Please tell me your desk ends up look like the above photo! Papers, books, art supplies pile up in what seems like just a few moments around here.
Then there is the chaos of recording what we have worked on, what we are working and what we would like to work on. I’ve played with many a store bought planner. I even demoed several home school record keeping computer programs (which btw Homeschool Easy Records was my favorite) but in general nothing I found seemed to fit my needs.
I don’t plan daily. I don’t want us to ‘fall’ behind the preplanned schedule, so I don’t plan ahead sequential lessons like math. We do a lot of spontaneous project activities, which for the most part, wouldn’t be accounted for in a more traditional planner. And of course, sometimes life happens… and well, you know how that goes.
So where am I going with all this…
I thought I would share my cork board/binder based system. My record keeping seems to have three or four distinct parts. Even if you have a totally different system… I thought some of you might find the pages I designed useful.
First a Month a Glance Planner page for the binder. Here I keep track of all the out of the house activities such as, Tae Kwon Do class, play group, field trips, doctor’s appts, etc.
Then there is the Weekly Record. This I print out weekly and hang on our bulletin board… empty. I fill in the boxes after we do things. Being on the wall means I feel free to jot stuff down throughout the day rather than feeling like I have to pull out the binder… which I would push off until the evening and then inevitably forget some of those spontaneous lessons. At the end of the week, I three hole punch it and put it in the binder behind the month at a glance. Aha, a true record of what we did. I can fit both of my kiddos on one print out for now, but I could see needing to print one for each of them down the road if they really branch out into different activities.
I also have some activities each week that I like to use an Assignment Checklist to make sure we accomplish… at some point during the week. This includes stuff like our Nature Study theme for the week, a special craft or recipe, a specific book I want to make sure we read, etc.
As for math and reading, those I just assume we do every day and pick up where we left off last. I just note what we did on the Weekly Record. We review as needed, spend a day playing games instead or what have you… never falling behind and I no longer have to keep adjusting my planner.
The fourth part is documenting some of the kids project activities. For this I referred to Lori’s post about her project journal on Camp Creek Blog. What I have done is developed a bunch of journal pages for the kids that I print out and leave where they can get to them without having to ask. I use the same journal pages to track their project progress adding photos and notes.
Journal Page – 1 Image Box, Dotted Mid-line Text Lines
Journal Page – 1 Image Box, Standard Text Lines
Journal Page – 2 Image Boxes, Standard Text Lines
Journal Page – 4 Image Boxes, Standard Text Lines
I’m happy I finally took the time to develop my own planner system and I hope some of this stuff is helpful for others as well. Feel free to print as many pages as you need for personal use, co-ops, or any other non-profit need. Also, please let me know if you find any typos.