Planning and Record Keeping

This is my current method of planning and record keeping. First I plan out a week or sometimes two in advance, but not completely, just a general overview. I go through the girls' books and look at what we're going to cover. I've put a post it note inside each book (or section of the book) and labeled it so that I know where we are at. Then at the end of each lesson I move the post it note forward for the next day.

I also make any photo copies and prepare materials for craft projects and file them in my big green file folder. I have it labeled "week 1, week 2, week 3, week4, and Ideas" Then I put the materials in the file folder for each week. I look through the folder for whichever week I'm on, use some of the materials as we go throughout the week. Anything we don't get to that week gets moved into the next week's folder. That way it all eventually gets covered.

At the end of our school time (or sometimes after the kids are in bed), I write down in my teacher plan book what we did for each subject that day. I don't write down what I plan to do in advance, that way I don't feel bad erasing anything we didn't have time for. I know it will eventually get done. This is just a record for me to be able to see what we've accomplished. Then, any workbook pages or other work (handwriting, etc.) that is a loose sheet of paper gets hole punched. During school time when they finish a page they put their name on it and stick it on a black plastic shelf. After school time (or that night) I hole punch any papers that need it and file it in a 3 ring binder. I've got it divided and labeled by subject. I've got a full binder for each of them for each year of school. I tried doing separate binders for each subject, but that was too much to keep track of. There you have it. My system in a nutshell.