Wednesday, July 25, 2007

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.

2 comments:

christina said...

im just starting this process, i am so nervous, i have no clue where to start. yur three binder is for the work they are done with?? is it per child and subject?? how much do you plan a day, each subject or different subjects each day? thanks

Jess said...

Yes, the 3 ring binder is where I file their work that is completed. At the end of the year we weed through it and only keep papers that represent an overall view of what they've learned, progress they've made, and some test papers. I gave them a test recently on the first 15 states and their capitols (just matching) and filed those papers in the binder. It's divided by subject for now. At the end of the year I'll split it up into two binders, one for each of the girls.