Bringing back the old school in our homeschool

I have found four relatively old-fashioned tools incredibly helpful in our homeschool.

The Watch

I now wear a watch on my wrist. It keeps me more aware of our schedule and how long I’m spending on a certain activity, but most importantly it detaches me from my phone.

I was using my phone to check the time, but it doesn’t follow me around the house as well as my watch (because I’m up and down and lifting kids all day and it doesn’t stay in my pocket for that). More significantly, my watch does just one thing: Tell me what time it is. It does not tempt me to check my email “really fast” or lure me into wasting time with any other distractions. I don’t have any games on my phone but I’m an information junkie so I’m always thinking of interesting things I’d like to look into. The more I stay in the moment with my children and stay away from my iPhone, the better. 🙂

(I keep a running list near my laptop where I jot down stuff I’d like to get to when I have computer time. That keeps those things off my mind most of the day.)

The Timer

This good old-fashioned battery-operated timer gets used more than anything else in our homeschool. I set it constantly for quick clean up jobs, for assignments and for my own personal reminders.

Here again, this beats out the phone because it’s single-purpose and my kids can all use it very capably and independently.

The Boombox

I often play beautiful music or audiobooks for my children while they’re having “room time” or creating art at the kitchen table. I fought getting a boombox for a long time because really, who buys a boombox these days? I thought if I was savvy enough, playlists on my phone, laptop, or ipad would get the job done.

But buying an inexpensive walmart boombox has been one of my best purchases in the last year. My four year old can handle her own audiobooks for the most part, starting and stopping when she needs to without coming to get me and trying to find her old spot. Again, there’s no temptation for my kids to cruise around and do anything else with a boombox. It’s single-purpose and thus super easy to supervise.

We’ve checked out many great books on cd from the library, and I play great music so much more often now. We learn our songs for the girls’ program at church and the songs for Mackenzie’s piano repertoire, all without any prep work from me (turning on my computer, syncing a gadget, updating software, etc.) I still do use my gadgets for great playlists for composer studies, or for audible books… but I use the boombox far more often for these things.

The Home Phone

During school time, I minimize outside distractions. One thing that has really helped is having a home phone, plugged into the wall, with exactly one receiver.

If someone needs to get a hold of me, they call that phone.

I’m generally responsive to email… during times of the day I check it. But I remain blissfully unaware of the outside world for hours at a time and I love it that way.

(I also love the times I spend chatting on the phone with old friends, responding to questions via email, or meeting face-to-face with friends for laughter and encouragement. But those things have their time and don’t need to derail my time for teaching my children. Actually, come to think of it, I need to make more time for phone chats. I found it easier to multi-task without a busy two year old, I think. Lately, if he’s not supervised, he is [adorable] Trouble!)