Does anyone NOT do workboxes or Filing?

[HollyinNNV]

If I thought that filing would improve my ability to homeschool effectively, I would do it. However, I don't see the ends justifying the means.

 

Last year I generally just took a scrap of paper and listed ds's assignments. I put boxes next to each subject and he would put an "x" in the box when the assignment was completed. I will probably continue with something like this so that he can see what he has to do each day.

 

Holly

[kalanamak]

No workboxes, filing, or much else. We just do the next thing. :)

 

:iagree: I glance at my monthly log of work done and start the day with whatever is behind (or least ahead). The last week of the month I look over what we did, and concentrate on anything that is in danger of falling behind. Sometimes I do something because we had such a good time of it yesterday, or it wasn't quite "gotten" or it was something complex I want to reinforce while it is fresh. I'd screw up any lesson planning, because I'd look at the day's list and say "but I HAVE to do X, kiddo was just barely getting it yesterday". I seat-of-the-pants homeschool.

 

Given I am a list, plan, schedule person in the rest of my life, the fact I eschew it in homeschooling (and don't get the least anxious over it) tells me the method I'm using really, really *speaks* to me.

[ma23peas]

Good news! You're not alone!

 

In my 10th year of homeschooling..I am organized only by the fact we have many bookshelves and 90% of the time the books can be found there..finally trained the kids to put them back on the 'right' shelf after reading...whew!

 

And here's a shocker..I've NEVER had a calendar or a weekly list! At the start of each year I create one 'at a week' sheet...once we do it for that one week, it all sticks and it gets tossed...

 

My life used to hinge on a very organized day-timer...my career depended on it and if I lost it, my life was in shambles...I vowed to never be tied to an Iphone, calendar, schedule again...what gets done, gets done....we somehow finish our courses in the allotted time and all the books get read...so keeping it simple and more simple.

 

Tara

[M&M]

No workboxes or files here either. Each child has a bin, most books are in there along with school supplies. All TOG stuff is in their notebooks. Older children have a planner to workout their own assignments for the week. My planner is a record of what we have done that day, not things to do.

[Chris in VA]

Just do the next thing here. I would like to run off all the coloring pages and stuff like that for the year (and the Saxon fact pages, etc), but I'm not that organized, and don't truly want to be. Other than that, I'm not sure what I'd put in the file.

I only have one to homeschool now, and probably will give her over to school this fall anyway.

If I had a lot of children at once, I might do workboxes.

[bugaboo]

No work boxes, no filing. We just break it down by qtr. I know how many lessons I need to do each qtr to stay on track. I printed out quarterly planner sheets from Donnayoung.org for each subject. I wrtie down the page number we complete each day. I can see at a glance how many lessons we have done that week and how many we have left to do, and what page to start on next. Works great for us! Pretty simple.

[Miss Marple]

I don't do either. I might have a basket this year for each boy w/ their daily work and books to be read. That's about it.

 

Same here. All their books are in the basket, my teacher books are on my desk, and the whole schedule is on Homeschoolskedtrack.com! Works for us :001_smile:

[Miss Marple]

I'm old and tired.........I have enough energy to homeschool and that is about it.

 

Yup! Right there with ya'.

[runamuk]

I don't do filing. I write our schedule each week, ideally on Sunday night after the kids are in bed (in reality, I'm usually hunched, bleary-eyed, over the table Monday morning with a cup of coffee, scribbling like mad while letting the kids take their morning break a little early).

[coralloyd]

None of that stuff here either. I do figure out how many lessons, ect... we need to do per subject, per week; to finish when we want. Other than that I have an empty teachers planner that I fill in daily as we go. I don't like to to see everything already written down. I have a sense of accomplishment when I see all we did rather than all we didn't do. Having all the subjects listed across the top is enough to keep me on track.

[StephanieZ]

LOL, I've been doing this a decade, read almost everything on this board, and didn't even open those threads!

 

I have my own systems, which work well enough. I am always tweaking them, but I am pretty happy with them. So, I don't read those threads. When I am unhappy with our organization systems, then I'll search the archives and read them!

 

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is an axiom I try to live by whenever possible.

[sands31210]

If "Piling" were an official form of organization that would be me. :D

 

:lol:

Me too.

[dm379]

glad I'm not the only one! On Sunday I write down which lessons they are to do that week and buy whatever science stuff they need. I stack all the needed books, workbooks and supplies on the table. One for dd, one for ds and one they need to share. When we're done with that book for the week it goes back on the shelf. Their work for the week is done when the table is clear and all their lessons crossed off. Dd likes to do all of one subject at a time and hates when I interfere with her plans. Ds needs a lot more structure and I usually spend most of my time with her. Organized chaos at its finest.

