The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

Meditation is rather hip right now, but the kind of meditation I am speaking of is not emptying our minds, but rather filling them.The Psalms speak of meditation, and in the New Testament we are exhorted to meditate on what is good and true and upright and beautiful. Think on these things.We are thus commanded with good reason: it is good for us. It is good for our attitudes. It is how we keep a proper perspective and align our judgement.

Season 9: Real Life Homeschooling Tips This episode is an excerpt from a video workshop Mystie recorded with Amy Roberts in 2016. You can register for the entire replay, with bonus support material, by clicking the button below. Amy Roberts is the mother of 10, who has children from 20 to 2 years old. She and her husband have homeschooled from the beginning and shares what she’s learned and how she does it. Amy’s blog, Raising Arrows Amy’s Instagram, Amy … Read MoreThe post CH052: Homeschooling Middle & Little Kids (with Amy Roberts) appeared first on Simply Convivial.Support the show (https://www.simplyconvivial.com/membership)

What we think matters.While it’s still awkward and uncomfortable, we accept the story God is telling in our lives and tell it to ourselves. We can take the reins and “take every thought captive.” We can change our thoughts.And by changing our thoughts, we can change the story we see ourselves acting.

Is planning even possible for a large homeschooling family? Amy Roberts from Raising Arrows tells us how to make it work.

A potent attitude poison is unrealistic expectations.When we make a to-do list full of our own pet projects when our time is actually taken up with our children and their needs, we're going to be grumpy and feel our children are getting in the way. Instead, we need to put them on our to-do lists and make sure we meet their needs before we add more in.

So much has to be done in a homeschool day and the homeschool management struggle is real. How do you keep track of the daily work in your homeschool and manage to juggle the work? If you have multiple children and multiple subjects to teach (and that’s pretty much all of us) then we have a lot to keep track of and a lot to make happen. So, I thought that we’d talk about different methods and strategies for keeping track of all that stuff. So, how do you keep things straight in an average homeschool day?

So, I like to say that all organization projects should begin with a brain dump. So, I thought that the best place to start would be to talk briefly about what a brain dump is and then we can start talking about tips and hacks and troubleshooting and what works for us and that sort of thing. A brain dump is basically sitting down with a pen and paper and just writing down everything that’s in your head, either everything everything or just everything about a particular problem or a project, maybe, that’s driving you crazy. So, when you get it down and onto paper it really clears your head of the details and lets you look at what’s going on more objectively, it gives you a little perspective. David Allen, author of GTD (Getting Things Done) says that when you use paper to hold the information and the details then your mind is free for creative thinking and problem solving. So, it’s kind of like decluttering your brain.Virginia Lee: Which we could all use.Mystie: Especially with Christmas over and the New Year, it’s time to declutter.Virginia Lee: Most definitely. Well, I have a question for you about that.Mystie: OK.Virginia Lee: Do you have any brain dump tips about doing it on paper or can it be done in an electronic version or way? I’ve always been curious about that.Mystie: I’ve done it both ways. It’s kind of depended on what I’m brain dumping about because sometimes I just need to make a list. If my mind is really working fast I can type faster than I can write so then I’ll just open up something in Evernote and just start typing. I think it really depends on the person and the way you think and process. If I’m going to be writing sentences at all then I probably want to be typing because I’ll write better sentences, I’ll think through what I’m thinking about better if I’m typing, fingers move faster, but if I am not sure of the idea, like I’m trying to figure something out and brainstorm, maybe I want this thing over here and then I want to put something over here and make it a little more visual then writing it down is the better way to sort those ideas. And then, also, there’s just sometimes I’ve just had a notebook on the counter with a pen so that just here and there I can add a little bit.Virginia Lee: That makes sense because on paper you can do things like draw arrows and circle things and sometimes, that definitely if I’m doing a brain dump, helps me to have something circled or this drawn over there, just because I’m visually seeing that I’m moving it that direction.Mystie: Well, at least I know if I’m doing a brain dump into Evernote I know where it is, which is not always true if I started on the back of an envelope.Virginia Lee: That is true. I think one of the biggest times I do brain dump is in the middle of the night. Sometimes when I lie down to go to sleep my mind is just going fifty miles an hour so I find that I, a lot of the time, do a brain dump, and then I lay back down. That’s definitely one of my biggest brain dump tips.Mystie: Does it help you get to sleep?Virginia Lee: It does, because I’m not trying to remember anything or flush out an idea because I don’t want it to go away. So, I feel like, OK, I’ve put that all on this pad by my bed or I’ve started using the Notes app in my phone because my husband’s sleeping and probably doesn’t need me turning on a light in order to do a brain dump.Mystie: I think that’s the real power of brain dumping: it just puts it somewhere where your mind isn’t worried or stressed out about keeping something. It’s safe, it’s right here, it’s outside of my mind.

I’ve created a few iterations of a chore board over the last year and a half. First it was a poster board frame, and I wrote directly on the hard plastic frame. That worked well, because I could tuck it away quickly and easily when I didn’t want our schedule, consequences, and school assignments on display.Then, my 3-year-old used it as a slide (which means he was climbing up it). The frame and plastic cracked. I tried to salvage it by simply sticking printed pages on it, but that simply didn’t work as well nor look as good.

Ok, I just can’t get enough, and I hope you can’t, either.There’s more than one way to menu plan, and your personality will predict which one is most likely to work for you.

Keeping track of what each student is supposed to be doing, and making sure they are doing it is one of the struggles of homeschooling moms everywhere. Here’s how we’re managing it with a free online (and mobile) app called Trello.Some people use spiral notebooks for a daily list; we use Trello for weekly lists. Here are the details and even some video tutorials to get you started!