways to use a pop bottle across your curriculum in less than two mins. - but that's another post. Because I enjoy mixing things up and trying new things, I find that I must be more flexible in my planning and the implementation of my lessons. The beauty of using this kind of at-a-glance resource is that it uses only a few key words to remind me of the focus for the week and it can be very flexible. I have based it on a 36 week learning year schedule, but you may want to only use 34 weeks or 35 weeks depending on your family's needs and your homeschooling requirements.

Using this resource is very simple.

1. Print out the sheets: the cover, and then back to back pages to accommodate as many subjects as needed. From there you can simply staple at the left hand side to make a booklet or you can 3-hole punch it on the left hand side and put it into a folder, duo tang, or ringed binder.

2. Pick a single subject to start with and write it as a single column heading. Take your main core or spine subject resources (text book, workbook, novel, etc.) and scan the table of contents to figure out the key concepts that will be covered throughout the year. Many textbooks will have a outline style of concepts to cover and that will make your job easier.

**Keep in mind and be realistic about what you can actually cover, want to cover and must cover in choosing the topics you will include in your year. Not every topic has to be covered in a text. (Keep in mind that most formal school classes do not even finish their text books in many subjects.)

3. Figure out how many weeks you will school and then divide that number by the number of topics you will attempt to cover from the previous step. You may end up with something like two weeks per topic and a few blank spots at the end of your year or you may end up with a new topic every week such is the case of using our Timeline of Christ for Children or Yummy Daily Spelling or using more formal programs like Faith and Life. If you have an odd number of weeks either choose to give more important areas an extra week or keep them as flex weeks for review such as for a program such as Prima Latina or Latina Christiana which will have a week of review after ever five lessons.

4. Using a pencil and in just a few words, write the concepts to be covered into your schedule. By using a pencil you give yourself the freedom to accommodate illnesses, births, and even unplanned things like a field trip opportunity that presents itself. You could simply and quickly switch a weekly focus to match your life and your homeschool reality.

5. Repeat steps one through four for each subject, for each child. This process can take a bit of time, but I find it is so worth it as it is a schedule that is tailored specifically to my family and our individual needs.

Click Here to find and download today's resources.
Click Here to find other free helpful planning printables from our Homeschool Helps area of our complete resource website, That Resource Site.

I hope you find today's resources helpful in getting you ready for your next learning year.
Blessings,

Kalei

A New Calendar for Mum that Never Gets Old and Helps Reinforce the Faith

Cover Page

New must have calendar helps Mum's keep it all in a row - literally!

Keeping track of things in the year can be a daunting task for even those who are really organized. As many of us scour the Internet trying to find those tools and printables which will make life easier for us in our teaching or homeschooling journey, we are often dismayed to find things that would be perfect if only it had this or that. One of my pet peeves was to find things that although they were functional, they were bland or not pleasing to use. I was also looking for Faith themed things. Needless to say, there wasn't much out there, so I decided to start making a few things and sharing them. And now, thousands of resources later, I like to think that we have some really good treasures for Catholic and Christian families alike to enjoy using.

Today I share a free calendar that I have been working on for a while and have finally completed to be able to use it for this coming learning year. As I am a sacramental prep catechist in my parish, I find that my CCD or Religious Education year has to be just as organized as my homeschooling year as I am very accountable to my DRE, my pastor, the individual families, and the Bishop, if need be. And although things can get quite hectic for me at times between home and parish learning sessions, I always try to surround myself with elements of the Faith as much as possible to keep me focused. I also like to be in God's glory, nature, as much as possible. Having said that, my calendar combines linear thinking, nature and the Dedication of the Months into one resource which can be reprinted and used over and over each year. Below are the sample pages for the month of July.

In this resource you will find a cover page and then two pages to represent each month of the year. I also noted the dedication for each month and added a little pictorial reminder as well. You will also find sweet Victorian graphics to represent different flowers or plants that are popular for that month of the year. I tried to allow a bit of white space at the top of the right hand pages for you to write a scribble or two, a quote, a reminder, Bible verse to ponder, a doddle, etc. This resource is designed to be printed back to back starting with page one (cover) and is to be bound on the left hand side in a binder or duo-tang, or simply just staple it together.

The unique arrangement of the days in rows allows for this to be useful for daily menus, activities, saint or Bible study passages, Mass schedules or a daily focus for those who do a less encumbered style of learning based on historical events of the day or teachable moments.

Click Here to download Mum's new calendar (standard version)
Click Here to download Mum's new calendar (leap year version)
**Don't forget that 2012 is a leap year.

I hope you find this sweet calendar helpful and inviting to use.

