Very happy so far with my new organizational system

[Wendi]

Inspired by some of y'all, I have taken the bold step of having Kinko's cut the spines off all my school workbooks and TMs, and have them 3-hole-punched.

 

I have all my TMs in a 3" binder with dividers; I can put lesson plans, other materials, etc., with each subject. I also bought some little pockets for CDs/DVDs so they can be stored in the notebook with the appropriate subject. Also, I bought some smaller pockets that are a good size for storing the VP history cards. (I'm thinking about whether I want to punch these and put them on a ring.)

 

Ds has a binder with his assignment sheet and dividers. Each day's work goes behind the divider for that day. There is also a divider for notebook paper, and one for completed work. The binder has 3-4 large pockets, where I can put a small library book or other items. It also has a hole punch. The front of the binder also has an organizer ; it holds pencils, a pen, highlighter, glue stick, scissors, etc.

 

I pulled out just the TM pages and other info I needed for the week, and put it into a small, thin binder with grammar cards and CDs. I've got my assignment sheet for the week in it, too.

 

The beauty of it is, ds and I could head out to the coffee shop. He just had to grab his binder, and I brought my thin binder and my laptop. Soo much easier than last year, when I'd have to fill a tote bag with all the different workbooks, and inevitably forget something.

 

At the end of the week, I can recheck his work to see what we accomplished, and move the completed work to the back of the notebook. (I figure every couple of weeks, I'll remove the completed work and file it in separate binders for each subject.) Then I load in all the pages for that week. I like doing it this way, I think.

 

Wendi

[Guest]

Feels good, huh? Good for you!

[LauraL]

I am still in the fill-the-totebag-with-all-of-the-books camp when we do school-on-the road--an "everything and the kitchen sink in case you need it" kind of gal. Also, I think that maybe I have "resell value, resell value" too much ingrained in me to cut books apart. (Although in reality, it seems that I am holding on to an awful lot of educational materials that I am not using and still not reselling.)

[Karenciavo]

Sounds great :001_smile:

[klmama]

I may try something like this myself. My only suggestion is that after the system gets learned, you start having your ds do the moving of pages, first under your supervision, then later on his own. Something I've observed in my own family is that I end up doing most of the organizing, and my dc aren't learning the skills they will need later. That's one of my goals for this year - that they learn to organize their work!

[sleepy]

The beauty of it is, ds and I could head out to the coffee shop. He just had to grab his binder, and I brought my thin binder and my laptop.

 

That is what I would looooove to be able to do!

Thanks, Wendi, I think you've inspired me to finally get going on my planning/organizing for this year. :001_smile:

[Jenn in Mo]

Oh, LauraL, that is exactly where I am. I'm going through all our books, getting ready for school to start and running across 10 times more books that we're NOT using than what we ARE using. And I just carted off a bunch of used books to sell a few days ago. WHY were these books not with that bunch? I always think I'll use it. It's such a good book, such a fun study, they could learn a lot, blah, blah, blah. And there they sit.

 

At the moment, it's the re-use factor more than re-sell, I think. My girls are about to enter the realm of homeschooling in another couple years. If we tear those out, the girls can't use 'em. But will they use them anyway?:confused:

[Wendi]

I figured all the workbooks he'd be writing in wouldn't be resold, anyway. So that left my TMs for Winston Grammar and Latin. I guess there might be people who would buy it "loose", and just put it in a binder or get it spiral bound (or use their new Circa punch!).

 

Wendi