How I Use Evernote - Part 1

I have been thinking of doing some posts on Evernote for a year or so.  With some encouragement from my AO friends, I decided now was the time.  I'm not sure how many parts there will be, but I won't drag it out longer than necessary, promise! Here is Part 1- Introduction. 

I am a fan of being highly-organized.  I do not always succeed at keeping things that way, but its an on-going goal of mine.  Everything in its place and a place for everything.  When Grandma says that, she was thinking about the scissors, clothes and papers, but these days, there is more to organize, and much of that is digital.  Enter Evernote.

Evernote is a free, multi-platform application that performs as a place to capture all things digital, or anything you can make digital by scanning or photographing.  I learned about it through reading free eBooks and following Mystie at Simplified Organization.  She's a homeschooling mom and had traveled this road just ahead of me, so I gleaned what I could from her, then made it my own.  After I had been using these methods a couple of years, Mystie came out with a series about Homeschooling with Evernote.  I picked up a few more tidbits that way, and do recommend you read through those posts for more ideas.

To start with, set up your free Evernote account and install the app on the devices you find useful.   There are several levels beyond Basic (free) now, but you don't need to pay to get a lot of use out of this program. We are almost entirely a Mac/Apple family, so I have Evernote (EN) on my Mac desktop, iPad and iPhone, and all 3 are on the same account. I have most of my Notebooks synced, but you don't have to use it that way.  This keeps all my information available, no matter where I am - even if I don't have any of my devices, I can login to a browser anywhere for access.  I don't use it often from my iPad, but there are times that comes in handy.  I use it most often from my desktop, and secondly from my phone, mainly when importing photos or looking at my book lists while shopping.

Next, learn the basics.  Here are some good places to start, some already mentioned above.

Ebooks
Evernote Unleashed (free on Kindle, have not read)
Evernote GTD (Getting Things Done) for Kindle

Blog series
GTD at Home for Moms series
Use Evernote for Homeschool Planning

Finally, start utilizing it in several ways and get in the habit of entering information and looking there for information.  Once you are at this stage, you will start seeing new possibilities of how EN can work for different aspects of your life.

Tentative plan for this Evernote series

Part 2: Homeschool planning and resources
Part 3: Homeschool record-keeping and exams
Part 4: Household and other uses

Back to the Classics Challenge 2016

I did a Reading Challenge on GoodReads for 2015, and surpassed my 60 book goal, but only some of those were classics.  This year, I may lower that to 50 books or less, and increase the difficulty and/or length of the books.

As part of this challenge for myself, I'm joining up in the Back to the Classics challenge at Books and Chocolate.  You can read her rules here.

I learned about this challenge on the Ambleside Online forum, and am happily using some of their books for my own list.  Thanks, ladies! :)  

The books with asterisks are scheduled for the AO book discussions and are from year 8 of the curriculum, to help us educate ourselves and pre-read for our kids.

1.  A 19th Century Classic - *Westward, Ho! by  Charles Kingsley

2.  A 20th Century Classic (but before 1966) -  *A Man for All Seasons by Sir Thomas More

3.  A classic by a woman author. -Little Women by Louisa Alcott (will likely read aloud to my 11 year old)

4.  A classic in translation.  - *I, Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni (June-Aug) 

5.  A classic by a non-white author. - Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

6.  An adventure classic -  *Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves from The Faerie Queen

7.  A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic. - *Utopia by Thomas More  (Feb-May)

8.  A classic detective novel. Agatha Christie (some googling led me to And Then There Were None, so I will try to start there) (May)

9.  A classic which includes the name of a place in the title. - Middlemarch by George Eliot (completed Jan/Feb)

10. A classic which has been banned or censored. - *Paradise Lost by Milton (Jan-April)

11. Re-read a classic you read in school (high school or college).  -Emma by Jane Austen

12. A volume of classic short stories. (min. of 8) -Martian Chronicles by Bradbury or The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia Hale, if my son is ready to hear those read aloud before the end of the year

Whew, that was harder than I expected!  I will do another post with my other reading goals for 2016.

Why I Home School

*Back when I was thinking about starting the homeschooling adventure, I said I would come back

and try to explain it more thoroughly, so here it goes.

It boils down to the fact that I hold a different philosophy of education than what the public education

system holds (thank you, John Taylor Gatto for opening my eyes).  I don't believe children are meant

to go through the educational machine and come out the other end molded for society.  I believe that

God created them each as whole, separate beings with great plans in store for their lives, just waiting

to be discovered (Jeremiah 29:11).  To this end, I have created a list of goals, one for "education"

and the other for "social" - so he can understand and function in this day and age, but not be

conformed to it (Romans 12:2).

Educational Goals

-to have a right relationship with God

-to love sincerely: love, respect, sensitivity

-to adopt a healthy lifestyle: mind and body

-to work responsibly: use time efficiently, appreciate productive labor

-to communicate clearly: listening, speaking, reading, writing

-to enjoy beauty: see and receive satisfaction from it, create it, share it

-to reason perceptively: clear understanding, good logic and creative application

-to conduct personal business prudently: earn responsibly, invest wisely, spend
effectively, plan carefully

-to relate intelligently to the environment: understanding natural resources

-to understand our country and how it relates to the rest of the world

-to love learning and possess intellectual curiosity: retain an eagerness for life-long learning

Social Development Goals

-Social graces – courtesy and good manners
-Ability to make and enjoy friends
-Respect for authority – parents, adults, government, Creator
-Sensitivity to needs and feelings of others
-Conversation and correspondence skills
-Ability to give and take in normal relationships; grace to cooperate when things don’t go one’s way
-Skill in defusing tense situations – with cheerfulness and sensitivity
-Prudence in developing relationships – avoiding misunderstanding and proper precautions

from dishonesty in business relationships
-Leadership development, including good follower-ship

These ideas were drawn (mostly) from The Home School Manual by Theodore E. Wade, Jr. 

(I did edit them and boil them down to what fits for my family.)  As you can see, only some

of these goals are covered in other schools, and much of that elusive love of learning is too

easily stamped out as the children try to fit into the cookie cutters like the system expects

them to do. 

I only have once chance to raise him "right", and I don't want to miss it!

*This was originally posted here, on my foster parenting blog.

Previous Posts

Here are the links to my posts on my personal, foster parenting blog regarding our home school and resources that we may use.

Why I Homeschool

Resources, Part 1 and Part 2

Sample Schedule for AO year 0.5

August & September 2011, Getting started with Ambleside Online:
Happy Not-back-to-school Day!
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 6

And then it got busy and I got side-tracked!   Let's see if I can be more intentional about keeping a good record this year :)

Let's Get Specific!

I have decided to split the home school blogging apart from the rest of my foster parenting, health-related and occasional political postings.  Unfortunately, 'Windy Hill' was taken at blogger, so Windy Hill Home School it is!  I was glad to see it was still available, so have snatched it up before someone else does. :)

I will attempt to repost the school related posts over here, and if that isn't possible, I will just do a single post with links to the other school posts.  We can start fresh here in 2012, where I hope to get back to a weekly log of what we've been doing, more posting of resources that we use or want to use, and maybe even start linking up with Blog Carnivals, which sounds so fun!

Here's to our freedom as Americans - may we always educate our own children, whether they attend public school or not!