Blessings,
Kalei

Helping Children Become More Independent Learners

Resources to help the kiddos remember what to do when

Do you have tasks you do everyday? Of course you do what homeschooling mum doesn't? You can easily realize the importance of setting your goals or creating a list of tasks that need to be completed. As you complete and check off your list, a wave of satisfaction washes over you and end the day with a feeling of happiness and accomplishment. Children desire to feel the same way about their daily tasks too.

Children can easily become creatures of habit - when honed and developed - this can become a good and positive thing. What do I mean by this, you ask. In our little homeschool, like many of yours, we do certain subjects on certain days. We have certain books we read from at certain times, and also have a host of tasks that easily become routine to us such as fixing our bed, practicing a musical instrument, reading the Bible daily, etc. Without really realizing it, we could find that we have lots of daily tasks that children feel a great sense of accomplishment in completing. Sometimes these tasks might be short lived such as memorizing a poem or passage, reading a book, going to swimming lessons twice a week, or practicing a homemaking skill such as a small embroidery project. Yet other tasks involve long term commitment such as daily piano practice, using flashcards daily, learning Latin, or keeping a journal. When we know what to do and when to do it, the tasks become expected and finished in a more timely manner.

Many eductaors believe that it is a good thing to help your children organize their learning and create a schedule of sorts. This teaches them organizational skills as well as the most needed skill of time management.

Our offering today is a years worth of weekly task check-off sheets for the kiddos to help in their home learning. I have a young child who loves check lists and finds them such a wonderful tool. She uses them in her cleaning and daily learning as well. Last year in grade two she would write out her daily things to do for her learning. This would take her a while, but I would just sit quietly and let her go. This coming year I have created a template for her to use for those things which will need to be done a few times during the week. She will get a sheet in the beginning of the week and keep it in her folder to check off daily. I have created enough for each week in the school year to have a different theme. This keeps the sheet fresh and warm for her. There are special ones for holidays as well. I thought that others may find these quite useful too as they could be used by writing in a task, chore, book title, subject to be covered or any of a number of things.

The sheets have a variety of colourful themes that can be used for unit studies, particular interests of the time, holidays etc. Almost every theme set contains two sheets - one for a girl and one for a boy. There are some larger multiple paged sets including various sports and cultures. A cursive font has been used to help us transition into the reading and writing of cursive text. The layout is simple and clear and allows for ten different tasks and includes space for the weekly dates. You will also find that the sheets leave space for hole punching on the left hand side of the page for easy placement into a folder, duo-tang or other binding.

We hope you find these weekly task charts helpful in your learning year.

Click HERE to see our collection of Weekly Activities and Tasks Charts.

If you have a child who likes to check things off on a daily basis for each of their subjects, you could also try out one of our checklist style assignment sheets HERE.

Blessings,

Kalei

Thinking About the Next Learning Year Yet? We are.

The true LOVE of Learning and printables to help you stay focused on your goals.

Although many families are just beginning to finish up their lessons for the summer and are NOT thinking about the next learning year yet, we are. We are contemplating the true LOVE of learning and how we can bring that to fruition. One of our family's goals for all of its members is to cultivate the love of learning. The gifts of the Holy Spirit dispensed to the apostles and Mother Mary on Pentecost are also given to each one of us in the Sacrament of Confirmation. This allows for us to be continuously challenged to better know and understand our Lord and the world He made for us including how we interact with it and with each other. That is a tall order, we know, but it is our calling as Christians and Catholics. The gifts of the Holy Spirit include: Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord. So, how does this translate into our learning year, you may be asking. It is the factor of LOVE that needs to be incorporated into our school year.

Look to and allow the Lord to lead you.

Keep the Lord at the centre of your learning and planning. Select curriculum that heeds the teachings of the church. Choose books, curriculum and resources that reflect God's truth. Avoid those things which require you to filter out errors, opinions and beliefs that do not fit into your faith and the teachings of Christ and the Church. If we are to constantly rely on making due with something, unavoidably when we are tired or weakened, errors will get through and make their way into our lessons and permeate our homes and teaching sessions. Do not under estimate the power and patience of the evil one to wait for us to become weak, to then infiltrate our Christian homes. Be on Guard. Confirmation makes us a soldier for Christ. We must function as one for our children.

Omit Chaos and Be Realistic.

In our pride and vanity we many times forget that we are human and our children are as well. We tend to want to see the value in every possible thing provided to us - every fieldtrip, play, free concert, co-op, study group... We often times overwhelm our children with resources, activities, outings and busy-ness. We create goals based on theories or what other families are doing and burn ourselves and our children out in the process. Omit the chaos of homeschooling by setting realistic goals which take into account your time constraints, budget, your natural abilities and talents as well as the appropriateness of the topicality and your child's personality and skill level. Children will do what we set out for them, but it is up to us to discern what is best for them.

