How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 3

In Part 1 of How I Organize Our Schooling I covered how I create our lesson plans for the year.  In Part 2 I showed how I organize my binder for our daily lesson plans and school records.  Today I plan to show you my favorite part of the whole process... how I got my girls to work independently and stay organized on their own.

I used to use a hybrid workbox method using our Ikea desks and drawers but when we switched to Sonlight in 2nd grade I knew I had done a bad job of loading their desks with their lessons every day and I always felt behind.  I knew we would do more reading with Sonlight and they would only have a few worksheets to do each day but I wanted them to be able to do it and manage it on their own.  I thought long and hard and came up with a system that mirrored what I had already done for my own lesson plans.

I use the girls favorite color to create the cover for their binders.

I have the girls binder setup to contain a weeks worth of work at a time.  Either Friday after school, at some point over the weekend, or sometimes Monday morning if we're being honest... I'll change everything out for the next week.

At the front of the girls binder I have the girls weekly schedule.  This looks a lot like my schedule, except it's only the things the girls need to complete for the day and not any of our together work. If you read Pt 1, you'll see how I setup our lesson plans, which I also created for the girls at the same time I created mine.

The girls have a set of highlighters and they highlight everything they've completed for the day.  At the end of the week I take this schedule along with all their completed work and paperclip it together and file it away.

Right behind the weekly schedule I have a blank pocket folder that I add a Post-It Tab to for their done folder.  This is the folder they put everything they have completed into.  At the end of the day I grade all their work and move it back to the day's folder.  If they have anything that needs to be fixed or re-done I'll note it and put it in the next days folder so it's at the start of their work for that day.

I have tabbed pocket folders (love these!!!) that I use for each day of the week.  In each folder I put all the work they need to do for the week.

Behind the daily folders is a pocket folder I keep extra blank paper in so they always have paper at the ready.

At the very back of their folder are a few page protectors that hold their logic books.  My idea in the past was to have everything they need for school in 1 place so we could do school anywhere and they'd be ready if they grabbed their folder and pencil case.  This year they have a few books which are too thick to slide into a page protector so they have 1 drawer in their desk that has all the extra books they would need.  It holds their Essential in Writing workbook, Wordly Wise, and Science notebook.  They also have another drawer that holds all their bible curriculum and devotional.

I have been so pleased since we started using this notebooking method.  The girls keep track of everything on their own and always know exactly what needs to be done for the week.  They can work ahead if they desire and I can easily see where they are and what they have left to do.

I can't tell you how enjoyable it is to know that they can now manage their own schedule and other than refill their folders each week and correcting their completed work there's nothing I need to do to keep them moving forward.  They've gotten so good at working independently and know when the clock strikes 8am they head upstairs and get started on their bible study and then move right into their school work until I come in and start our together work for the day.  Such a joy!

How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 2

In the last post How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 1, I went over how I created my lesson plans for the year.  Today I plan to go over how I organize my binder which keeps everything in one place.

So pretty!

I have a zipper pouch in the front of my binder that has all the discs we use for lessons.  Right behind the DVD's I keep our Sonlight map for the year so it's easily accessible for us to use each day.  We also have a globe we use everyday as well.

Behind our map I have our attendance, and yearly calendar.

After our calendar is our curriculum plan for the year and then after that I'll put a copy of my private school affidavit after I've filed.

I keep 9 weeks worth of lesson plans and reading notes in my binder.  At the top of each week I have my weekly lesson plans and then behind that I have my history, read aloud, and reader notes that we can go over after we've completed the reading for the day.  I love to use my post it tabs to mark each section of notes. 

In the back of the binder I keep my additional Sonlight info as well as a few pocket folders for blank paper, additional curriculum notes, and a page protector with all my receipts for any school supplies for the year.  This makes it easy to file away my binder at the end of the year and all my records required by the state are in one place.

I've found this method to be so easy to keep track of everything and at the end of the year I know exactly what I accomplished and when I accomplished it.

How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 1

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love organization and planning and all things having to do with charts.  It was only natural that 2 years ago when we decided to switch to Sonlight that I figure out how to organize things and arrange our schedule.  I loved the way Sonlight organized the instructors guide (IG) but I also knew I wanted only 1 place to look at everything we had for the week and I didn't want everything messy and handwritten on the IG.  I also knew that I wanted to move towards teaching the girls to be more independent so I had that in mind with everything I did.

