Tools of the Trade

These are the Things that help me stay organized:

1. Bookshelves

I keep one bookshelf in my dining room, which is the place where I do most of my work and planning. It holds all books and resources for the current school year.  My kids know where to find their books and where to put them back.

Our older books are in shelves throughout the house where kids can access them easily whenever they want.

Curriculum that is not currently being used is stored in our garage. (Trust me, you don't want to see a picture of that!)

2. Supply Shelf

I keep all of our supplies in our dining room hutch.  As you can see, it can get messy. However, it is easy to put back in order because there is a place for everything.  The three drawers contain, school supplies, math manipulatives, and other office supplies.

The top of the hutch contains pretty things, art pencils, and brushes, and nature collections.

The Bottom cabinets contain, art supplies, and our sewing machine,

3. Planners and Organizers

I have used home-made binder planners in the past, but this year I treated myself to an Erin Condren teacher's planner.  It is lovely! I will write a post about it later in the year as I use it. I will use it to keep information I need handy throughout the day.  I love the page protectors that are included.  I will use the "Lesson Plan" section for keeping track of morning time items, and non-independent work.

For their independent work, each student has their own folder with daily assignment and AO reading lists created in Homeschool Tracker.

4. Student's Notebooks

Each child has a box on our piano for all of their notebooks. I will write more about them later. For now, here is a list of the notebooks:

Math - Graph Composition Notebook
Composition Notebook for written Narrations
Composition Notebook for other Language arts assignments
Copybook
Clipboard
Book of Centuries

It can take a while to figure out a system that works for you.  My advice to to anyone homeschooling is to keep tweaking your system.  Throughout your day, take notes of what works, and what is frustrating you. (like: I need to find a better place for math manipulatives!, It would help to have a copy of the table of contents in my planner. We probably should get an electric pencil sharpener.) Then in the evenings, on weekends, or during school breaks, look at your notes and pick something to think through and work on.  

Memory Work 2016/2017

I've been busy getting everything ready. One of the things I do at the start of a new year is update, reorganize, or rethink our memory work binders. 

Currently, the tabs on my binder are as follows:

Bible,

Poetry,

Shakespeare

Geography

Speeches & Documents

Science

Math

History

This is what we do. We set aside 15 minutes a day for memory work.  I work with one of the children each day while the others work alone.  Each tab has a new item they are memorizing, and all of their memorized pieces behind it.  Each day they work on the new piece, and review an old piece. They keep a sticky flag to mark the reviewed piece, and move it to the next one each day.  I think I learned that trick from Mystie.  They go through as many tabs as time allows. Their is no deadline- they each just work on their pieces day after day. Whenever it's their day to work with me, I check on their progress.  If they have memorized something, I move it to the back of the section and add their new piece.

We use Geography Songs to help us learn the countries. We keep a blank map in their binder with a labeled map behind it to check from.  The kids use a wet erase marker to write in the countries they know, and then they turn it over to check themselves.  

 For math, the younger ones use Calculadder drills, and the older one uses the Saxon drill sheets. I'll also include things I want them to memorize, like measurements and formulas.

For History we are memorizing Memoria Press' History Timeline.  We add a new event every few weeks.

Memory work is so important and enriching, but I don't want it to take too much of our valuable time.  Setting a time limit and rotating through the binder is what has worked for us.