Wednesday, August 21, 2013

My homeschool binder

At the start of the year in addition to preparing and organizing the shelves and curriculum, I organize my homeschool binder. This binder is where I keep all the bits and pieces I need to lesson plan, samples I need to show for credits (important for my high schoolers) and anything else I deem important.

I always start with a new pretty binder.
I prefer to feel newly inspired each year. This year I fell in love with this pretty owl themed binder.



When you open the binder you find my coil bound lesson planner (from rainbow resource) and my program plans for each child. Those get submitted at the start of the year to the school board we are registered with to outline our plans for the year. I have them printed in a different color per child in order to make planning easier for myself. I go off of these program plans when I start my lesson planning for the year.

Next in the book is our Morning basket schedule. This is broken down into 3 terms and is the read alouds we will do together each morning. There is always more read alouds through the day but if we are having a bad homeschool day and all we get done is morning basket I am usually pretty content.

First term is sept-november and I will write out what is on the chart since I don't know how well you can see it in the picture.

Everyday- we read a bible story, a chapter from one of the current titles we are reading, listen to 1 track off of one of the classical CDs we have here, practice our handbells, and this term read 1 selection from "Classics to read aloud to your child"

THEN we have the reading that changes based on day, so

Monday: Tales from Shakespeare, and Harp & Laurel Wreath
Tuesday: Nature Reader and The Blue Fairy Book
Wednesday: Young folks Plutarch, Music flash cards, They broke the law...you be the judge
Thursday: Wilds of Whip-poor Will Farm and Young Folks library volume 1
Friday: Story of the world 1, Best australian short stories and poems twice told

In morning basket we get a combination of fiction and non fiction, poetry, plays, music and bible.

Behind the morning basket sheets I have the 3 year high school plan for each of the teens. Student C helped decide what she wanted to cover over the next 3 years to meet the Alberta requirements for a diploma, and for the classes she felt would help her future goals. Student C is highly motivated to graduate early with a lot of courses under her belt so the list per term is huge. She was supposed to be registered in 8th this year, but is actually registered in 9th, and is doing 10th/11th depending on the course. High school here is grades 10-12. Student A is also registered 9th and while he is doing many of the 10th courses she is doing she does not have the same drive as she does so he will likely just do the bare minimum requirements to graduate. Both know what they want to do with their futures so that is fine.

Each child has a pocket divider with a "school with a smile" chart. When I catch them working diligently without complaint they get a check mark. 10 checks mean a reward at the end of the day (extra screen time, using mom's ipod, play a game with mom, whatever)

Within each divided section I have forms to fill out to record what we are doing. A log to keep track of PE activities for the teens (both are working on their 11th grade PE mark), Reading logs broken down into : journals/periodicals, books, then then plays/movies/concerts/live events.

At the very back each child has a page protector pocket I use to keep certificates, awards, reports from online classes showing final grade etc.

And lastly a pocket that holds our assessment forms and acceptance forms from our registered school board.

If you then open my coil bound lesson planner you can see I fill in by the week, as the kids finish a lesson I either stamp it with my stamping markers or highlight or otherwise indicate it is complete. That way if someone was ill and couldn't finish a lesson I don't have to erase and rewrite the rest of the progression of the course I just start where there is no stamp even if it is then "behind" the rest of the planner. At the end of the year we either finish unfinished work in the summer or pick up in the fall where we left off depending on what the kids summer activities were.

1 comment:

  1. Great job! It is a good feeling to create something that works.

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