Friday, September 10, 2010

What we do-organization

I have been reading about all the different organization systems for homeschoolers. Everything from chore charts to workboxes to computer trackers. Some days I feel like I have tried them all, now as we enter our 5th year of homeschooling (really 5 years- good grief, I could have sworn we just started last year!) I realize that we have a system that works for us.

First we pile. Hey don't knock the pile. Piles can save lives (or take them if they get out of hand)
We pile all our books that we will use that day next to our desks.

Next we pick and choose. I let the kids pick what subjects they want to do and in what order. The only time I have them wait or skip to a subject is if they are going to be doing it together. But even that isn't that often because unless they are to be playing a game together, they can usually figure out what they need without their sibling to help.

After that, the list. For English, the kids have a list of what activities they need to accomplish that week as part of the curriculum. As they work though the list, stuff is checked off. It makes all of us feel better checking things off.

Finally, put it away. As they finish with each subject they put it back in their desk so at the end of the morning (or afternoon) they just have to put their desks away and the living room is neat and clean again for playing Wii or watching TV or playing a game of Harry Potter Legos.

As for how I track what we did each day (because some years I get the awful evaluator who wants proof of "regular and thorough instruction") I have a daily calendar and I make a note as to what was done.

Today's looked something like this:

T-Reading comp. Chap 3
L- Science 43-45
T- Science 44-45
L- Reading comp.
Descriptive sentences
T- IEW Lesson3a

Obviously we did more than this but as an example I'm sure you get it.