Talk to me about using a weekly binder/notebook.

[MamaSheep]

I know some of you ladies organize your children's school work into a weekly or monthly binder that has all the work they're supposed to do during that time organized by day and/or subject, etc. I have never looked too deeply into that sort of organizing because I have needed a high level of flexibility to cope with ds's autism and anxiety issues. But last year things went along in a much more orderly and stable fashion, and now I'm thinking it might be nice just to be able to hand him one notebook for the entire week or month and not have to always be pulling out a file for this subject, and a binder for that subject, and a drawer for the other subject, and so forth. 

So I'm wondering if some of you would be willing to tell me more about how you go about getting it all organized and put together, because I'm able to envision the end product, but having a little bit of a hard time wrapping my head around how to get there.  I think I saw at least one person say she had her entire school year all organized in a binder by day that way, but to me that sounds like a nightmare of rearranging. I need to still maintain a fair bit of flexibility because I know "stuff" will come up periodically that will require rescheduling of this or that, and because my student is, after all, still a special needs kind of guy, even though we tend to forget that some of the time these days because he's been so stable and responsible.So if you have a weekly notebook with all your subjects in it, do you just go one week at a time and update it every week, or do you put together a month or a quarter at a time in a notebook and then keep the rest of your materials separate, or....what?  How do you handle that need for flexibility when you're working with a weekly notebook kind of plan?

 

I'm not sure yet that I want to go this route, but I thought hearing a little more about the specifics might help. So talk to me. What do you do?

 

 

 

[Runningmom80]

I did this last year, with a first grader, so it wasn't too involved.

 

We used a lot if workbooky stuff, so I filed it by week a la that huge filing thread from a few years back. I had a folder for each week full of that weeks work. Every Sunday, or let's not kid ourselves, Monday morning, I grabbed the week's folder and divided it up into the notebook. We have an 8 pocket spiral notebook from target. The back pocket is where DS put his completed work.

 

 

Like I said, this was with a first grader, so we didn't have a ton of stuff to organize.

[kwickimom]

I printed everything I need for the whole year and put it in a binder for each kid. I took apart workbooks and filed them in the big binder too. Every Sunday I am pulling what I need for the week and putting it in something like THIS

 

 

 

 

I labeled each pocket with the day of the week, so they just pull from there. This way if I have to bump something I just push it ahead to the next day. Completed work goes in the first slot, checklist in the second- then the 5 days of the week and in the back are help sheets. 

[Chelli]

I file all of my stuff for the year by subject. Anything that can be printed out, ripped out of a workbook, or copied goes into my hanging file folders. Every week I reload their weekly binder by pulling four days worth of work (we only school four days a week) from each subject. I still teach the bulk of our school, but it's nice to be able to hand my oldest her binder and let her go off and work on her independent work (math, cursive, geography, logic). 

 

I explained my system in more detail on my blog. The link is in my signature below, "How I Plan Our Homeschool Week."

[Heidi]

First I made a chart with the week #s across the top and the subjects down the side and scheduled out each subject by week for the entire year.  This is my 36-week master plan. (I just posted pictures of my schedules on my blog). 

 

Next I write the week number in pencil in the corner of every page of her curriculum.  For instance, she needs to do five pages of math each week, so I write the week number in the corner of each of those pages. 

 

Then I take apart the workbooks and cut off edges, or print out all of her curriculum, and three-hole punch everything.

 

Then I take the first 6 weeks of each subject and put them in a binder separated by subjects.  The rest of the year's worth of curriculum goes in a large binder on the bookshelf.  It is easy to flip through and pick out Latin, weeks 7-12, because I have written the week number on the corners of all the pages.

 

Then I type up a 6-week schedule for my dd and stick it in the front of her binder.  All of her work is contained in one place and she can turn in sheets that she has completed for me to check.  When I check them I put a sticker at the top of the page to let me know it has been checked, and I give it back to her to place in her binder.

 

If we get off course, or need to accelerate one subject or slow down in another, it is easy to erase the week numbers and adjust.

 

I've always used this system, but have never put her workbooks in as well.  This year she had five workbooks, so I decided to take them all apart and put them in the binder because it is just too much to keep up with.  I'm glad I did.  This will keep everything together and hopefully keep us on track.

[Moxie]

I keep looking at this idea but I really need something bound. Loose papers all over make my brain itch!!

[MamaSheep]

Thanks, everyone, you've given me lots to think about. :)

 

 

[Wheres Toto]

I use a lot of stuff that is printed off - MM, a bunch of Evan Moor, a bunch of Scholastic workbooks. Everything that can be hole-punched and put in the binder is put in there. Before putting it in the binder, it is in file folders by subject. I did set up the entire year at one point but it wasn't long before I needed to adjust because he was moving faster in one thing and slower in another.

