•   Determine what space you will use for school. This may vary from subject to subject or from child to child, but might include:

     - Kitchen table for math and writing.

     - Couches in living room for multi-age classes or reading.

     - Computer stations.

     - Desk for older child's independent study.

•   Also establish space where those not in school (preschoolers, husbands with a day off, etc.) can be free to enjoy themselves without disturbing students.

•   Set aside space for school and reference books, supplies, and records:

     - Use shelves, drawers, or sturdy plastic crates or boxes

     - Label clearly (with a child's name, subject, or item) so everyone knows where to return things

     - Ensure spaces are easily accessible and ample enough to add more items without crowding.

•   Find many innovative and practical ideas in "Storage Strategies for Homeschool Families."

Homeschoolers never have too many books; they just don't have enough bookshelves!

To organize your library, first go through all the books in your home and sort them:

•   Throw away any books that are not worth saving.

•   If you are keeping boxes of old workbooks that your children have done, consider removing the cover and a few sample pages from each one, then staple them together and file them.

•   Give away or sell duplicate books unless they are really great, hard-to-get books that you want to keep to loan out or save for your children's future libraries.

•   Check with friends who might want to trade curriculum.

•   Sell books in a yardsale or on the Internet on ABE Books or Amazon.com.

•   Clean books as you go with safe methods that will help preserve them.

•   Store like books together in different places in your home.  Examples:

     - Children's personal reading books in their bedrooms.

     - Reference books in your library or family area.

     - Current school books all together by each child's grade.

     - Bibles and Bible study books.

     - Other like categories together.

•   You might want to safely store books that your children want to take with them when they start their own families.

When you have completed work on your library you should be able to find and use your books better!

Create a master calendar for the year that shows schooling days, vacations, start dates of major units, test dates, holidays, field trips, and events.

Choose the traditional nine months with 5-day weeks and three month summer break or set up your own year-round schedule like one of the following samples:

•   A four-day school week with three days off.

•   Three, four, or six weeks of school, then one week off.

•   Eight or ten weeks of school, then two weeks off.

Remember to take into account the number of school days or hours, if any, that you are required to document according to your state law.

Keep a large calendar near the phone, set rules for accepting invitations and scheduling appointments, and mark the following:

•   Your home-school schedule (see above) including school days, test days, vacations, library days, field trips, and support group activities.

•   All of your family's appointments, church and social activities, music lessons, etc.

•   Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and special days.

•   Weekly goals for a long-range project.

This practice will greatly help your family's schedule to run smoothly!

Use your family's daily and weekly schedules to incorporate your plans and goals. A time budget assures that urgent demands don't steal time from the important things you want and need to do.

•   Establish regular times for family meals, going to bed and getting up, chores, quiet times, schoolwork, play, family devotions, errands, church meetings, and family times.

•   Allow extra time to move from one activity to another. This will allow you to take care of personal needs, rest a bit, and have some leeway for the unexpected.

•   Post a copy where all can see it.

Make a practice of setting aside a regular time each week to plan in advance for the next week.

•   Set your weekly and daily goals.

•   Do your lesson planning for schoolwork.

•   Make lists of phone calls to be made, errands to be run, shopping to be done, details to be tended to.

•   Evaluate anything that is bothering you and think how you can fix it.

•   Coordinate your week with your husband.