For the past two years, I’ve used this system for planning and organizing school work. For the Pre-K and K years, it works brilliantly, since the course work is simple.
All I need is:
1 file drawer,
4 hanging folders,
20 manilla folders, labeled 1 – 5, 4 times.
Every four weeks, I plan the daily lessons for the upcoming 4 weeks. I place everything we’ll need for one day’s work in a manilla folder, so that I simply have to “grab-and-go” in the morning.
This keeps me stocked with daily plans for four peaceful and productive weeks. If I planned further ahead, I’d get frustrated when we’d need to skip a day and our whole system would be thrown off. This way, everything is refreshed within a month’s time and I feel like I have a better handle on what we’re going to be doing. At the same time, if I didn’t plan this far ahead, I’d feel like I was always playing catch-up.
At this point, I haven’t kept complicated spreadsheet of objectives or lesson plans; instead, I’ve planned to cover the basics and feel confident that I’m doing a good job. For pre-K and K, I store all completed work – phonics, math, artwork, science projects, and field-trip memorabilia in one huge white binder. It’s not divided by sections or anything fancy like that. I just hole-punch the pages (or slip them into page-protectors) and file them according to date. This way, I have very solid evidence of the work we’ve accomplished, should anyone ask. It’s also a pleasure for the girls to look back over their progress from time to time.
In our state, we don’t have to register or report until our children are 8 years old, but I like to keep a substantial record of their education, in case I would have to answer for our early years.
Next year, as I begin first grade with Vivienne, I will develop a weekly lesson plan spreadsheet, but I’ll probably keep the file drawer system going, too. I like having all of the papers torn from the worksheets and everything ready to go.
So, if you’re looking for a simple way of planning ahead and storing your little one’s school work, maybe you’ll discover that a simple file-system like this works for you, too!
