When I think back to my childhood, to when the first day of each school year started to loom close, I recall a feeling of dread. The day would arrive with a sense of resignation and finality. Those school years are a blur of moving through corridors in a snake-like, size-order line. Any deviation from that line resulted in a threat or worse.

   

 

As a service to homeschooling parents, I created templates or outlines for New York State required paperwork, and also for record-keeping.  When I first started homeschooling, I created a schedule that imposed a structure on our days.  That structure was loose and flexible, with most afternoons wide open, and we did our best to stick to it.  Eventually I realized that our schedule was holding us back from doing more things outside of the home or on the spur of the moment.  So we abandoned the planned schedule and traded it for a method of keeping track of what we had done.  Now, instead of keeping up with a schedule, I was doing what I had always done, just trying to keep up with my kids.  They led the way, and I championed, cheered, assisted, and helped with the clean-up.  It was teamwork all the way, including the paperwork.  My kids were encouraged to enter anything they had done in the appropriate box, and they were always on hand to help with the writing of each report.  After all, none of this would have happened without them!