Ramblings...

Well we’ve been busy this holiday season! I still have our HumanLight, Christmas, and Kwanzaa plans to discuss but first I wanted to go over what I’ve been slowly working on over the past couple of months *expanding on what I already had in place*. I’ve put the finishing touches on these organizational things while on our break. I’m striving to be more organized to ensure we meet our goals. I’m still working out the lesson planning in a way that I can easily stick to it. I currently have a 3-ring binder that I use, but it’s not as affective due to having to constantly make print-outs/copies, and it’s rather bulky. I found the Teacher’s Lesson Planner and Record Book at our base book store and I’m planning to use that for our 2011-2012 school year. If it pans out I’ll order more to use every year, or go back to the drawing board and find another planning book to explore and test out.

So what are the organizational things I’m working with:



The first is our school meeting board. I got the idea from various places, one being a friend of mine who runs Wandering Quail Road, and the other sources were from the same blogs many of the printables used for the board come from: Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1. *The views and/or opinions of the blogs mentioned during this post or any post for that matter DO NOT in any way reflect the views and/or opinions of my blog, unless otherwise stated.*

The months of the year song lyrics come from THIS website, although we did end up changing it slightly *notice the blacked out portion*. The first time we went over it Child #1 started singing to a tune *and lyrics* he had picked up from one of the various videos or songs we’ve listened to over the years. Not 100% sure where we first heard the song at, I’m still in the process of tracking it down *by going through our various CDs and searching the list of Youtube videos we use*. Also on our board is our date tracker (Trend©) which I got from a school supply store in the states. There is our word of the week taken from Sacred Spiral Kids, our weekly spelling list comprised from the Saxon Phonics 1 curriculum we have, and our artist of the month *info and photo gathered from a simple search of the artist*. Lastly I also made up a simple printable with boxes for the boys and I to put what we are grateful for that morning. I think I will have us go back at the end of our school day and write what we are grateful for at the end of the day as well.




I found this clock on Amazon, it has six alarm slots…yes I am one of those homeschool moms. The alarm also allows you to personalize your alarms, so I had The Spouse do the recordings for us. That way when he is away we can still enjoy hearing his voice six times a day.

Now moving upstairs to our classroom…I found this cart at a store off base. The top shelf holds our laminator *which I LOVE!*. The second and third shelves will hold the teachers editions of any curriculum we are using.

This is the same kind of cart as above they were actually pretty affordable and fit perfectly in the room. Far better than anything I have seen on base, yeah for finding something affordable off base given the current Yen rate! This one sits between the boys' desk/chairs and holds their pencil/crayon boxes, as well as their flashcard boxes. Not sure what will go on the third shelf, I’m sure it will get plenty of use when the time comes to fill it though.

Next is the inside of one of the cabinets in our filing cabinet. The boys each have their own cabinet where I keep the work they have done. I have folders for each subject, and they are labeled with the grade level as well. I also keep extra school items in the front of the folders.

Here you have our planned out general schedule easily accessible to the children and myself. Also on this wall are file folders with the printouts/copies for that given day and subject. This allows me to file away at least a week’s worth of printouts/copies, and have them easily on hand when we need them. Plus when the boys get older I can just printout/copy what is going to be needed and they can grab and go for that day and subject. Both products come from Learning Resources.

Now this section is what has had my attention for the last month or so. First off on the wall are erasable schedules *which came from Lakeshore, but I don't see them on the site now*. I originally bought only two of these, but didn’t use them as I had intended to. Then a friend of mine gave me the two she had since she wasn’t using them either. After about a week of pondering what I might be able to do with the four weekly planners it hit me. I can place two weeks worth of plans for each of the boys on these four boards. Then they *our lesson plans* are easily accessible so I can grab out what is needed for that given week without having to flip through a bunch of pages in a book. I can also see everyday where we are suppose to be headed, and make adjustments as needed. They are hung on the wall using a bit of string and four clear Command™ hooks.