 

ETA: I record everything they already did in a little notebook so I can keep track of what has been done. All work goes on a shelf and I check it that afternoon to make sure there's no problem areas. Several times a week I have to call up the library and tell them what I need while I send dd through the field to grab it from them. Maybe if we didn't have such easy access I'd be forced to be more organized.

Edited August 9, 2010 by dawn8500

[tuesdayschild]

I don't do workboxes or filing ... we do binders & schedules :tongue_smilie:

[Joyofsixreboot]

I'm a retroactive planner. We just do the next thing. I write it down at the end of the week on a plan sheet~voila a plan is born. Just a little late.

[knit247]

Huh? I've been away from the boards for way too long. I "kind of" know what workboxes are, but haven't heard of filing. Off to find that long thread...if I dare!

[Tess in the Burbs]

I am like you. I print off a schedule page for each week and fill it in with what we do.

 

I personally don't want to put stuff in boxes or files every week. I do plan some on Sunday nights to make sure I know what the subject matter is in history and science and gather stuff for hands on and experiments. otherwise I pull out the book that day and do the next lesson.

 

It has worked for several years and I wouldn't think of changing it.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

I don't.

[Alison in KY]

Not It.

[Caitilin]

Not me either.

 

I am the "sit down on Sunday evening and write my school plan for the week in everybody's assignment planners" type of planner. :) If we don't get to something one day, it's still there on the page, waiting to be checked off the next day. ;) Honestly, I am such a disorganized person overall that this constitutes an AMAZING level of planning, organizing, and executing for me! :lol:

[RanchGirl]

no, workboxes and filing wouldn't work for us.

 

I use HST+ to plot my year, then I print out assignment sheets daily for my kids. Each kid gets their own shelf for books and notebooks.

 

This is what we do too, but I used to handwrite out weekly assignment sheets for the kids to check off. This year I am trying out skedtrack and so far so good. Sometimes all the to do's for each subject are in skedtrack, but for subjects like apologia general science I used a free lesson planner for that course that someone else put together and shared. It has 2 weeks on each page. That is in the front of his science notebook and he checks off each item as he finishes it and writes in the date. On skedtrack, he just checks off that he did science that day (I could have typed it all into skedtrack but it seemed like too much hassle).

 

All their work goes in their notebooks for each subject. I have one folder for each subject to keep tests in, that's about it.

Edited August 9, 2010 by RanchGirl

[radiobrain]

I notice a pattern here. Anyone else?;)

[HappyGrace]

I might wreck the pattern (based on what I perceive it to be.)

 

No workboxes or filing here either. It seems to me like it adds an unnecessary step for the teacher. Glad it works for some though!

[nmoira]

No workboxes, filing, lap books, spreadsheets, etc.

 

I am a piler and a binder clipper. I do write extensive margin notes in TMs and use LibraryThing to help sort books by time period. I also have a "next thing" in mind for most subjects, but one next thing seems to be my maximum. :D Otherwise, I'm a sequencer, not a scheduler: new stuff on the bottom, pop the next thing off the top.

[rootsnwings]

No workboxes here either. I have "activity boxes" for my preschoolers but they are welcome to work with any of them at any given time. There's no set schedule, just whatever tickles they're fancy! :)

 

For my DS9 I bought him a nice planner and I'm writing down all his assignments for him (2 weeks at a time) and then as he finishes his work he checks it off the list and I put a line through it with red pen as I've graded it.

 

Super simple & it works for us! I am WAY to lazy to be filling workboxes every.single.night!!! :001_huh:

[ummof3]

Glad I found this thread lol, after finding the other huuuge one! I had started the evening printing out stuff for Science and then spent some time (wasting) reading about filing! I would love to be more organised, really, but it's just not me. We tried workboxes and they were working-ish but my 14mth old kept taking the velcro pieces off the front of the drawers.

 

Without thinking I've just given my two older kids ring binder files with each of their subjects separated up with dividers. Once they've completed their work it stays in this folder until I move it into a bigger folder (to free up space).

 

I have been preparing for the week ahead and filing everything in one big file. I was thinking of getting a crate/basket for each child to hold resources in/text books etc as we seem to like moving around in the house.

 

That's all though. I would like to get more organised and but it's only my first year home schooling and I can see it's going to take time to learn what is working and what isn't.

[twoxcell]

I do not use workboxes or filing.:001_smile: I have all our school books on a book shelf by are diningroom table, and just pull off what we need. We are using HOD, so we use very few workbooks anyways.