Vary Your Routine.

When our Lord created the earth, He gave us so many options for food. They range in colour, taste, texture, purpose, and availability. He knew that each type of food would provide something we needed to remain healthy; it would enhance and strengthen our bodies when used in moderation. He provided us with a well rounded and balanced diet that would meet all of our nutritional needs. We can learn alot from our Lord when we apply this to our teaching and learning. Too much of any one thing is not good for us - whether it is too much of one kind of resource, too much of one subject, too much of one topic, or too much of one activity. Our Lord taught us to vary our routine to create well rounded Christians capable of growing in knowledge rather than being stifled by it.

Expect Setbacks.

If we remember the parable of the vine and the branches we will recall that it is the pruning that causes the growth and production of fruit and that the vine dresser is the one who does the pruning. Setbacks are our opportunity for growth. It is the pruning that the Lord gives us to help us grow in virtue and truth. We must expect setbacks to occur in our learning year. Our plans for achieving the goals we set within certain times frames, parametres, using certain programs, in a certain budget, or under a certain guide may be put on hold or may have to change permanently for our very own good. We cannot get so caught up in goals and outcomes that we overlook the joy and knowledge that is occurring with real learning no matter how slow or small it is. When illness, financial hardship, death of a loved one, emotional distress or any of a number of other factors take hold of our lives, we must remember that it is our personal opportunity to test the virtues that we have, to see how strong or weak they are. We must know setbacks will come and we should plan for them by giving ourselves some breathing room in our yearly planning. Every homeschooling family will go through setbacks at some point, the key is to remember that we are called to do this task and that our behaviour, however good or bad it is, will definitely impact the life of our children. If they see us pray in time of need, reach out to others in crisis, receive the sacraments in time of weakness and sin, they will know it is what they should do in the same situation when it arises. We must be exemplary examples of the truth and faith for them. We must teach this to them for everything else can be learned in a book on their own.

Our offerings today include some neat little sheets from Shell as well as some new freebies from our own collection.

Shell over at Thinking Love, No Twaddle blog has created some little printables to help children become more independent learners. When you feel your learner is ready or when are ready to help them become a bit more independent, this five page set may be just what you are looking for. Children can note down their own info or mum could help with a few notes as well. There is a space for prayer, chores, what we are reading, weekly tasks and more. I also love the little learning quotes that are on each page too. Each page has a different theme focus including dinos, animals, science, Christ and the children, and there is also a lovely simple journal page too. See a few sample pages below.

Find this and many of her other cute printables HERE.

From our creative side, we have designed some goal planning sheets to help you to figure out the goals you have for each child, by subject, and then the core and supplemental resources/activities that you intend to use to meet your goals. There are a variety of bright themes that parents or even older learners could use to see their year at a glance. There are even check-off boxes to help you keep track of your accomplishments. These were designed to help you remember that although teaching our children is a tough and encompassing job, there is always room for joy and smiles. My pastor always reminds us that the mark of a good Christian is a joyful heart.

Here are a few sample themes from our goal planning sheets:

Click HERE to see our entire collection of new goal planning sheets.

We hope our resources have got you happily thinking about your next learning year.

Blessings,

Kalei

New Greek Worksheet and More Year Planner Pages featuring Monthly Menus, Bible study, Feast Days, Lists, Learning Needs and so Much More

More printables to help your homeschool stay organized all year long, plus a Greek goodie too.

If you haven't seen the journal planner that Michelle from Thinking Love, No Twaddle has been creating so lovingly for us all, you should really take a peek. She has thought of just about everything that you could need. She has just taken us into the fall as the September journal planner sheets are now available.

I love that each is uniquely coloured, cheerful and inviting to use. She has made a reminder calendar for Feast days as well as accompanying Bible study pages. Grocery shopping pages, lists for reminders, budgeting sheets and so much more. Plus, I just love the little squirrels and autumn themed graphics. What an inspiration to get going to plan the new year out. Here are just a few sample shots of September's sheets:

Click HERE to see Michelle's Page and scroll down to see all of the monthly sets she has graciously shared.

As an extra goodie today, Michelle has also sent along a new little Greek Worksheet for you too. It is a review sheet for those using the free online resources at Kids' Greek. This Greek worksheet features the proper use of the word "hello". You will also find this sheet on her page as the latest addition to her Greek Worksheets.

