Homeschool Planning Idea

Ideas run like water from my mind daily and if I don't write them down they might be lost forever. Last year I started a Homeschool Idea Notebook. Every time I had an idea of something to do or found a website with an interesting idea I grabbed my notebook and jotted it down. Quickly I had acquired a full page of ideas such as:

make sun prints
write letters to grandparents
bake lollipop cookies
do egg/vinegar experiment
make paper weavings
work in cursive workbook
read a few Grimm fairy tales

I had this long list and great intentions, but after completing the day's work little time was left for extras that didn't fit into any particular area of study. I hated to let these ideas remain as just a list so I looked at our schedule and found our least busy day. Each week on that day I'd tell the kids which subject we would be skipping - we varied it to keep our studies even - and what activity would be in its place. This worked well for us until I let it slide. The kids liked the idea of doing something completely different with out any strings attached. We simply completed the activity and it was done - no notebooking or adding it to any binders. I've been collecting ideas over the summer and have another full page and grand intentions of keeping this going throughout the school year.