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Thank You! from a very visual mom! Lisa

This is so helpful in so many ways. Now we just need one for each of the guides by several different people to see how others do it. Any volunteers?!

Oh, my word! Julie, would you do this for all the guides? It sure makes it easier. I am SOOOO visual.

Love, love, love this post. I'm bookmarking it!

That is great! I love the idea of doing all of the sheets in one binder with tabs and plastic page covers. Man, that will make everything SO much easier! I also like the way you made the timeline sections larger. I am going to do the same thing for ds6 this fall with Beyond. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks, ladies! I don't know why I never thought of doing this before, but yes, I am going to try to do it for each guide as I think it is easy to snap pics as I'm getting set to start. Glad it helped some!

In Christ,
Julie

What a great post If you do this for Preparing I will be sure to check it out before I start the manual!
Unfortunately I did not see it till today I arranged all my stuff in the book case and labeled it all so I know where it is and there is no big searching going on. There should be a special spot for this post :
The Prepare for your manual by Julie
You have a talent given by our Lord and I am glad you share it with us ladies.
Blessings

Maybe a sticky one for this too

Bumping this great post!

Question for Julie - So you just have ONE binder for all the notebooking and it's separated by tabs for each section?

Thanks for the pictures. I am very visual as well.

Julie wrote: Now, if I could just get my toddler and middle ds to learn to play better together... That's the next hurdle to hop.

Did you find anything that worked? I'm having a hard time getting my dd3(just turned 3 today!!! My littlest princess is getting so big!) and my ds5 to get along. They are constantly quarelling! This is where the majority of our school interuptions come from. I feel like I am constantly having to stop what I'm doing with dd8 to discipline the other two. I pray all the time that the Lord would give me wisdom in how to approach this because it is really turning into a problem. I don't want to have to keep them seperated the entire time I finish school with dd8, but when I don't, I am interupted WAAAY to many times. My other children get along really well with only occasional quarelling that is easy to squash, but these two.....ugh....they seem to just clash.

Although it probably isn't (wasn't) as bad in your home with your boys, if you could share anything that may have worked, I would be very appreciative! It would make our HOD day go so much smoother and shorten the day considerably.

HI Kelly! There is light at the end of the tunnel! Riley and Emmett (now 8 yo and 4 yo) play quite nicely together, actually better than Wyatt (11 yo) and Emmett sometimes. Riley has discovered that Emmett will play many of the younger things Wyatt no longer enjoys as much, and he has figured out how to be the peacemaker more.

A few things that helped this along were having a daily playtime for the 2 of them in a set area for a short amount of time. I started with them being near me, so we have a large entryway set up with toyshelves and a small table and chairs. I was working with Wyatt within earshot and eyesight of the pair, but not so close they would be too loud for Wyatt and I to work well together. I left the door open but put up a gate more as a visual reminder to stay in the entryway than as a way to keep them in, as Emmett and Riley could scale any gate in no time. I let Riley know that this was his chance to be the big brother to Emmett, and that big brothers let little brothers choose what to play and focus on knowing that this time is all about the little one, not them. I set the timer for 30 minutes. I let them start their time together with a snack and a Capri sun to drink. They sat at the little table and could not leave the little table until they'd finished their snacks. This helped them learn to have a civilized snack time together and learn to try to visit with one another in a nice way. If they left the table I took away the snack and juice. I only had to do this once. Snack time took about 10 minutes.

When they'd finished snack time, Riley had to ask Emmett what he wanted to play. Whatever Emmett said, Riley needed to say "ok" to. He then was in charge of getting it out and setting it up, and involving Emmett as much as possible. They needed to play on the rug in the entryway together and were not to interrupt me. If they interrupted, they had a time out. They could see the timer counting down and knew they had just 20 minutes left, so this helped them plan what to get out and do. Riley and I talked about what to do if it wasn't going well. He learned to choose a different activity to do if the first one wasn't going well. When the timer rang, the two of them had to pick up everything before coming out. Riley was to assign one thing for Emmett to pick up. It was to be something easy but purposeful. At first Riley did not do well assigning the task (i.e. Emmett, pick up this one GI Joe guy.) At first Emmett did not do well picking up (i.e. NO!). Eventually though, Riley learned to give him a tote and say, "Put all the GI Joe guys in here". Emmett eventually learned that after Riley had picked up everything else, Riley got to leave, and Emmett had to stay until his one assigned task was done. Picking up time took another 10 minutes, so really this became a 40 minute (semi-independent) teaching time for Wyatt and me (semi-independent work for Wyatt as I was also training the other 2 and had to get up to do that off and on).

They learned to enjoy playdough at the little table too. This was fun, and kept the mess to a minimum. Otherwise, having around 6-9 totes to rotate through of different things to play with helped keep playtime varied. We changed out the totes every 3-6 months or so. Now, they are playing 45 minutes together, and can do it upstairs in the playroom. When the timer rings, they often shout "Awww, can't we play longer?" Part of it is just them getting older, but I do think the training helped. Oh, and I do think it was helpful that I made sure that Wyatt and Riley had a 45 minute alone playtime together some time in the day too, so they had some more "grown-up" focused on them playtime together as well. I hope something here can help you too, Kelly!

In Christ,
Julie

Julie,
I know this is an old post, but it is very helpful as we are planning to begin Bigger on Monday. I've had to restrain myself from starting this week. After reading your post, I realize I'm really NOT ready to begin! The past two months have been so busy, now here I am all ready and excited about the work in Bigger, and have not even prepared for the necessary 'extras'. The pics are a HUGE help! Until Monday, I can have fun preparing! Thank you1

Julie,
I know this is an old post, but it is very helpful as we are planning to begin Bigger on Monday. I've had to restrain myself from starting this week. After reading your post, I realize I'm really NOT ready to begin! The past two months have been so busy, now here I am all ready and excited about the work in Bigger, and have not even prepared for the necessary 'extras'. The pics are a HUGE help! Until Monday, I can have fun preparing! Thank you!

Thanks, presit! I'm so glad this post may have been of some help! Have a great start to Bigger Hearts, and give that little gal of yours an HOD hug from me!

In Christ,
Julie

Julie,
I gave Angie a hug, then I read your post to her. She laughed and said, "She's funny. I don't mind getting hugs once in a while". (She'll take hugs ANY time) I'm sure she would love to see you and get a real one from you. (CHAP 2013????)

She is too cute! I'm a hugger - she's stuck with me - at least it's a cyber hug!
In Christ,
Julie