We've had 2 years using this method and now with 2 weeks under our belt this year things are running as seamlessly as ever and it's been a smooth transition which to me means it's working great.

I love having the summer off and being able to enjoy myself without school planning hanging over me.  For this reason I tend to research and then purchase my curriculum in the last month of our school year.  I then spend the last few weeks of school creating all my lesson plans for the coming year.  I love being done at the start and not having to do anything except print our lesson plans and organize our folders the week before school starts.

STEP 1:  Schedule School Weeks
The first thing I do is plan my start date and decide on which weeks we'll take off.  The dates in the right column on the chart below shows each date I plan to do school. I schedule everything into a 36 week year which comes out to 4 quarters of 9 weeks each.

STEP 2: Create Master Lesson Plans by Subject
Once I've filled in all my weeks I create all my lesson plans for each subject.  I take a subject and look at how many lessons it has and then break those down into each week taking holiday's and breaks into consideration.  Depending on the curriculum I have a few flex weeks at the end I'll either schedule in as needed or leave at the end.  If we end up needing more time on anything it's easy enough to move things around otherwise we can finish a subject early which is always a treat.

This is what my master looks like.  I have a tab for each subject on the same excel spreadsheet.

STEP 3:  Create Weekly Lesson Plans

After I have my game plan in place for each subject on my master I get my weekly lesson plans input.  I have a separate excel chart that gets printed with my week's lesson plans.  I have each subject along the left with the days across the top and each of the lessons I plan to complete filled in.  As you can see, we have a 4 day schedule.  I try to only schedule math and spelling tests on Friday.

I tend to only fill in a quarter's worth of lesson plans at a time.  This allows me to change things around on my master if we need more time on something without having to also change my weekly plans.  When I have about 2 weeks left of my quarter I'll go ahead and get the next quarter filled in.

STEP 4: Use Weekly Lesson Plans

As I complete each lesson I highlight it.  I use pretty colors... because I can! ;-)  If I don't get to something I leave it blank so I remember to go back to it later.  If I do something on a different day I'll highlight it in the day's color so I know when it got done. 

Our 2013-2014 - 1st Grade Curriculum

It’s been a busy summer and I’m glad I started our planning early in the summer so I had everything ordered and ready before school started.  I feel really good about our choices for this year and I’m looking forward to an exciting year of learning with my 1^st graders!

Here's my plan for our 1^st Grade Curriculum...

• Bible: Grapevine Studies – Old Testament, AWANA Sparks
• Phonics/Language: A Beka Language 1 & A Beka Letters & Sounds 1
• Reading: Abeka Readers, Library Books
• Writing: A Reason for Handwriting – A, Writer’s Workshop
• Spelling: All About Spelling – Level 1
• Math: Math U See - Alpha
• History: Story of the World – Volume 1 (Ancient Civilization)
• Art:  How to Teach Art to Children, Misc. Art Projects, Co-op Classes
• Language: American Sign Language
• Science: - Library, Documentaries, Co-op Classes

Calendar Time & Bible: Like last year I plan to start our day with the pledge, calendar time and singing. We'll then go into our virtue of the week and continue to rotate through these all year so they really get instilled in the girls. We'll practice our verse for Sparks and do the lesson together over M-W and then we’ll do our Grapevine lessons Mon/Th/Fr.  The girls are SO excited about this curriculum!

 

Phonics/Language/Reading: For our Phonics and Language lessons we’ll be going through A Beka’s Language 1 & Letters & Sounds 1. I also got a set of A Beka 1st grade readers 2nd hand and I have a set of A Beka readers from when I learned to read back in the 80’s. We’ll continue to do daily read aloud’s and get library books for reading as well. The girls have been reading through them over the summer and have really enjoyed them.

 

 

Writing/Spelling: For writing this year we’ll work on our handwriting with A Reason for Handwriting book A. We’ll also be doing a writers workshop weekly where the girls write a story and then revise and publish it throughout the week. We’re so excited to start All About Spelling Level 1 this year for our spelling curriculum.

