I am annoyed with the filing system because it keeps reminding me that i actually HAVE to do school work each day or we will get behind LOL. Im pregnant and super bored and tired and feel like being a blob all day... And the last thing i want to do is track the kids down to get them to do math and grammar LOL.... So i guess it's working well this year. It's certainly keeping me on track, and i want to be on track so i can take a month off when the baby comes. I just don't feel like doing the work each day. If i hadn't filed, we would be so far behind already, which means we would end up working through the summer again (which we REALLY don't want to do!) But i still get grumpy when i come down each day and see those files sitting there reminding me of my job.:D

We just started HO ancients and are on week 2... there are no illustrations in the gutenberg edition, but I noticed that the version over at The Baldwin Project does have illustrations.

:lurk5: Love these conversations with big families! Makes me feel normal. I also tend do do each little kid in a big chunk so i don't have to keep finding them. My gr 5 works consistently through her work all morning with little checkins from me in between teaching her youbger siblings. We also do 1hr quiet time after lunch and then finish up with science or history.

I have enjoyedtwo resources Epic (church history guide from ascensionpress... Same people who did the bible timeline series). Readingyourwaythroughhistory.blogspot.com. If you cluck on the centuries tab atthe top you will see her sections on each time period.. Hth!

:lurk5: I have been wondering what we will do after Horizons as well. We are on 5th grade this year and still loving it. Saxon 8/7 or algebra 1/2.... CD basic math or prealgebra?, TT Algebra 1? What other options are out there?

I absolutely respect your thoughts on this matter. I never intended to spread the filing system far and wide as the next latest craze. When I originally replied to the OP in THE thread, I was just answering her questions about how it worked in my family (which is certainly atypical with 6 kids under 10 including 4 who were under school age). I never anticipated the huge thread that would follow. Never have I thought that this is a general rule that will work for everyone. In fact, on numerous occasions, I have fretted that many people are jumping into the 'system' without thinking about it and are going to be rather upset that it isn't working for 'them' as the year goes on, for many of the reasons that you mentioned. However, I do feel the need to clarify my thoughts in response to your thoughts: I agree! I also want the kids to have personal attention to their individual needs... which is why before I toss anything in the garbage, I make sure that it isn't going to cause gaps, like you mention below. I also take the time to go over it orally, maybe doing 3 or 4 problems on the page to make sure that they get it, and then move on to the next page (which will in almost all cases have similar questions that we just reviewed orally). This is as individual as you can get, as far as I see. I'm not blindly throwing things in the garbage and forcing the child to move at my pace. I DO take the time to catch an individual child up (unlike a teacher who cannot), but because I have the personal relationship with that child and know exactly what they can and can't do at that specific point in time, I can confidently make the decision to orally review or only do a few pages and then toss it to enable us to move on. IF it is a critical page and I can't skip it, I refile it in the next weeks folder and then keep moving from there. No biggie. However, even the mastery programs do not do an entire unit in one day. There is review all week as the concepts are explained. I would never be at a point where I would toss a whole week in the garbage. THat is why my files are never tied to dates. If there are more than 2 days in a week that we are having to shuffle around, I will usually just stretch one 'week' of files over two weeks of real life. Does that make sense? Again, I say that you should not let the filing system control your life either. You as the teacher need to make the personal decision about each paper that you are considering skipping or orally reviewing. Of course, if it is something that is very important and is going to cause a gap, you will not toss it! This isn't a blind race to the finish! It's merely a tool to help some of us meet our goals to finish the year by a certain date. The individual attention that you can give to the curriculum and child are what make filing work well in homeschooling... because you know right away if it's something that can be skipped. Most curriculum is designed to fit into a 36 week schedule, and you can't tell me that every single piece of that is going to be necessary for every single child to do.... unless it's a curriculum that you yourself designed specifically for that child. I'm just trying to open up in people's minds that our curriculum is merely a TOOL and we shouldn't be afraid to use it in less traditional ways if that is what suits our families the best. I never meant that you shouldn't trust the TM and be wary of it.... all I mean is don't be afraid to tailor the curriculum to your individual child and your individual lives. If you miss a few days here and there out of 180 days, it is likely not going to mess up your kids in any sort of way. For me, I still seemed to have chapters of material left at the end of the year to do (because I was scared to miss anything important in the year and didn't skip things when we were getting behind)... and because my personality just NEEDS to have a break in the summer, I would often just give up and start over with math the next year, feeling very bad that we missed a big chunk. Maybe i'm the only one who does that? ... like I said above, I never intended this to be a best selling system or I would have written an ebook and made tons of money off it LOL. I have not ripped up any TMs unless they are in binders. I agree with you on this one. I did choose to unbind my artistic pursuits this year because I KNOW I will be keeping it to use with the 4 (5) kids coming down the line here, and because of the comb binding it's easy to put back together. Some people are putting the pages in page protectors to keep them clean and undamaged in the files. Obviously, people should not blindly start cutting things up, without thinking through the consequences. Homeschoolers, even if they are new, are still intelligent and highly motivated individuals or they would not be homeschooling in the first place. I am just trying to tell people not to be afraid to make the curriculum bend to YOUR child and YOUR life. We are not educating our children in a vacuum either. We need to also keep in mind not only their educational needs, but also the needs of our whole family, and our own teaching styles. This is an important piece of the homeschooling picture that many people forget about and wonder why things aren't working the way they want (because they are spending so much time on the needs of the individual child and ignoring their own personal learning/teaching style). I speak from personal experience... and I'm no expert. Of course this doesn't apply to everyone. NO system will. For me- my personal teaching style and family needs... finishing in a timely matter is very important. I thought we could be more relaxed about time, and maybe even do year round schooling, but that quickly led to burnout for me because there was no end point that I could look forward to, no time to recharge, and no time for the kids to get bored of summer and start looking forward to school again. The cycle of the school year is a blessing for us and I wanted a tool to enable me to stick to it without missing important bits of learning at the end when I got burnt out. Some people are not like that and that's ok. They are the super homeschoolers, as far as I'm concerned :D I use the filing system because I am the less organized and less stick-with-it type who needs a kick in the but to keep moving every week :lol:

This is exactly why I started filing in the first place. All those little appointments, sick days and 'i just don't feel like getting the kids to start school today' days are what caused my 36 weeks of school to balloon into something more like 46 weeks. For some, they don't mind schooling for that long.. but for me, I wanted a break and I wanted to get to the end and see my progress!! So, I realized that in a regular school, if a child missed a lesson because of an unexpected (or not) doctors appt, the teacher didn't make the entire class wait until the kid came back before moving on in the subject. The child either skipped the lesson, or did it as homework later, after maybe a brief oral review with her teacher or parent as to what was missed. No big deal, and the year keeps going along according to plan. Missing a few days sprinkled here and there is no big deal because most of the schoolwork is so incremental and built on daily practice of little things. Over time, all the little things done consistently add up to mastery of the material. What IS a big deal is missing a big chunk all in a row at the end of the year because you or your child are burnt out and needing a break... or just quitting the subject all together. Does that make sense? So, if we have a week where there are things going on that stop me from getting to a math lesson or writing or whatever.. I either toss it in the garbage and move on, or quickly review it orally, do a few practice problems and then move on. I still finish my week's work... some of it gets done orally and most of it gets done the normal way. This way, I am staying more or less on track to finish near my ideal last-day-of school on the calender. for me this is the real hidden strength of the filing system. For others, this is a big stumbling block. It took me awhile to get to this point, but I finally realized that if I wanted to end the year sane, :D I needed to take control of our weeks and the curriculum and I AM THE BOSS!!!:D:D No curriculum or TM is going to rule me!

:lol::lol::lol: We are treated to either the National Anthem or Jingle bells. It's the only two songs my 3 year olds know and they sing them constantly. I'm not sure there is much to do with littles that are noisy. Occasionally I will turn on starfall.com for them. They love that, but then I have to listen to the annoying voice of whoever narrates that one. ("Did you like this story?.. YES! ... Thank you!"... uhhh that's so annoying).

You do not need to change anything! You aren't behind at all. I am in canada, and the way it often works is that if a child has a birthday somewhere near the second half of the year, lots of people hold them back and don't start grade one until the following sept. The only time it makes any difference is when you are starting k or grade one because that dictates when you can recieve funding (if you are in a province that funds hs). Keep them where they are and don't worry a bit about it.

Yay! You have a great attitude. This is very similar to how we did things too, although i NEEDED a long break in the summer so i forced myself to work harder through the year so we could enjoy time off later, but itnwas very flexible. Somewhat similar to a loop system in that you actually get to those other subjects that tend to be forgotten.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: Exactly what i was going to say. I too have been hs for a number of years and know what is too much work and what is not enough for us. I also know when i'm just slacking off instead of needing to adjust things. The key is to be able to know the difference. No system will be perfect becuase life is unpredictable, but a good system will helpmkeep you on track when you just don't feel like doing it anymore. Don't feel bad about having to move things around. I don't think that is really a waste of time. If she likes art now, maybe she wont go as fast with it later in the year, and it will still be nicely filed for you when you want to slow down to a more regular pace. In the meantime, you know where to find it and its not a big deal to pull it out of a few weeks ahead. The system should not make you feel like a slave to it... Or a failure if it doesn't work out exactly as planned. YOU are the boss :D

Sounds like many of you are off to a great start for the year! Thank you to everyone who posted such great ideas and twists to the filing system. Jessica, i especially love your pocket folders! Let me know how they work out for you. I haven't even decided when we will start school. I'm still in slacker mode :D. Wish me luck for getting motivated to get back at it!