 

For things that don't fit in the binder - HWT, and reading mostly - I put in a page that says "Do next page in handwriting","Read for 30 minutes", "Read pgx to x in Beast Academy". Every Sunday, I put together the binder for the week.

[Garga]

I love this idea.  My kids are constantly wanting to know how much work they need to do in the day, as yours probably do, too.  This will answer their question.  I'm going to implement it this coming year.

 

I also think I'll put in a blank loose leaf paper with a title on it for things the kids have to do on loose leaf.  For example, we use Rod and Staff grammar.  There is no workbook for Rod and Staff grammar.  Instead, the kids have to answer the questions from their books on a loose leaf sheet of paper.  

 

If I do a binder, I'll pull out their Math U See worksheets and science worksheets, but also will insert a loose leaf sheet of paper headed with "Grammar: Chapter # questions, page #" or whatever.  That way, they'll know exactly how much written work they have to produce, even if it doesn't involve a worksheet.

 

I love The Hive.

[coffeegal]

So if you have a weekly notebook with all your subjects in it, do you just go one week at a time and update it every week, or do you put together a month or a quarter at a time in a notebook and then keep the rest of your materials separate, or....what?  How do you handle that need for flexibility when you're working with a weekly notebook kind of plan?

 

I'm not sure yet that I want to go this route, but I thought hearing a little more about the specifics might help. So talk to me. What do you do?

I have 6 kids I'm working with... Each week (1-36) has a hanging file. Inside each hanging file is a colored file for pages I need (answers, tests, so-on) and 6 regular files (one for each child). All loose papers are filed by week & child. The Friday before each week I pull the pages out of each file and hand them to the appropriate child. My teens sort the pages into the appropriate sections themselves and plan their next week. I sit down with ds 10. We sort and plan together. We keep moving as a family, so I'll make executive decisions about any unfinished assignments on Fridays as well. Sometimes I will leave a writing assignment at the rough draft level so a child can move on to the next assignment. Other weeks we'll skip the next assignment and concentrate on finishing the first assignment. I've found it gives me enough flexibility to respond to crisis that arise, but enough structure that we keep moving.

[MamaSheep]

While I was sorting all the History Odyssey copies last night I think I figured out why I'm having problems with this. My brain has had this weird thing going on since my stroke at Christmas time where if it's the first time I've done a particular activity since the stroke it FEELS like the first time EVER, and I have this bizarre sense that I don't know how to do it and I'm probably going to mess it up badly and there will undoubtedly be dire consequences. At the same time, though, I fully remember doing the activity before and being good at it, and I know that I know how, and it will be fine. And then once I actually DO the thing, some "wire" gets reconnected and it feels as old and familiar as I intellectually know it to be. And that has been true with everything from brushing my teeth, to using the stove, to driving the car.

So I think my problem is really that in a weird way this is my first homeschool planning session EVER and I'm a complete newbie and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I bet it's "wrong", and it's making me anxious--even though I know I've done it successfully for seven years already, and this is my eighth year, and I can remember all the things that worked and didn't work before. It's just that it snuck up on me because I haven't had one of those weird "firsts" for such a long time because I've been back in the swing of things and forgot that particular quirk of the stroke. Bleh. So it will be fine. I know how to do this. I just need to keep breathing and listen to the half of my brain that has done this lots of times, and not the panicky half that has apparently never been in charge of this before.

 

Weird.

[mysticmomma]

I printed everything I need for the whole year and put it in a binder for each kid. I took apart workbooks and filed them in the big binder too. Every Sunday I am pulling what I need for the week and putting it in

 

I did similarly. I dated and stapled each lesson for each subject in large binders. Each week I pull those lessons and stick them in a small binder. Completed work gets filed into the accordion portfolio. I took pics and posted in this thread.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/478048-5th-grade-planner-as-suggested-by-swb/

[BlsdMama]

I blogged it, the process, pictures, what I did it, questions I've been asked since doing it. :)

 

http://truevineherbs.wordpress.com/

[MamaSheep]

Okay. So. 

 

One common theme here seems to be planning out the work for each day of the year in advance on a handy dandy chart. I have attempted this a few times and it has never been pretty (darn autism--and sometimes the anxiety disorder is even worse than the autism. bleh). But there were a couple of years where I had weekly files for some subjects and it worked out really well. Although, I used "workbox" type drawers rather than a notebook. But the same general idea. At the time I think I decided it worked well to put more flexible stuff in the weekly files and then decide what to skip and what to focus on out of each week's worth of work as we went along, but it was harder to do with the more "linear" subjects where you have to do the whole checklist in one lesson before moving on or else the next lesson assumes you know things you skipped and it gets messy. I had weekly files last year, but there were a couple of subjects that really moved at different paces and by about the middle of the year my files were an absolute wreck, what with items for one subject (linear in nature so we couldn't just skip stuff) stacking up, while I was raiding future files for items for another subject. But maybe it would work better if I had separate weekly files for each subject. That still leaves the problem of being on week 15 in one subject and week 20 in another, but at least they wouldn't be all jumbled up together. Hmmm.

