Leave Workbook pages in or tear out?

[CarolynD]

I'm trying to decide if I should tear out each days work from workbooks or let them work directly from the workbooks. I can see pros and cons to both. By leaving them in, I don't have papers to file away in binders. If I take them out, then it makes it easier for them to be more independent in their work and do the correct pages. It seems like things will flow faster. But then again, if we go out of town, it would be nice to take the entire workbooks so I don't have lose papers floating around and possibly getting lost. I'm an "all or none" kind of person and want to have a system in place before we start next week. Any advice? What do you all do?

 

Thanks,

Carolyn

[Desert Rat]

I leave them in. Although, when ds9 was in kindy and 1st grade I'd tear them out because he's a lefty which makes workbooks tricky.

[Veritaserum]

We leave them in, mostly because:

 

1. I think the finished papers would get lost.

2. I don't like how the workbooks look when missing pages. :tongue_smilie:

 

This year I'm thinking of using Post-It notes to mark their start/stop pages.

[SilverMoon]

For me that depends on the book. I don't take the FLL workpages out, it's easier to manage if they're left in the book. The Classical Writing workbook stays intact too. All the other workbooks we have get the pages pulled.

 

The pages don't get lost all over the house, or misplaced. Each kid has their own clipboard for schoolwork, which gives them a portable work surface and page container all in one. All pulled workpages go onto a clipboard as soon as the book is set down. When they finish said page it either goes to the bottom of the clipboard or gets laid across my keyboard. On top of my monitor is a stack of finished workpages. About once a week or so I sort the pages by kid, 3-hole punch all of them, and put them into their finished work binders.

[TulaneMama]

we keep the pages in the wkbks. We only have a few wkbks but I find that the papers stay in much better shape this way and I also can find them easily when need be.

[twogirlsmommy]

DD prefers pages out most of the time. The FLL workbooks are so thick she had trouble writing in them, so we tore out the pages. The SOTW tests stay in because the book is thinner. I put things in file folders for the day so I find tearing out pages works for us!

[bbsweetpea]

Leave them in. The only one's my daughter takes out are those with maps that she has to cut out parts or glue.

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

Anything spiral bound or small workbooks I keep intact. I use Post-It page markers to mark their pages in those. I also don't like to take them apart if both sides of the paper are for different lessons. However, for my AO Bible and SOTW AG, I make copies from the TM for my girls to both use, so those get filed away in a special drawer as they complete them. I also file away the workbooks in the drawer when they are complete.

[RootAnn]

We don't have very many workbooks either, but for Math, especially, we leave them in. The first year, we tore them out. It was horrid to have papers EVERYWHERE. If they stay in, I keep the workbook nice & neat with finished pages inside. If they come out, I end up throwing most of the pages away almost immediately.

 

Now, coloring pages & maps copied (legally for our family use) from SOTW activity books are in a 3-ring binder. They get removed to color and then put back into the 3-ring binder.

 

I'm a keep-it-in-the-workbook type because of neatness. If you have a filing system (to a 3-ring binder, for instance) all set up, by all means pull them out. Otherwise, it just gets too messy, IMO.:tongue_smilie:

[Ellie]

I tear them out, because it's much easier for the dc to write on a single piece of paper which is lying on a flat surface; I store them in 3-ring notebooks after 3-hole punching them, or I just staple several pages together. If I buy workbooks that do not have perforated pages, I take them to Kinko's and have the spines cut off, then drill the books for 3 holes and file them in 3-ring notebooks.

 

Lifepacks, Paces, and LightUnits are not so bad because they are thin, and the pages can be folded back.

[Tree House Academy]

I always tear them out. If they have good margins, I hole punch the pages and put them in a binder. If they don't have clear margins (like my son's Abeka cursive pages), then I slide them in page protectors in a binder. We use a lot of CLE and those stay in the workbook (they are not even made to come out) and workbooks are so thin that they lay flat which is the issue I have with most workbooks (not laying flat) anyway.

[Susu]

This is the first year I have decided to tear them out, and I am loving it!

 

I tear out any pages I need for the week and file them into a binder with 5 dividers...one for each day of the week. All the independent work is put behind each day's divider and they just do their daily work in the binder. If they like, they can open the binder and take a page out to work, but mostly they just keep it in the binder. I have a giant 4 inch binder for each child that I will use as a portfolio to stash their finished work in at the end of each week. (I will use subject dividers in the storage binder so that all history is together, etc.)

 

My children always had trouble with working in a workbook...the work closest to the binding was always difficult to see, and writing on the curve was hard too. Plus, they always had to flip through the book to find the next page...and if they left their work alone for a few minutes, the book would close and that was aggravating for them. Also, the workbook began to look pretty dilapidated by the end of the year!

 

I am thinking though that I am going to take them to an office store and get the bindings cut and the pages three hole punched to save me the weekly chore of doing this manually. I will store the future pages in a folder in a hanging file and just take out the pages needed each Friday.

 

The only exception for tearing out workbook pages is their "Story of the USA" books. These books contain reading as well as workbook pages, so I have not decided yet whether I want to tear the pages out each week. I am thinking I will leave those intact. It is not a thick book, so it lays flat and is easy to write in, so it is not as much of an issue.

 

Susu

Edited August 5, 2009 by Susu

[momtolgd]

For most workbooks, we leave them in. I think currently, WWE is the only one I tear them out for. Also I buy the loose pages for the SOTW activity guides.

 

I tried it the other way, and didn't like having all of those loose papers to transfer into something else. So we went back to just leaving them in the workbooks.

[CarolynD]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'm still undecided. I like the idea of tearing them out and keeping them in separate folders but some workbook pages do contain the next days lesson. Hmmm...decisions, decisions. I'll try leaving them in the workbooks next week and see how it goes. This goes totally against my "very prepared and planned" personality!

 

Carolyn