[angela&4boys]

We used a workbox system at the start of our last school year. We no longer do, but it did serve a purpose. It helped one ds, in particular, to develop good habits in orderliness, a training of sorts. He eventually stopped using them on his own.

 

ETA: Like others have mentioned, we use a planner now. I like A Garden Patch. I type it up each week in Microsoft Word and print it out for them. I also save a copy in a lesson plan file for back-up. Love it!

Edited September 27, 2010 by angela&4boys

[Susan in KY]

I use a planner. I plan out each subject for the year on paper, and I do assignment sheets on a weekly basis so we have plenty of room for adjustment. We keep the work in binders and file right after doing. I like flexibility, it's our school word for the year.

Same here.

[Moniksca]

I don't do workboxes or filing ... we do binders & schedules :tongue_smilie:

Same here, I pull the next thing out of my binders and off we go. I have a picture schedule so my ds knows what we're doing for the day.

[MrsMe]

Nope. I fly-by-the seat of my pants. I should have planned today. I slept.

[dm379]

Binders and schedules here. It works for us. I don't have the space for workboxes.

[Hedgehogs4]

I see the thread with 700+ responses...haven't got up enough courage to read them all. And, I see all of the workbox stuff. I was just wondering if anyone out there (besides me) doesn't do any of that.

 

I just keep my stuff on a schedule that I made for us a week at a time including the subjects/curricula that we are doing and fill it in a week at a time. It seems to work well so far, since April anyways. I am just wondering if I am missing something. Obviously I haven't gotten over the newbie "gotta try that". I think I am done curricula hopping, maybe;)!

 

Is the filing of the whole year flexible? I really need something that is flexible so I can change, go faster, slower, take days off if needed etc.

 

Hmmm, maybe I should just stick to what works for us:001_smile:

 

nope--don't do either. can't even wrap my head around it. i just plan for each week and then execute the plan. keepin it simple, as far as i am concerned.

[keptwoman]

Is the filing of the whole year flexible? I really need something that is flexible so I can change, go faster, slower, take days off if needed etc.

 

Hmmm, maybe I should just stick to what works for us:001_smile:

]

I am now using both workboxes and trialling the filing system. However, if what you are doing is working, it would be madness to do otherwise.

 

I tried workboxes when what I was doing stopped working, and it fixed it. I have some other issues that should resolve with filing.

I also firmly believe in not making more work for myself with planning, which is why I ditched HST+ I'm after time savers not time users.

 

But I don't think there is any point in following the latest and greatest idea just because it's the latest and greatest. However, I put off trying workboxes for a long time simply because it was the latest trend and I didn't want to be a fad follower, I've swallowed my words now. :tongue_smilie:

[Laura Corin]

I used to have an idea in the back of my mind as to roughly how much we had to get through each week. On Sundays I used to make a list for the week, but there was a lot of leeway. That was all.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[HomefrontSix]

Being relatively new to the board, I'm not sure what a workbox is. But I don't think we use one ;) We use boxes but that's just to corral my children's books and folders. They each have a box (Sterilite ShowOffs box) and I have one for my teachers' manuals.

 

I am most comfortable using a traditional lesson planner (old habits die hard) so that's what I use for homeschooling. If the schools here should ask to see our plans, I can run copies of my lesson planning book quite easily.

 

I thought about trying to set up a M-Th filing system for their work but they both move more quickly than I had planned through some subjects and more slowly than I had planned through others. So it's easier to sketch out the week (in pencil) in my lesson planner and then adjust as we go. I'm getting a better feel for it all but there are still days that surprise me!

[Joyofsixreboot]

That level of planning would make me feel trapped. We do the next thing, except for the times we don't.

[Lizzie in Ma]

And I refuse to start reading about it. If it ain't broke.......:)

[JessReplanted]

No workboxes, filing, or much else. We just do the next thing. :)

 

 

This is what I do too. I wish I could be organized, but with the way life is around here, it's better for my sanity to just 'do the next thing.' :blink:

[UmMusa]

Ok, now there are 9 pages in this thread! I am new to hs'ing and am keeping a curriculum planning book. However, now that I know how awesome our books are, I realize I don't even need that b/c we just do the next lesson each week. I do write in the boxes, though, so that my DS9 and DD8 can look and see what they have to do that day.

[sweetTN]

Don't even have a passing intrerest in workboxes or filing. I know myself well enough to know that neither system would work for me at all.

 

I am using HST+, but only since last year when my older two entered 6th. Before that, it was pretty much "do the next thing". There's just more to juggle now that they've gotten older. Actually, I still pretty much "do the next thing"; HST just helps me easily keep track of what that is in each book.

