Getting Ready

We're getting everything ready for our new school year. Officially, D-Man won't start 1st grade until June 1st, but we are starting our new Core and math as soon as it gets here which should be early next week. Along with that, we'll re-energize handwriting and finish up our geography workbooks. I'm getting my schedules and binders ready so that we're all organized as soon as the boxes arrive. I'm also trying to get some spring cleaning in before we start. It's been nice to take a few months "off," but we're rearin' to go.

SWR Binders

A few people have asked about SWR Binder Organization so I decided to post mine here.

I have two binders: The first is my Teacher's Binder. I use this one everyday.

It has 4 tabs so far:

1. Schedules/Procedures. Here I keep the most important stuff. I have my schedule, a dictation guide, a introduce vs. quiz vs. test guide, and different helps that I print off of the yahoo group.

2. Log. This is a log that I keep to help me remember what we've done each day. I have my schedule, but I don't follow it exactly. I figure this log will help out when I start SWR with C-Monster.

3. Enrichments/Game Ideas. This is where I keep any ideas I have or find on good enrichments. The yahoo group is full of them. This way I can keep my favorites organized.

4. Materials. Here I have all of my additional materials. I currently have the McCall-Hardy and McCall-Crabbs books, the Suggested Book List, and my getting started printouts. This will grow when I order the rest of the materials next year.

Up front, I keep two pencil pouches. I have one for pencils and highlighters and a second one to hold our phonogram cards. I tried it all in one pencil pouch, but that didn't work. Then, in the front pocket, I have my own logbook.

The second binder is D-Man's student binder. This doesn't get used too often yet. It really just holds his logbook and tests. Eventually, he'll include more. It has 5 tabs.

1. Phonogram/Spelling Practice. This is just a place where we put any practice sheets that we work on. Realistically, I'll probably chuck all of these at the end of the year.

2. Quizzes/Tests. This is where I file his tests. I don't really put quizzes in here anymore since we do most of those on the white board.

3. Enrichments. This is where I will file any products from enrichments we do. We haven't had any yet.

4. Books read. I have a log that I made to record all of the books he's read. I don't count Bob Books or Fun Tales, so the only thing we have written down so far is Go, Dog, Go. This list will be very useful soon.

5. Paper. This is just where we keep extra paper for writing. I got a huge ream of paper for him, so we just put about 50 sheets in his notebook for easier access.

He also has a pencil pouch that contain a pencil and his very own red pencil.

There you have it. One last thing that has really helped was copying the Scope and Sequence sheet for D-Man. I place a checkmark next to each step as we start it.

Preparing to homeschool

I didn't just wake up a couple of months ago and decide to homeschool. I started thinking about it before D-Man was born. While we lived in North Carolina (2002), I met some amazing hs families. It was my first close-up experience with homeschoolers and it convinced me to do some research. While living in Boston (2004), I became friends with 3 more homeschooling families. They exposed me to different styles of homeschooling. Once I realized the type of education I could provide my children, I was hooked. Since then, I've read every homeschooling book I could find at the library and spent many hours online looking for curriculum.

So here's what I've come up with for K-2nd grade:

Home School Curriculum Plans K-2

My style of schooling is mainly Christian classical with Charlotte Mason and Principle Approach influences. I'll go more in depth on those in a future post.

I've planned my curriculum up to 6th grade. It isn't set in stone, but it gives me a direction. It would be difficult for me to plan one year at a time. I really need to know what we're working on now will be compatible with what I want to do in the 4th grade.

Do I have some form of OCD? Probably...I just wish it would show up when I clean my house now and then.