 

 

Math: We’re continuing on with Math U See Alpha this year. The girls did great with Primer last year and we’re excited to start a new year. 

 

History: We’re starting Story of the World Volume 1 this year which will be spent in Ancient Civilization. I’ve heard great things about it and I’m excited to see how they like it. We’ll probably do some of the recommended projects that go along with the lessons. 

 

Art: For our Art we’ll more than likely do a variety of projects throughout the year as well as do art through our Co-op in the Spring. 

Language: Since their Uncle Josh is deaf we’ll continue on with. They already know the alphabet and a variety of vocab, but we’ll make it a tad more formal this year and start putting sentences together and having basic conversations. I have a bunch of old ASL textbooks that we’ll mix and match to fit our needs. 

 

Science: The girls love science and are super into documentaries. All summer we’ve watched a ton of documentaries including the BBC’s Planet Earth, Discovery Channel’s North America and a whole variety of Shark Week episodes. I plan to continue checking out books from the library that interest them as well as watch documentaries and then possibly do a Science class with our Co-op. 

Linking up with iHomeschool Network for the "Not" Back-to-School Blog Hop Curriculum Week! 

Let the Craziness Begin...

Our crazy fall schedule is officially in full swing with the start of this week.  My church Bible Study (which luckily has a wonderful kid's program... yay for it counting as a day of K) starts up again tomorrow.  This means almost every day and night of the week we have something going on.

On Monday nights handsome hubby and I do pre-marital mentoring for couples at our church. On Tuesday morning I take the girls to Bible Study, we go to the library, and then we go to Gama's house where we spend time with her and then have family night where the granparents, siblings, and kiddos get together for dinner and games or activities of some sort.  On Wednesday morning the girls have gymnastics and then we rush home to try to fit our school all in before lunch.  On Wednesday nights the girls go to Sparks, and for anyone else who does the same you know the rush and craziness of dinner's and the late nights that ensue on AWANA night.  On Thursday's Nana comes over in the afternoon and I either make a family dinner for all of us, or every other week hubby and I get a date night while she puts the girls to bed.  This leaves us Friday night for family movie time snuggled on the sofa, and the weekend to relax (or do any one of the myriad of things that needs to happen that weekend) as well as go to church and get all our errands run for the following week.

Phew!  We've had a nice few weeks getting used to our school schedule and adding in 1 thing at a time, but now it's all on the schedule and we're ready to rock!  Let's just hope it doesn't fly by as fast as the summer did... I'm not ready to think about Christmas yet.

A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 2

Yesterday was A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 1 where I went through the overall schedule of our day.  Today I'll share the details and breakdown of a typical day of school...

For calendar time we talk about days/weeks/months/years.  The girls take turns marking our day and then counting how many days we are into the month.  They have to say the day correctly, "Today is Wednesday, August 15th 2012" and then they say what yesterday was and tomorrow will be.  We then sing our days of the week and months of the year songs.  The person who didn't mark the calendar gets to go outside and tell us what the weather is like.  Living in Southern California it's usually just hot and sunny so I plan to change our weather area a bit so it's more than just the actual weather, but seasons, etc.



After our calendar time we go into song and movement (one of the girls favorite times of the day.)  I choose an old Sunday School song that we sing and do the hand motions to, and then M/W/F we do a movement song as well where they get to follow directions and dance around the room.

We then sit down and have our Bible time (in my eyes the most important part of our day) where we go over our virtue of the week and then I read a passage from the Bible that covers that virtue and ask questions to the girls about what we've read.  Once AWANA starts we'll do their weekly Sparks lesson and memory verse Mon-Wed and focus more on our Bible lesson that teaches the virtue on Thurs-Fri, but we'll review the virtue and talk about it all week.

After Bible we do our handwriting worksheet and whatever activity I've planned to round out our day.  Sometimes it's an extra writing activity, shape & pattern builders, or even a game.  Sometimes it's more art related like lacing cards, drawing, and other times we work with numbers. I try to keep this fun and very hands on though.


First day of school: Dancing for song and movement time. Reviewing our lowercase alphabet recognition with Confessions of a Homeschooler's K5 alphabet tree.  Math-U-See worksheet. Virtue of the week. TYCTR phonics lesson. Handwriting alphabet review.