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team

The Necessity of Simplicity - Weekly Lesson Planning Sheets to go With Your Journal Planner Sets

New weekly lesson sheets compliment our recently shared monthly journal planner.

As we organize our own little homeschool and household in this new year, we are finding the recent monthly journal planning sheets from Michelle over at Thinking Love, No Twaddle very useful. She has just shared a few more journal pages that will take us into planning for August. Click here to see her page on our website and get what you need to help keep chaos at bay in your home, learning, and life.

I will confess that I usually like to make things highly organized, very detailed and fairly complex. Many times this can eat up my free time, creating time, teaching time and downtime. This year as I try "just a little bit more" to heed the warnings of my pastor to simplify my life and invite more peace and joy back into it or risk immediate burnout, I decided to just print out the journal pages from Michelle on individual sheets, staple them in the top left hand corner and be done with it. And boy.....was that liberating!!!!

Our life, like many homeschooling families, is very full. We are busy doing lots of things for lots of people. We must always remember to keep homeschooling at the forefront of our tasks as we are called to be the first teachers of our children and are accountable for the proper formation of their souls. I think it would be very difficult to explain to our Lord how we gave homeschooling the same importance as say shopping, music practice, or playing sports. The formation of the soul is so important and it is the very reason why many families choose to homeschool their children.

As we draw closer to our Lord this year, He has begun teaching us many lessons out of necessity - and it seems to be painfully progressing to a positive end. We have begun reorganizing our homeschool, decluttering, cleaning out the toy and curriculum shelves, sharing things no longer needed, scheduling our days, and also leaving activities behind that just don't seem part of God's plan for us.

It seemed such a natural progression to use Michelle's very gentle Journal sheets and get things in better order. Because I didn't want to bother her to make anymore additions to her sets, I added a simple weekly lesson planning sheet in various colours to match her sets - I hope they match anyway. :)

I hope that you can find these sheets useful. They can be added to Michelle's set for the month. There are 12 sheets of varying colours per .PDF set in landscape orientation. One set is in print and the other is in a nice script font. Simply print out a few for each month and staple in the left hand corner..lol.

Click Here to download 12 page set of weekly planning sheets in print.
Click Here to download 12 page set of weekly planning sheets in script.

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team

Keeping Your Learning Goals on Track With Goal Oriented Teaching

Help Organize Your CCD or Homeschool Year with Goal Oriented Teaching

As we begin a new CCD year or home learning year, there is so much to think about. Resources, supplies, schedules, meetings - there are so many details. But, one of the most important things to keep in mind is what you want your learners to actually know by the end of the year. Goal oriented teaching can work for many different teachers (and learners). Goal oriented learning takes the pressure off the textbooks and curriculum and puts the joy back in learning. As goals are met using various selected resources, progress is made and learning is enjoyed.

Each year as I prepare for my CCD class I print out a few key organizing sheets. I use a yearly calendar in portrait form to put in my three ringed binder. I like to use our Angel set personally. You can find all of our printable calendar sets here. Opposite to my calendar, I always put a Goal Oriented Monthly planning sheet for one singular subject; in this case, it is my CCD Religious Education class. It lets me see my plans for the week and month including a space for a weekly focus, date, hands-on learning opportunity, and reading or assignment box. This is simple but very effective especially if you are the kind of teacher that likes to or is willing to explore rabbit trails - little tangents - in your learning. Find this resource here.

I use this layout to keep things organized but also to help keep things flexible as well. Sometimes the learning pace needs to be adjusted to meet the needs of students, weather (we get snow days here :), or the liturgical calendar. I would hate to miss a teachable moment because I was locked into a rigorous schedule. You may forget a feast day or the Parish Mission or Penitential service may need to be added into the schedule, etc. Being flexible and goal oriented can not only keep you on track, but keep you feeling positive as well.

If you like a block style calendar with goals then this layout may work a bit better for you. This is not subject oriented. You fill in the days and then assign your goals on the right by week. This is great for scheduling in special church functions, guest speakers, saint feast days, class experiments, youth meetings or anything else that you may need to remember at a glance. Find this resource here.

If you are looking to help your learners stay on track with assignments and tasks, then these check-off style sheets can help keep them working toward a goal in a manageable way. These could be used for each class meeting or perhaps for the month, or even for the year. I once used this sheet to track the entire year's reading goals. I suppose it is like a homework sheet but when you call it a "goal" it seems more purposeful to learners. We have a nice selection of religious sheets as well as other themes. And yes, we will be adding more themes throughout the year and trying to finish off the Rosary Collection. Find these resources and other themes here.

I hope that these sheets help you prepare for your learning year in your living room or CCD Classroom!! :)

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team