Homeschool on a Dessert Desert Isle...

What homeschool product could I not live without? Besides the obvious of our curriculum choices, these are the things that make our homeschooling lives easier:

1. My planner. It is just a simple planner that I get each year from "The School Box." Sometimes it is hard to find because they have the fancy ones for the school teachers - and I just need to plan assignments for one student. I don't need seating charts or records for grades...I just need a box for each subject over the course of a week. I plan for just three weeks at a time - it is short enough so that if we have to make changes, it's not on a grand planning scale - but it's long enough for me to reserve books from the library. Katie is in charge of her own day. She crosses off when she is done - and she can do the subjects in whatever order she chooses. Sometimes she'll even swap some of her days around - doing all her spelling first and saving grammar for the end of the week. Notice too, that everything is done in pencil! You never know when you might need to make changes! And that segues nicely into important item #2...

2. Pencil and sharpener. You know what drives me nuts? When the eraser won't erase...and it just smears graphite across the page. Yuck. Don't those companies do product testing?

3. Dry erase boards. Sometimes explaining something on paper just does not cut it...a dry erase board is the perfect solution.

4. My computer and the internet. I surely hope that this desert island has electricity and wifi because the resources I have found online are priceless! From reviews of curriculums, to support groups, to homeschooling blogs full of amazing resources, to amazon and tons of others - all of these sources help me to run our homeschool life so much easier.

5. And lastly, but not least, our library!

(perhaps that desert island shouldn't be deserted...)