When I feel logistically disoriented, I make an organizing book. It really seems to help get me back on the ground. Around Christmas-time, I read a lot about Visual Spatial learners and learned a lot about the way I think. One thing that helped was realizing that I don’t move well through time sequence. I mean, I KNEW that, but seeing that it was a personal difficulty rather than assuming it was a common human trait that some people handle much better than me — well, THAT was helpful and with that, I could address the challenge. One thing that helps is converting temporal into visual/spatial — that is, some sort of nicely blocked out chart, not too cluttered, that helps me visually perceive the flow of time.
Anyway, here’s the books I made last week:
The dark blue one is from January, so I didn’t make that one last week — it is my monthly planner. I put all our appointments and other big things in there. I like the exterior pocket where I can keep pens and index cards or whatever. I have kept a monthly planner every since Aidan came home from the hospital because that was when it got difficult to intuitively keep track of all the appointments plus the activities of the other kids.
The one with the picture cover is older, too. I use old greeting cards and scratch paper to make little notebooks that I carry with me in my purse or around the house to jot down random notes — I always remember things at night or when I’m vacuuming, not when I’m TRYING to remember.
Here’s the interior of the monthly one:
The green one is a weekly planner. It lets me write out more specific things about the week’s plans, including lists of things to bring (like snacks to the T ball game and so on).
The little red notebook is a daytimer where I can jot down what actually happens in the day, so I can remember it to blog about it.
You would think that it’s excessive to have THREE time logs. Indeed, the red daily one is no big deal. It just gives me a chance to keep track of the day as it is happening.
But the monthly one is a LIFE saver — gives me the overview at a glance. Devoted to ONE purpose so it is not visually confusing for me. And it is helpful to me to copy the week’s appointment over into the Week Timer, because that is when I start thinking over the logistics of the actual appointment, and putting down things to remember to bring or plan.
Then the turquoise planner is for projects and book notes. I didn’t take a picture, but there are also some Cornell note forms in there. When I’m reading a book or looking over a resource, it helps me to jot down observations.
I make the little booklets with a comb binder, then I back the comb with colored duct tape so is is more neat looking and sturdier. You could do this with online books you print out for Ambleside, too.
All the forms came from DIY Planner. They don’t have homeschool forms there but they have lots of other things, all free. I was craving the Mead Day Runner that Aidan’s occupational therapist has, but when I priced them online — yikes! And it made me realize I would have more fun making my own, anyway.
This post is about as geeky as you can get. My daughter shakes her head: “You’re taking pictures of your notebooks to put them on your blog??” I have to share the thrill, though. What usually happens is that I keep the books faithfully for a few weeks and then drop them. I used to kick myself but now realize, hey, doing this serves its purpose. I get back in the temporal sequence that way, and then I drop most of it (except the monthly planner, essential!) until I find myself lost in space again.