YAY! I'm so happy it's working out for you. We aren't starting school until after labour day. I need to get excited about it soon :D I'm still enjoying lazing around LOL.

Also, here's a tutorial on a blog on how to attach fabric to a rollerblind.. so i'm sure the steps would be quite similar. You would just have to decide if you wanted a laminated map or a paper one. great idea.

I've always thought of doing something like that as well. Here's some companies that sell them already mounted: http://www.mapsales.com/info/spring-rollers.aspx http://www.mapsworldwide.com/sku_34385.htm Also this lady has hers hung in a door way with hooks... I like the idea;

here's mine: http://catholicmom.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-homeschool-filing-system.html

That will be me in another few years here... right now I only have 3 school age kids. If you took all of your books/papers and file folders and stacked them into a big pile that will give you an idea of how much space you need for crates. (plus add on another 1/4 to 1/3 of that so it isn't jammed full and hard to sift through. I have a working crate, and then just got some of those banker boxes to store the extra weeks in and transfer them as I need them. I file by week so I only need one crate going at any time. If you file by subject you might need to have more out at once. Don't worry too much.. there is no RIGHT way to do this. If it helps you be organized than be happy :) If you think it's too much, then try something else. I'm not the kind of teacher who can just pick up from where we left off. I needed the kids things to be more organized so I didnt' have to think too hard about who was doing what. Some moms are so good at doing it the traditional way and planning each weekend etc... Also... make sure you aren't giving the kids more work that they can reasonably do in a week. You could run the risk of getting so excited about filing that you burden yourself and your kids with WAY TOO MUCH curriculum and then end up frustrated 3 weeks in because the 'system' doesn't seem to be working. You have to be realistic in what you can accomplish, and not be afraid to abandon some things as the year goes on. Just because it's in the file doesn't mean you HAVE to do it. Don't let the files take control of you. :-)

I am so intrigued by the idea of these pocket folders. I saw them mentioned earlier in the thread. They sound like a very nice alternative to file folders. I hope it works well for you!! My grass-is-always-greener personality wants to do it your way, but I will resist the urge to spend any more money on school supplies this year. I also like your idea of a laminated schedule. I'm going to borrow that one. Thanks for the ideas!

now that is a funny image to think of.... and would a school teacher teach in her jammies?? or try to teach math with two naked 3 year olds running around chasing each other? :lol::lol: Some moms get around this by having an hour or 30 min or so before school starts as chore time and get the kids to help you with all those pesky mom chore thingys. I really appreciated this blog post where she talks about how she manages her housewor.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: I love this image. That would make such a funny kids picture book. You ladies are cracking me up today. I just love thinking of women all across the country with their papers and files all over the kitchen table and floor and hungry kids and husbands tiptoeing around it all. :lol::lol: WHAT will we do with all our free time once the filing is done??

:D I always spend so much time creating book lists, and looking for the -perfect- supplements for what we are studying... only to go to the library and find that they have five more really good books there too, and probably didn't even need to make the list in the first place, because we too have a great library. It's so fun to make lists though. I love planning.. i'm just really bad at the -doing- part. I guess that's why filing works so good for me because I do all the planning at the beginning of the year and then all I have to do is open a folder for the rest of the year.

I'm so glad I could help. I never imagined one little post on here would turn into such a huge thread :lol: I was just trying to help someone else. I had this idea in my head that most homeschoolers were so organized and so motivated that they didn't need things like filing systems to keep them motivated and going forward each week. I sort of thought that I was one of the few people who just NEEDED the structure of the files because I couldn't rely on my own stick-with-it-ness. (that's a great word :lol: and -I- even have a linguistics degree!) I hope it helps everyone as much as it has helped me, and brought confidence back into my role as teacher. The only danger in filing, is that you don't allow yourself to let things go when they aren't working, and feel like you have to -finish- -everything-. I am going to have a file at the back of my box this year for anything that we didn't get to and I chose to skip. That way I can keep those items and place them back with their respective books and either give them away when I resell my books, or reuse with upcoming kids.

Thanks guys :D:D Now all the filing seems really worth it. AND i finally finished designing, planning and filing our history for next year. :tongue_smilie: that was such a big job as I was combining three programs (WHY do I do this to myself??). I think I'm almost done everything now. :):):)

Not that I know of.. it's a great idea though :D I'm too tired today to think of starting up a group. anyone want to tackle this one?

:lol::lol::lol: this is -so- me!! I have to stop myself from bringing my pile of history pages to the dinner table so I could file while i was eating :D dh was a amazed that I could even do this while watching Lord of the Rings at the same time.