After our snack we do our Math-U-See lessons.  I started the girls in the primer book, and although they are way ahead of where it's starting I want to make sure they have the foundation they need to move on.  I'm doing 2 lessons a week for now until we get to point where it isn't so easy and then we'll move to a lesson per week.

We do art next and work on things like cutting, pasting, and basic art terminology.  We do projects about once a week using different mediums.  After art we do our language which happens to be ASL since my brother is deaf and we want the girls to be able to sign to him.  We review our alphabet and then each week we learn a variety of vocab words that correlate with the letter we're working on.

This ends the time in our schoolroom and we head to the family room to do our phonics and reading snuggled up on the sofa.  Now that the girls are advancing in their reading I'm doing their phonics lesson separately so I really know what they are individually learning and they can't help each other.  Whoever goes first comes with me to do their reading lesson and the other one stays and uses their leapfrog TAG reader or our Britannica science pen to read on their own.

After I've finished with both of their phonics lessons we read a few library books together.  We always start with the science one they picked out from the library and do a few pages of that and discuss it together before reading a few books for fun. 


First Day of School: Cutting practice. Name handwriting practice. ASL Alphabet flashcards. Snack time.

Linked up with "Day in the Life" Week at the Not Back to School Blog Hop over at iHomeschool Network.

 

A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 1

Do you ever wonder what those of us who decide to homeschool do with our day?  I can tell you it's not all soap opera's and bon-bon's.  In fact, I didn't sit down for more than 20 minutes of "me time" all last week.  It's actually a lot of work, but the rewards of watching your kids learn make it more than worth it.  While I may not have much time to myself, we do have much more time as a family which I feel is one of the biggest perks!

Here's a schedule of what our typical day in Kindergarten looks like...

6:00am - Daddy is the morning person in our family, so he gets up with the girls and makes them breakfast. Sad for me (I'm SO not a morning person) they have always been up at 6am on the dot raring and ready to go. They spend a little daddy time helping him, reading with him, or just hanging out in the morning. 
8:00am - Daddy leaves for work and I get up and start my day.  The girls are allowed to play or watch some TV during this time while I shower, dress, and do my Bible study.
9:00am - The girls have to pickup the downstairs and then get dressed while I make myself breakfast and get everything together that we need for school.  The rule is, if it's not picked up and put away by school time, it gets taken away to the time out toy bin for a week.  Surprisingly they always get this done! :-)
10:00am - Pledge, Prayer, Calendar Time, Song & Movement, Bible, Handwriting, and Activity
11:00am - Snack
11:15am - Math, Language, Art, Phonics, Science, Reading
12:30pm - Lunch
1:00pm - After lunch the girls are free to play while I use this time to check email, blog, and do any lesson planning I need to for the next day.  I prep any crafts we have and figure out my schedule for the rest of the day. I then use this time to get some of the housework done, work on any of the photo sessions I have for clients, take the girls out to play, run errands, go to the farmers market, or get things together for us to leave if we have plans for the afternoon or evening. 
4:30pm - Our days where we don't have to be somewhere I usually get started with any pre-dinner prep I have to get done and then make dinner.
6:00pm - Daddy's home and it's dinner time!
7:00pm - The girls get to spend some time with daddy and then at 7:30 it's showers and getting ready for bed.
8:00pm - We try to get the girls in bed by 8:00 and then the evening is our down time to relax, watch TV, read and just spend time as a couple.  I often do my photography work during this time while we hang out together in the family room.
11:00pm - This is my goal bedtime, but it doesn't always happen.  I try to be good about it though becuase it definitely catches up to me if I don't.

Our afternoons and weeknights are pretty busy as well.
Monday - Library
Tuesday -  Bible Study, Family Dinner
Wednesday - Gymnastics, Farmers Market, AWANA
Thursday - Crafts and dinner with Nana - Date night for mommy and daddy every other week
Friday -  Family Movie Night

I firmly believe that our schooling takes place just as much out of the schoolroom as it does in it.  For this reason, we do lots of hands on learning as we go about our week.  We learn about science as we explore at the park, cook together, or just talk through things the girls are interested in.  We learn daily Bible lessons as I regularly bring up Bible stories and verses that support the behavior the girls should have.  We learn to read as we're out places and I ask girls to sound out words they see, and we learn math as the girls help me decide what the best deals are when we're grocery shopping or at the farmers market. Overall though, they learn how to behave and act respectful when out in public, and how we need to treat others with love.  I value our time in the schoolroom, but I value teaching them life lessons they wouldn't get anywhere else if they weren't with my husband and I learning them on a daily basis.