Lastly are our subject boxes. Each shelf is for a particular subject (Language Arts & Phonics, Math, Science, and History), and each box holds the items need for that days work. We alternate Math and Science so I would have that day planned out at least a day in advance. Which will make planning experiments and gathering all the needed items a lot easier to accomplish. Especially since we will be covering Physical Science next year *a mix of Chemistry and Physics*, and I’m planning to make that as hands on as possible. I got the idea for the boxes from various info I got on the Workbox System *refer back to blog disclaimer* *my system is only slightly like it...mostly because it involves boxes LOL...but I don't do 12 boxes for each of the boys. I just stick to subjects we are covering because I just don't have the space for all of that nor do I really need it. The boys have unlimited access to our school supply closet so materials are grabbed as they are wanted/needed which works just fine for now.*

Well that about sums it up. Now to just put all of these things to use! Which we will be doing starting on Monday, wish us luck! Woohoo!!

Copyright(c)2010 Rayven Holmes

We are a month into our new “school” year and things are going fairly well. I’ve made a few more changes *which I shall share later*, finally received some items I had been waiting for, and I am still trying to find that balance between wife/mother/teacher/self. Hopefully by the end of this month I will have worked out the balance issue *it would help if I actually sat down and wrote out my commitments and when they will get my time…so I‘m not working on them during the day…note to self do that later!*.

Even though we have been in full school swing for the past month, the rest of American schools are just starting the back to school dance. This has its advantages for us homeschoolers since we can refill our stock piles of supplies at some great discounts. Since we don’t currently live in the states I asked my father to get us some school supply items which were cheaper at his local store than they are here.

While rattling off my list we got into the discussion of what we are doing this year, are the boys headed for traditional school? The answer was of course no, but I didn’t have to endure the stereotypes. In fact my family is far more supportive than most families, I also went to college for education so I know that changes the way they see things. Of course my school experience is also what sends me on a rampage when I hear “parents should have a degree to homeschool” but that is a rambling for another day.

Anyways, what he did say was “make sure you have a way to keep records and stuff, you don’t want to not do that”. Now given the ages of the boys I don’t really do grade keeping, but I do keep track of what they do. We have a two drawer filing cabinet, one drawer for each boy. Each cabinet has folders for grade level and subject. I keep their finished workbooks/worksheets/art projects *that fit* inside this cabinet. Unless it is in one of their binders *we have one for Language Arts/Handwriting/Japanese, Science, and History at the moment*.

Once they get older *probably 4th-5th grade level* I’ll actually keep grades. I don’t see a need to make a big fuss about grade keeping in the lower grade levels, I think it puts way too much stress on a child. I will put a 100 on a math worksheet if Child #1 got all the questions right *as an incentive to keep up the good work*. If he didn’t get them all right I don’t put anything, instead I circle the ones he missed and when he completes them correctly he receives his 100. I think this shows him that he has the power to correct his mistakes and the importance of taking his time and ensuring he always double checks his work.

But what will we do once we reach the level where I should have some grades to appease the school system and family? Well I have already put together a binder that we use *aside from the grade book portion*. In it is a calendar, weekly lesson plan, book list, field trip form *mostly used for planning purposes and to keep track of where we have gone so we can flip through when they are older and reminisce about our time here*.

Everything we use in our Family/Lesson Planner can be found HERE. That is right all you need is a printer in order to keep track of grades and pretty much everything else. And don’t worry because mommy made transcripts are taken by public/private schools as well as colleges, and they will even take a portfolio.

There are also online methods of keeping track of lesson plans, grades, and everything else us homeschoolers do. I’ve used them before but find that I often forget to go back and fill things in. I also didn‘t care for the basic version, so if I go back to this method later down the line it would be when we *The Spouse and I* think it is worth investing in the plus version *probably when we start the middle school years* for now though pen and paper are far my affective for us in this area.

So what method do you use to keep track of everything your little one(s) are doing?