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Getting your family organized almost always includes finding an effective way to get homework completed and turned in. For large families, sometimes this includes working on several projects at the same time at varying skill levels.
As your child gets older you might even find yourself struggling to remember some of your math and history facts. In other cases, your child might not respond as well to your help. He or she perhaps works better with a trained teacher or tutor.
If this is the case, you might have to face the fact that your child could use either a tutor in your area or you could try to find a qualified tutor online.
Consider a site like Tutorhub.com where your child can get help with homework by asking questions from trained tutors and you only have to pay for the actual time you need help. You can choose the tutor that is most appropriate for your situation and get a face-to-face type experience online using the tools your child is already comfortable using.
Getting a family organized and effectively managing your day doesn’t have to be an unnerving and stressful ordeal. With a lot of tools and checklists we have here as well as the resources available online, you can easily get your household under control.
With spring cleaning on everyone’s lips, there’s going to be a lot of junk tossed into dumpsters in the coming months. Although the idea of de-cluttering is a noble goal, one person’s clutter is another person’s gold. For example, that tacky sweater your aunt gave you last Christmas may keep someone less fortunate warm next winter, and a lot of toxic waste—to include batteries, used CFLs, and other things that contain chemicals harmful to the environment—needs to be dealt with particularly. They don’t belong in landfills, and in fact much of our spring cleaning refuse can be recycled. Here’s how. Read More→
It’s Spring time already? Where has the time gone? Daylight savings time will be springing forward soon, the leprechauns have got their clovers ready for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter is hopping closer and closer. Some where in between all of these things, there’s one more Spring time essential that must be done: Spring cleaning! This year will be no average year for spring cleaning in my household. I’ve been doing some research and this spring, I’m on a mission to bust my winter clutter.
- Safety
Many people may think, “What? You’re talking about power cleaning and clutter busting and you’re going to start with safety? It’s just cleaning, Do I really need to worry that much about safety?” I don’t mean to scare anybody, but every year there are 20,000 deaths and 21 million hospitalizations from home-related injuries so the first and foremost item on my list is to stay safe! Here’s a few safety tips: When you’re going to be spending a lot of time bending, kneel instead and wear some knee-pads to keep yourself comfy. When clearing and re-organizing clutter, make sure you leave any doorways, hallways and stairs clear of objects to trip on (about ½ of those injuries I mentioned are from tripping and falling). When carrying arms full of household items, make sure that you can see the ground and the path you’ll be walking over or around your load. When you have to use a step ladder, don’t take any risks. Lastly, before you doing anything strenuous, stretch yourself out and warm up a bit, like you would before exercising. You’d be surprised how much that will improve your energy and attitude while cleaning, while at the same time reducing your chance of injury.
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It’s spring cleaning time again…or at least time to start thinking about a spring cleaning checklist. The days are getting longer, the weather is starting to warm up a bit and there’s no better time to start organizing yourself to tackle the dust bunnies, wipe down your dirty walls and organize the closet. It’s time to let the light in, reduce the clutter and get control of your house again.
The key to a good spring cleaning is to not overwhelm yourself so much that you put the entire cleaning project off for another day. Instead, try to organize the cleaning so that you tackle different sections of the house at once or different types of cleaning at the same time. When you have the duster out to clean the ceiling fans and knick-knacks it’s a good time to hit the plants and bookshelves.
Here’s a list of just a few of the basic tasks to get you started. You can find some printable checklists below.
In the Kitchen
- Empty out the refrigerator and the freezer.
- Vacuum under the fridge around the coils behind the grill.
- Wipe the top of the fridge off.
- Wipe down all of the seals around the doors.
- Clean the inside of the microwave. Hint ~ Heat up a cup of water for a couple of minutes to build up some steam first…it makes cleaning much easier.
In the Bedroom
- Clean out those closets. Don’t hold back…if you haven’t worn it in a few years, you probably aren’t going to start now. Get everything out of the closet and thoroughly vacuum the far corners.
- Flip over and turn your mattress. While you’re at it, move the bed frame out of the way and vacuum or dust under it. You might even find that old, missing sock you lost last year.
- Take the comforter or bedspread to the cleaners.
- Throw out all those old toys your kids haven’t played with in years.
- Get blocks of cedar to help keep the moths away and things smelling fresh.
Elsewhere
- Dust and wipe down all of the ceiling fans in house.
- Take your screens down, hose them off outside and wipe them down with warm soap and water.
- Dust your lampshades.
- Remove all of the cushions and pillows from your couch and chairs and vacuum this out. You might even find some money here!
- Clean your windows inside and out.
- Wipe down the tops of all door frames.
- Test all of your fire alarms and change the batteries if needed.
- Change the filters on your air conditioner.
- Get new entry mats at every entrance.
- Use a magic eraser to get those pesky scuff marks off of walls.
For the Hardcore
- Remove and clean all the faucet aerators.
- Change the pollen filter in your car.
- Change the shelf liners in your drawers
Remember
- Donate anything you don’t want or can’t use.
- If you find something you haven’t seen in years or forgot you had…chances are you don’t need it.
- Start from the top and work your way down. Vacuum the dust that has settled from your marathon dusting session.
- Remember that a clean home makes for a healthy one. You can literally breath easier once your house is clean.
More
Check out some earlier articles on spring cleaning:
Printable Spring Cleaning Checklists
Paper and clutter–as busy parents we are flooded with more each day. One of last year’s resolutions was to learn how to organize my family’s schedule using a paperless system. I am getting there and I am going to share some of my tips with you!
First I encourage you to de clutter your email. If you have a hotmail account, aol, or just a local ISP. Merge them all into ONE. My only recommendation is GMAIL. Gmail is one of Googles MANY tools to get you organized. Besides, if you have multiple email accounts you can check them all via Gmail as well as send and receive emails from a POP account.
In addition, it’s easy to organize your family life with the use of different Google applications such as Google Calender, Google Black Berry Sync, Google Contacts, Google Documents, Google Mail, and Google Voice.
Google is quick to point out to business; the value of time saved using Google to manage their business. Busy Moms rejoice because these same tools can save you time and sanity for both your busy family and yourself as well!
So how do I manage my family’s schedule with Google ?
The first step is to register for a Gmail account for each of your family members old enough to have an email account (old enough to learn how to use one.
I do not suggest creating a ‘family account’. Each user needs to have their own individual Google Account. Google will allow you to share what you want with each user.
Once you’re signed up with Gmail you can begin to coordinate the different accounts and start organizing you family life from wherever you might be whether it’s at home or on the road.
You can head over to the Google Calendar section and begin filling out your own calendar that you can then share with everyone, other individuals or specific groups of people. You can limit some events to private settings while sharing other information with a different level of access. You can even sync your calendar with other popular applications like Outlook or you Iphone or Blackberry.