Check back tomorrow for the details and breakdown of our typical school day. A Day in the Life of Our Kindergarten - Part 2.

I love seeing what everyone else considers a day of homeschool, and this week is "Day in the Life" Week at the Not Back to School Blog Hop over at iHomeschool Network.

 

Balancing Act

Now that we're back in the full swing of things and school is back in session, I'm having to make sure I plan and schedule my time much better than I did over the summer.  Over the summer I sort of let the housework get behind, didn't keep on top of the girls picking up their toys throughout the day, and often left my meals unplanned so I was having to make quick dinners that were thrown together at the last minute.  We had great, fun, lazy days... but it lacked the structure which led to the motivation I needed to get tasks completed.

Maybe it's just becuase it's still rather new, but I'm really loving having more structure and what feels like set times to get things accomplished.  I'm doing well keeping on top of my bible study/quiet time, the girls clean up, our school day/lesson plans, lunches, our extra-curricular activities, and even my photography/work schedule.  I haven't yet found the place or time to keep on top of the household cleaning.  I deep cleaned the week before starting school and I've been great about keeping everything neat and picked up, but I have yet to work the continual weekly deep cleaning into my routine.  Partially becuase I hate cleaning, but partially becuase my day is so full of staying on top of everything else that I don't really know where to put it.  I'm thinking it's time to pay a little visit to Fly Lady and work to get my house cleaning schedule back in order.

My goal for this next week is to work on a regular cleaning schedule for my week as well as make myself get back to monthly or at least weekly planning our meals.  If I can get those two things under control (and keep up with what I'm already doing) I think we'll be in for a great and organized year!

What are your tips and tricks for keeping your house clean?  Are there areas that you feel you fall short trying to balance being a wife, mother, and teacher? 

Our 2012-2013 Kindergarten Curriculum

I've been doing non-stop research the last few weeks knowing I had to make some final decisions for our upcoming school year.  I wanted to keep it simple and only get what I thought we would need to get started.  I'm hoping everything I have planned works out for us, but in the event something isn't working I'm more than okay moving on and trying something else.

Here's my plan for our Kindergarten Curriculum...

• Bible: We Choose Virtues and AWANA Sparks
• Reading: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
• Writing: A Reason for Handwriting - K
• Math: Math U See - Primer
• Art: How to Teach Art to Children, Kumon Cutting and Kumon Pasting
• Language: American Sign Language
• History & Science: - Library Books

Calendar Time & Bible: Like last year I plan to start our day with the pledge, calendar time and singing.  We'll then go into our virtue of the week and continue to rotate through these all year so they really get instilled in the girls.  We'll practice our verse for Sparks and do the lesson together over M-W and then Th/Fr we'll work on our virtue verse.

Reading/Writing/Math: These are the only set curriculum's I'm using.  We've already started our reading lessons over the summer and they seem to be going well.  As soon as the girls are reading a bit better we'll incorporate easy readers into this time as well.  Depending on how long it takes us, when we complete the 100 lessons I'll evaluate what to move to next.  We'll work on our handwriting and math each day and I'll also bring in some of our fun activities and manipulives that are more hands on from last year mixed in.

Art:  I'm hoping to do Art twice a week and it will mostly just be for fun, allowing them to try different things and techniques.  Nothing too structured here.  I already have all the books listed so we'll just use them here and there as needed along with all our other art supplies.

Language:  Since their Uncle Josh is deaf I had already decided that ASL would be a great language for them to learn.  I don't have any formal plans other than doing what we did last year and learning a few new vocab words each week that correlate with the letter of the alphabet we're working on.

History & Science:  Again, I have nothing specific planned here.  The girls are really interested in science and learning, so like last year each week we'll plan to pickup a book from the library on a topic of their choosing and we'll go through it.  Topics like: dinosaurs, insects, sharks, planets, animals, the US map, etc. will more than likely all be touched on over the year.

