This time of year seems to be a little busier for us, so I thought it might be helpful if I just got all my special meals and recipes gathered for the month. I checked the menu plan and have made a list of the holidays that we want to celebrate.
If you haven’t seen our Perpetual Meal Plans yet, then you really need to check them out, as they have all kinds of special and unique holidays listed. Now is the time to start making your bucket list for Fall things, if you haven’t already.
If you homeschool more than one child, you know that teaching the lessons is only part of the job. There are also grades to record, attendance to track, lessons to organize, records to keep…and somehow we’re supposed to remember where we put all of it.
I can see all my students at a glance! I can also see any assignments that are overdue or need to be graded!
With five children homeschooling, I’ve learned that having a good system behind the scenes makes such a difference. One of the tools I use to keep everything organized is Homeschool Manager. I still keep my notebook too, but it may become a thing of the past with the new upgrades they have made to the program!
Drag & Drop tasks make it easy to adjust our schedule at a moment’s notice.
I can keep track of our lessons, grades, volunteer hours, book lists, and attendance all in one place instead of trying to piece everything together from notebooks, planners, and spreadsheets. And as my children get older, I especially appreciate being able to create report cards and transcripts from the records I’m already keeping. Your kiddos can even check off tasks independently, if that is something you want them to do!
I can generate reports with just a click of a button– no STRESS!
That means I’m not sitting down years later trying to remember what we did, when we did it, or what grade someone earned. I’m also not keeping piles of paperwork to collect dust. I also use the app to keep a note of upcoming appointments and events that we may need to adjust our schedule for… so nice to have everything in one spot!
Homeschool Manager has also recently made some upgrades, and I’ve really enjoyed how much more efficient and user-friendly it has become. When you’re managing several children at different ages and grade levels, anything that simplifies the administrative side of homeschooling gives you more time for what actually matters—teaching your children and enjoying the life you’re building together.
I love the freedom and flexibility of homeschooling, but I also want to know that I’m keeping good records along the way. Having one place where I can organize the practical side of our homeschool gives me a little more peace of mind and a lot less paper clutter.
Over 12 years of records in one spot!
If you’re homeschooling multiple children—or you have a child approaching the high school years and you’re starting to think, “Wait…how am I going to make a transcript out of all of this?”—this may be a tool worth looking into.
Transcripts are so easy! I’ve graduated two homeschooled kiddos and used these … the colleges loved them!
Because our homeschool days may be full of books, projects, garden lessons, field trips, life skills, and plenty of beautiful chaos…but our records don’t have to be.
Homeschooling is about so much more than checking boxes—but having the boxes organized sure does help.
I pray that this helps someone else on their homeschool journey.
Did you know that September 2nd has been set aside for National Coconut Day? I love coconut, and I really don’t need a special day for it, but I’ll take it.
I am hoping to make a new devotional for each month this year… that’s a big challenge, but it is something that has been on my heart. For AUGUST, our monthly theme will be GOODNESS. We will be trying to find ways to show a little more GOODNESS through routines and habits.
Last month’s theme was SELF-CONTROL and let me tell you that LIFE sure has a way of putting our lessons to the test but GOD is GOOD and HE has seen us through some difficulties and HE can do the same for you!
Here is the FREE printable, if you’d like to join us:
Pip: Welcome back to Pollywog’s Place, where the weekend itinerary includes battle reenactments, Pioneer Day festivals, and a lamb cake pan acquired off eBay — which is honestly a solid Saturday.
Mara: Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog has been writing about what it feels like to step away from modern stress — through history, through simpler living, and through the question of whether a happier past is something you visit or something you carry. Let’s start with nostalgia and what it actually does for us.
Escaping Into Simpler Times
Pip: There’s a real tension at the center of these posts — the idea that the past isn’t just interesting, it’s actively useful as relief. When daily life piles up, stepping into a different century, even briefly, seems to do something.
Mara: The Camp Milton post frames the whole day that way. After describing a genuinely packed visit to a battle reenactment, a village general store, a period schoolroom, and a Civil War-era doctor’s tent, the post lands here: “Today also has me yearning for some of the old ways from a simpler time but I do like some of our modern conveniences, like grocery pickups, that we have today. Can I find a happy medium? Maybe one day.”
Pip: That’s the honest version of nostalgia — not a fantasy of going back, but a real wish to borrow something from then and bring it forward. The day worked because it was immersive: beef jerky rations for breakfast, wooden tops from the school tent, kids quizzing a period doctor about amputations.
Mara: And the homeschool angle sharpens that — the visit tied directly into ongoing Little House on the Prairie lessons, so the past wasn’t decorative. It was the curriculum. The kids weren’t just watching history; they were asking it questions.
Pip: Which makes the second post, Yearning For Simpler Times, feel like the quieter, harder version of the same impulse. No festival, no costumes — just a dream about a smaller, run-down house that somehow felt like relief.
Mara: That post is more inward. It’s about stress that doesn’t resolve when you get home — interpersonal friction, boundaries that haven’t been set, the feeling that having more hasn’t made things simpler. The line that anchors it is direct: “Life has gotten so complicated and I yearn for those simpler times.”
Pip: Both posts end in roughly the same place — not escape, exactly, but motivation. The festival day refills the tank for the week ahead. The harder post ends with a list, a plan, a decision to act on what’s actually controllable.
Mara: The nostalgia is real, but it’s doing work. It’s not avoidance — it’s a reset.
Pip: The past as a charging station. That tracks.
Mara: What stays with me is that both posts treat simpler times as a direction, not a destination — something to orient toward, not actually return to.
Pip: The lamb cake pan helps. Some traditions are worth retrieving. More on what gets carried forward next time.
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