How I'm Getting Organized and Planning

Now that L is in first grade, I feel like this home schooling stuff is kicked into serious business. :)  I've got to really be doing a good job, no, a great job... I can't function if I'm not well-organized in things like this.  So I spent a few weeks reading all of the Tapestry materials, looking over the Loom online where they provide helpful hints, assignment charts, extra links, etc.  I devoured my Well-Trained Mind book and took tons of notes.  I'm going to outline the system I came up with implement everything we're doing this year in hopefully the easiest way possible, and stay on top of it all...

1. 9-week planning: I have put together the worksheets, math, phonics, notebooking sheets, student activity pages, maps, and everything for each week in an accordion folder:

 2.  Weekly Planning:  Each week, I pull out the stack of papers for that week from the blue accordion folder and file them by student and by day in another black folder.

3. Daily Planning:  Each evening before school the next day, I pull out the papers for that day and file them either in their work folders, like here: 

 or in their notebooks, depending on what kind of worksheet/paper it is.  (Phonics, math, grammar and writing are work folder material.  Sometimes geography as well.  History, Student Activity sheets, and maps from Tapestry are in their notebooks.)

This is L's "working" notebook.  It contains the work for 1-3 weeks at a time that is complete. 

It also contains his assignment charts that we fill out together.  He gets to decide what days to read which history and literature reading assignments, and which activities to do on which days.  This is the assignment chart from this week. 

It also contains his Tapestry activity pages and maps.  We will also file all completed work for the week in here to keep track off for 1-3 weeks before filing it somewhere else permanently. (I'm still working this part out yet... one binder per subject? A big divided binder per unit?  Can't decided...)

Then I have my Teacher's "working" notebook.  I have our week scheduled into time slots for a daily loose routine on the front page, 

 then weekly assignment charts for both kids behind the first tab, like below. (I made these all in advance while I was putting together the 9-week accordion folder... So each Sunday, I can just print it out and stick it in my binder.)

 The rest is the Tapestry teacher's notes and assignment charts for 3 weeks, the teacher's answer maps, and lapbook instructions, one divider for upcoming projects and supplies I'll need, and any other notes I have.  So far, this system is working really well (three days in, I know...), but I can see it working really well for the entire year.  I think the hours I put in at the front end are paying off.  No scrambling and running around looking for things, no wondering what's going to happen tomorrow... no ripping pages out of a workbook at the last minute.

One other thing I wanted to share is how I set up L's word banks.  I found these tubs at a plastic store here and thought they were perfect!

So far we've only written common noun cards, but this will get more full as the year goes on.  A 3x5 card cut in half is the perfect size for these sections, which is great, because I get two cards out of one! : )

Happy organizing and planning!