I'm hoping we can fit our school day into 2 hours using the last 30 minutes to read library books together for fun.  That will allow us to have lunch and then the afternoon free for playing, running errands, going to the library, park, cooking, etc.  I'm looking forward to a great year and I'll definitely keep you updated with how each subject is going and what's working for us.  The countdown begins!!!

Linking up with iHomeschool Network for the "Not" Back-to-School Blog Hop Curriculum Week!

Day in the Life

I feel so blessed to have found a wonderful inexpensive online PreK curriculum at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I've been able to take her worksheets, ideas, and lesson plan schedule and tweak it to best fit our needs. I love the way she lays out her day and so I thought I would share my take on it which is very similar. We do 2 hours of PreK on M/W/Th, and the girls go with me to Bible Study on Tuesday's where they have a 3 hour program for the kids. Friday's have become our Friday Funday where we play games (learning games) and then read for about 45 minutes.

Our normal daily schedule looks something like this:

9:30 - Cleaning Time - The girls are given a 30 minute warning and they have to have the downstairs picked up and ready to go. Since the playroom is shared with the schoolroom we can't have it messy for school so they have to have it cleaned. If they aren't done by school time then I take away whatever has been left out. So far it's worked like a charm and they have yet to leave it messy.

10:00 - School Starts

• Pledge
• Prayer
• Weather Chart - We open the front door and go outside to check it out each day.
• Days of the Week - We talk about what day was yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Then we talk about the date of each day on the calendar. We sing the day's of the week song, and then the months of the year song.
• Letter of the Week - We go over the letter of the week on the white board and talk about the sounds that letter makes. Then we review a few words that start with that letter. We switch between singing the alphabet song and the vowel song.
• Music & Movement - Each day I play one of the songs from the CD I downloaded Songs Kids Really Love to Sing which is a collection of church songs. The girls love dancing and doing the motions to the songs. On Mon/Fri we do a movement song from the CD Kids in Motion. This is the same CD the girls gymnastics coach used so they were already familiar with some of them and just love it!
• Bible - Since the girls are in Awana Cubbies we use their Cubbies book as their Bible curriculum. We read through the lesson and then I put the verse cards up on the wall each week. Every day we go over the verse of the week as well as the Apple Tree Review verses. We spend one day doing the Apple Tree Activity and another doing the Bible Reading off to the side.
• Writing - Since this is where the girls seem to struggle the most we make sure to do a writing activity every day.
• Sight Words - Last week we began learning sight words. We review our sight words every day and I add the ones we have completed to the white board so we can review those as well.

11:00 - That usually takes us about an hour so we break for our snack around 11:00.

• Math - We haven't done much focus on numbers in the past so we do some sort of number practice or recognition each day.
• Reading/Phonics - As we prepare for the girls to begin reading we work on our phonics, sounds for our letter of the week, and word building.
• Language - We spend every day working on a few Spanish words as well as Sign Language words for our letter of the week. We learn the words on Monday and then review them for the rest of the week.
• Art - We don't do art every day, but I try to include something at least 2 days a week. Sometimes it's cutting or pasting practice, motor skills activities like lacing cards, painting, or when I'm feeling adventurous a full blown craft I've prepared for us to do.

11:45 - 12:15 - This finishes us up with our school activities so we sit down for at least 30 minutes each day to read together. We go to the library every Tuesday after Bible Study and the girls pick out 5 books each and I usually grab a few extras for us to read throughout the next week. I've just begun going through chapter books with them so we either read the next few chapters in our book, or they each pick a few of their library books for us to read together. We bring the books into the living room and all curl up on the couch together to read. This is one of my favorite parts of the day and I'm loving this time with them! I've started pausing in our reading to have them read the sight words as I pass by them. They don't love this so I usually do this for just the first book so they can begin to get familiar with those words as we read.

12:15 - Lunch! I make us all lunch and we sit down together and eat and then they are free to play, read, color, or go outside if the weather is nice.

A few of our recent activities: Math worksheets, Write the first letter of the picture, Word Ladders, Writing Worksheets, Sight Word recognition, Number Puzzles



Number worksheets, Sight word practice, Fill in the Missing Number, Cutting Practice, Snack Time, Shape and word tracing, and Letter Worksheets