Home renovations continue…will they ever be done, I wonder? Every day people show up to work, so things are progressing but I am impatient. Here are some sneak peaks of some spaces that are needing just the final touches!
One thing about renovations is that they are quite linear. You can’t put the light sconce in before the wallpaper, or putting the wallpaper all will be way more difficult. Everything happens in the time that makes sense based on what has come just before it. Sometimes common sense dictates the schedule. You shouldn’t put down the brand new carpet just inside the french doors that open up to a yard that is a dirt pit as they grade and level the yard and pour the foundation for a deck while you also have two black labs living with you. You technically can – but it’s not wise.
As this renovation and the school year winds up, I feel such an urgency to nest and get things out of boxes and put back in place. I am craving an orderliness to my life again. All of my systems have fallen apart during this renovation and chaotic homeschooling year. I used to have a place for things, I knew where they were, and my time was more organized. I had a system for laundry that saved me time and decision-making. I had a meal-plan system. This has fallen apart over the past year. Laundry heaps up. We eat a lot of takeout.
Now that things are mostly done (for example, I’m waiting on a floating shelf delivery for my laundry room storage), I need to get my life in order again. It is a perfect time to read some books with my kids about orderliness and what that means. Together we will get our family’s orderly systems back on track so that we can all live in more harmony.
What is Orderliness?
Orderliness is having balance and space in your life. It is having a place for everything and everything (mostly) in its place. Being orderly means being organized. When you are orderly, you plan things out in advance, break down large tasks into smaller doable steps, and make small consistent progress towards your goals. When you are orderly, you can get a lot done, little by little.
When we are orderly, we follow a path that makes sense, including rules. We know what to expect from ourselves and others in our daily lives. We follow expected systems, like alphabetical, chronological, linear, or ordinal. We do first things first, and second things second. When we go against orderliness – there are often natural consequences where we feel uncomfortable, stressed, and like we are spinning around in circles, getting nowhere.
Alfie’s Feet by Shirley Hughes
In Alflie’s Feet, Alfie wears his boots on the wrong feet. It is not right, and it feels uncomfortable. I love this book because it helps me explain to my kids how I feel when the house is topsy turvy. I just don’t feel right. When they bring the throw pillows from the bed upstairs downstairs to build a cat fort and don’t put them back so that I’m tripping on them for a week – to me, it feels like I’m wearing my shoes on the wrong feet. Sure, it’s not a big deal. It’s just pillows on the wrong floor of the house, and wearing your shoes on the wrong feet can still get you where you want to go – but it feels uncomfortable.
The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer
In this story, a boy takes a salamander home and through questions from his mom about how he is going to set up the salamander’s habitat, he realizes that the salamander is part of an orderly, balanced ecosystem that is impossible to recreate inside his bedroom.
The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall
This is one of my favourite books of all time! Every bookshelf needs this story. It is about a family and their annual rhythms of the things they make, gather, and grow to survive and thrive on their homestead. There is an orderliness to the rhythm of their lives.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
There is an orderliness to expected outcomes or consequences of things. If this happens then this will happen. Orderliness is also predictability. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie tells of this relationship.
Fancy Nancy – It’s Backward Day! by Jane O’Connor
You know what’s not orderly? Chaos. Though doing everything backwards I suppose is also a system of orderliness…just everything is the opposite. My kids love this story of a topsy turvy backwards day.
Smoky Night by Eve Bunting
This is a story of the chaos of rioting and the unpredictable behaviour of angry mobs. Yet, even in the chaos of a scary night where a kid and his family and neighbours must evacuate their apartment building – there is an orderliness to what they are expected to do, what they bring, where they go, who helps them, and how they help others.
I asked my kids if they could help me come up with any other books about Orderliness – my daughter surprised me and brought down the two Atlases we keep in her room.
“Are these orderly?”, she asked, letting the pages fall open to a map.
“Yes, actually – maps are quite orderly,” I said. “They show on paper what is real in the world. They have legends to interpret the map. Within the same map, things will be spaced according to a consistent scale. See this distance is the same as this distance,” I said, holding out my fingers spaced an inch apart from the scale and moving my fingers around the map. “And even within the atlas, the maps are organized in the order they are put in the book. In this one, the country maps are grouped by the continent they are on and then the pages of the book go from West to East starting with North America, where we live. Good idea, this is a great addition to our books about orderliness!”
Beginner’s World Atlas – National Geographic Kids
If you don’t have an Atlas, we like this one.
We also like this one because it has a lot of pictures:
Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski
I hope this helps inspire to think about orderliness in different ways with your family!
Warmly,
-Heather
ps: This post contains Amazon affiliate links, on which I earn a small commission. Thank you for supporting my blog!
Enjoyed this post? Check out some of my other recent posts!
- Making Homeschooling Work During Home Remodeling
- Why Halloween is Important for Kids
- Kids Books about Trustworthiness
- Having a Pet Hamster for Families
- Kids Books About Compassion
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