 

[Runningmom80]

Okay. So.

 

One common theme here seems to be planning out the work for each day of the year in advance on a handy dandy chart. I have attempted this a few times and it has never been pretty (darn autism--and sometimes the anxiety disorder is even worse than the autism. bleh). But there were a couple of years where I had weekly files for some subjects and it worked out really well. Although, I used "workbox" type drawers rather than a notebook. But the same general idea. At the time I think I decided it worked well to put more flexible stuff in the weekly files and then decide what to skip and what to focus on out of each week's worth of work as we went along, but it was harder to do with the more "linear" subjects where you have to do the whole checklist in one lesson before moving on or else the next lesson assumes you know things you skipped and it gets messy. I had weekly files last year, but there were a couple of subjects that really moved at different paces and by about the middle of the year my files were an absolute wreck, what with items for one subject (linear in nature so we couldn't just skip stuff) stacking up, while I was raiding future files for items for another subject. But maybe it would work better if I had separate weekly files for each subject. That still leaves the problem of being on week 15 in one subject and week 20 in another, but at least they wouldn't be all jumbled up together. Hmmm.

This happened to me too, and somewhere along the line, I ended up just grouping everything by subject, and then just pulling 5 sheets, or whatever at the beginning of each week.

[Chelli]

This happened to me too, and somewhere along the line, I ended up just grouping everything by subject, and then just pulling 5 sheets, or whatever at the beginning of each week.

 

That's exactly what I do. File by subject not by week.

[MamaSheep]

This happened to me too, and somewhere along the line, I ended up just grouping everything by subject, and then just pulling 5 sheets, or whatever at the beginning of each week.

 

 

That's exactly what I do. File by subject not by week.

 

 

So...do you still make your yearly chart of what to do everyday and then file by subject and be flexible with the chart, or do you just not make a chart, and just grab the first few things from each subject every week and not worry about how it all fits together?

 

 

When I went through the history stuff last night I put each lesson (including checklist and any needed worksheets) into individual sheet protectors (one per lesson), and then counted up how many lessons there were to get through (some of them we won't be doing), and divided the lessons into quarters. Then I divided my planned school year into quarters, and figured out the beginning, mid-term, and ending dates for each quarter. Then I counted out half of each quarter and put the sticky notes on the mid-term and ending lessons for each quarter with the dates on them so I know I need to hit those lessons by those dates in order to stay on track for the year. Then I decided that wasn't quite enough checkpoint dates, so I figured out the mid-points between the term beginning and mid-term, and between mid-term and the end of the quarter, and stuck dates on those too. The post-its with the dates are poking up a little so I can see them when the lessons are in the file. That will prompt me to re-evaluate every couple of weeks or so to see how we're doing on time, so I can decide if we need to skip some lessons in order to get through the time period we're studying.  Each quarter is in a file folder, and those are in an accordion file I'm hoping will hold all my print-out type stuff this year.

 

But I really hesitate to assign actual dates to any of the lessons because I KNOW it's just not going to work out that way.

[kwickimom]

This happened to me too, and somewhere along the line, I ended up just grouping everything by subject, and then just pulling 5 sheets, or whatever at the beginning of each week.

This is why I have everything by subject in a big binder and then I only pull what I need for the week  :001_smile:

[Amy Jo]

So...do you still make your yearly chart of what to do everyday and then file by subject and be flexible with the chart, or do you just not make a chart, and just grab the first few things from each subject every week and not worry about how it all fits together?

 

I don't use dates, or list everything. Math or Latin are just 'keep going'. For the books we read I do put them on a chart. (Which does get revised, *sigh*.) So no, you don't have to put everything on the chart - just the parts you think will help. Mine is by week numbers.

[Runningmom80]

I didn't plan by day, I just grabbed sheets every week. (they were in order, thankfully. :laugh:)

[Mom2OandE]

My son has high functioning Autism in addition to other dx. We switched to a weekly binder divided by days last year and it was awesome for him. We are doing things a little different this year but will continue with a binder system in one way or another.

[Wheres Toto]

This happened to me too, and somewhere along the line, I ended up just grouping everything by subject, and then just pulling 5 sheets, or whatever at the beginning of each week.

This is what I do too. Most of our stuff is "do the next thing" which makes it easier.