Happy New Year!

I have been a total bum the last two weeks. At first that made me totally cranky and insane, I'm used to going, going, going. Then this week I finally settled into the idea, OK, actually I only settled for about 2 days, but that was enough time for my mind to clear enough for me to solve some small but nagging educational problems. First, I wanted the kids' computer downstairs where I can keep better tabs on it. One day I was walking through the house and tah-dah I realized how to rearrange to make it work. Second, I've had this perpetual problem of lose projects and half finished papers floating all over the place. (I think it's an unschooling curse) A few days ago I landed on a very simple organization idea. I got 2 folders for each child, one color for each kid. Then I put their name and "Work to be completed" on one set of folders and their name and "Saved work" on the other set. The folders go in two paper trays. Now all the stuff they're working on, book reports, stories, art projects, math activities, history coloring pages, etc, etc can find it's way into one of the folders. Not only will it help with the stacks of random papers, but now when they're dinking around wondering what to do with themselves they can check their Work in progress folder for ideas. It's amazing to me how our minds work out problems when we're "taking a break" and not thinking about them. I'm pretty sure the same holds true for our kids. Sometimes just giving them a break frees their minds from the clutter so new ideas can emerge.