 

:iagree:

 

At the beginning of the year I put each subject into its own binder. I print off a weekly assignment sheet from HST+ for DD to follow so she can just pull a binder off her shelf and go for it. She's a box checker like me:001_smile:

[Verity]

I see the thread with 700+ responses...haven't got up enough courage to read them all. And, I see all of the workbox stuff. I was just wondering if anyone out there (besides me) doesn't do any of that.

 

I just keep my stuff on a schedule that I made for us a week at a time including the subjects/curricula that we are doing and fill it in a week at a time. It seems to work well so far, since April anyways. I am just wondering if I am missing something. Obviously I haven't gotten over the newbie "gotta try that". I think I am done curricula hopping, maybe;)!

 

Is the filing of the whole year flexible? I really need something that is flexible so I can change, go faster, slower, take days off if needed etc.

 

Hmmm, maybe I should just stick to what works for us:001_smile:

 

I do exactly the same thing and it's been working just fine. I print out the weekly schedules so that the kids can check off each subject as they go and I have a master copy. This is our second year and I "only" have two students and one coming up. I would consider workboxes in the future if we need it but for now the weekly schedules work fine. :)

[MicheleinMN]

I've been doing this for 12 years.

 

I make up assignment sheets for the kids 1 week at a time (except that I can usually get 2-3 weeks of assignment sheets done right at the beginning of the schoolyear).

 

:iagree: (Only I've been at it 13+ years)

 

And each child has a crate and a shelf for his/her school stuff.

Edited September 27, 2010 by MicheleinMN

[m0mmaBuck]

No files or workboxes here. It just sounds like a lot more more for me. Each kid has a crate and a shelf. We open the book and do the next thing. I don't even write out a lesson plan. Five days = five lessons/chapters.

 

The most planning I do is around SOTW only because I need to get the books and supplies for any projects we may do.

[Hannah]

The only thing I have are upright dividers and I put a subject in each divider.

 

We do the same.

 

I record everything they already did in a little notebook so I can keep track of what has been done.

 

And this too. We keep a daily record of what was done.

 

As far as scheduling goes, dd does math, violin practice and memorization daily and the rest is on a rotational schedule. We do the next thing as it comes up in the rotation. This time of the year (3/4 of the way through our school year) we've already completed two subjects (grammar and Afrikaans) and need to pick up the pace slightly on others. We'll get it all done by the end of the year.

[curlygirlzx2]

No workboxes or filing here (or at least not yet!). :) I know what subjects the kids need to do each day, how many pages/lessons we need to do and we just do the next thing! I record what we do in a lesson planner each day after it is completed.

 

That's exactly what I do. We're only in our 2nd year of hs'ing so maybe things will change down the line. What we're doing now is working so I'm not about to change it.

[NanceXToo]

I don't do any of that. I use the OM curriculum. I have a china cabinet type thing that I took over for school stuff, and the bottom shelf of it is all of the books we need for the year (for a 5th grader and a K'er). My 5th grader has a binder, and my K'er has a Main Lesson Book.

 

Each day we get out the things we need and sit down and do the work. Much of it is hands on, anything written gets written into the binder, there are no "worksheets" etc. When we're done with our supplies, we put them back into the cabinet.

 

Each Friday I print out my word document with my schedule for the following week, figure out if there's any special materials I need for that week, and that's about that.

 

It's easy, works fine, and I haven't felt the need to do anything else. Including reading that monstrous thread LOL.

 

I do have a small filing cart in my closet where I tuck away 'extra' things- newspaper articles I might want to keep about education, there's a file for written communications to and from the school district for that year, there's a file for "receipts" which sometimes I keep and sometimes I don't, there's a file folder for "art" and some of the finished art projects get tucked away in there, I keep blank paper in there of various sorts, and stuff like that.

[angela in ohio]

I don't know a single homeschooler IRL who does either.

 

I use a planner, as homeschoolers have for decades. :D And binders, as WTMers have for many years. :D

[Momma H]

We have a master schedule here. My kids do and hour of Math Mammoth in the morning. We do MFW so they made the schedule for me on that note and we do PR which is done for me too. I like that and can do it. I like to have a schedule, I will do anything you tell me on a scheule, no problem. However, I don't necessarily want to be the one who has to make the schedule. MFW is perfect because it is done, it is doable and is tweakable so I don't feel controlled. After all these years of homeschooling I find I like a scaffolding off which I can work. It is good!:D

[Sandy in Indy]

I'm the "do the next thing" kind of gal. I'll admit that sometimes things get missed...like we haven't started science yet! By the end of the year, though, it will all get done.