Tick List for School

Don't laugh, but guess what?  Yep, I've been tweaking that tick list for school again.

Here's what I'm working on this week.  { Bible / Latin / Art and all the nitty gritty gets missed out - on the tick list, but at least I can keep track of the other { main } basic subjects.

While you're here, I'd just like to mention that I'm going to be doing LESS posts from next month onwards here on the blog.  I'm cutting back in a lot of areas, and blogging will be one of them.

My Desk

Todays the day that I get to show you my DESK.

Yep.

This is where I am sitting while I write up this post.  :o)

{ The whole desk, minus the chair }

{ Top shelf }

I was running out of places to put books, so some of them ended up here.  Scrap paper on the far left.

{ Middle Shelf }

Handy Dandy Useful things like abacus, more plastic money, cards, counters, and pens.

{ Bottom Shelf }

This years MOH textbook.  An English textbook.  Some Greek curriculum { Elementary Greek }.  Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1.  Scissors in the back, pencils in the front.  My new flash cards all separated into their proper collections.  Black Beauty for Chloe somewhere along the line.  Daniels old scripture journey { that I made, but might use the concept to make a different ones for the girls }.

{ The Top Drawer }

Old, old, old flash cards.  Stapler, hole punch, a couple of cords.  See the A5 piece of paper with writing on it?  Yep, that's my list of blog post ideas that I want to do in August.  Underneath are the girls book reading logs { mine } they have separate ones for themselves.

{ The Bottom Drawer }

Filing. All sorts of things really. School worksheets and what nots to be a bit more clearer.  NO household filing.  Just school stuff.

I hope you enjoyed a quick walk through at my desk. :o)

What's in yours?

What's In All Those Plastic Freezer Tubs On My Shelf?

You know, the cute little dressed up owl themed plastic freezer tubs I have on my shelf?  What's in them?

So I grabbed my camera, and just started pulling them off one by one, opening them up, and taking a quick snap for show and tell.

{ A Number Jigsaw }

{ A big Jigsaw }

{ Letters and Pictures that interlock }

{ Yep, Another Jigsaw }

{ My center box - filled with all sorts of center work }

{ Everything from multiplication, to months of the year, to days of the week }

{ A small collection of letters with flash cards for making the phrases }

{ Peg Counting - just a box filled with pegs, I occasionally rotate different card themes }

{ Alphabet and Counting cards }

{ Flash Cards }

{ Another really big Jigsaw }

{ Playdough Tools }

{ A Matching Activity }

{ Bits and Pieces - including some Peg Counting Cards }

{ A set of little readers }

{ Another different set of letters }

{ Ha ha ha ha, MORE playdough tools }

{ A different set of mini readers }

{ Another big jigsaw }

 { Odds and Ends - I may discard this pile }

I even had one that was empty.  But now that I know that, I will have to find something to put in it.  Ha ha ha ha ha.

Whew~!!  So this is how I keep all those awesome little center and fiddly pieces all neat and tidy, but in easy reach.

Thanks for visiting.

Organisation on the Shelf

Well, it's been a little while since we had a peek into the school room.
Here's one of my shelving units.  This is how it looks today.

Roughly it all goes:

Top shelf keeps the abacus, and play money.  Some extra new in the packet pencils hiding out in the back.  Apple and Hippo phonograms in a can.  Some books, memory card boxes, jigsaws.

Second shelf keeps all those lovely freezer tubs { super cheap and handy storage } inside you'll find jigsaws, flash cards, pegs, centers, play dough items.

Third shelf keeps printed worksheets, pencils, some more books, some more centers.

Fourth shelf keeps big plastic animals, train set, and some books.

Fifth shelf keeps my readinga-z.com books { which are currently not being used }

If you're super curious about WHAT's in all those freezer tubs, don't forget to check out my very next post HERE.

Thanks for visiting.

Plain Colored School Paper

How do you store all your plain colored school paper?

This is NOT for patterned / specialty papers - just plain school stuff for school projects.

I use these,

and these.  They are just plastic drawers that pull out.

 The boxes don't look very flattering in these photos but in real life one doesn't see all the imperfections on the drawers - so it looks great.

And each drawer holds 500 sheets of 80gsm.  A4 size.

Yes, so do tell, how do you store your paper?

Programming for School

 
This year I moved our homeschool over to a 4 weeks on, 1 week off pattern.  I used to run along with Australian school terms, but then a homeschool friend told me what they do, and I thought that it might help to make less burnout if I could get more regular rests in there.  So we're giving it a one year trial to see how it goes.

This week is currently a week off.

Last week I programed the next 8 weeks that we're going to need and then I thought that I might like to share about it on my blog.  So, what do I put in it? 

This is my latest one that I made up the other day.  I even put a cute little patterned paper on it.  :o)

I love my binder. It means that I can keep everything together neat and tidy.

At the front of the book I keep the year at a glance.  I cross off each week completed.  At any time I can see what week we are up to, when breaks are coming, and what date each school week starts with.

 This is a sample from Phebe's ( 5y 3m ) program.  We are about to start week 21.  It tells me EXACTLY what pages for which books to use on any given day.

A sample from Chloes ( 7y 3m ) program.   On each day that we do our school work I simply run a texta through each subject as it is completed.

 Here's a shot from Caleb's ( 14y 11m ) program.  When I get to the boys program each subject gets it's own page.  The page here in the sample is for History.  I like History, so I get the children to do a lot of it.  LOL

 This one is Daniel's ( 16y 5m ) sample. 

The boys program is just as simple to mark off as the girls is.  I just run a texta through each subject on the given day when the work is completed.

I also separate each child's pages with a post it note on the side, that way it's easy to locate each child's program pages in the book.

Yeah, so that's basically what my programing looks like.  :o)

Thanks for visiting~!!

I have a love relationship with organisation.  Order is my cup of tea.  Everything must have a place.

On my shelves in the school room I had this:

But then I got all inspired, as one does when they go blog and pinterest hopping.  I got particularly inspired while over at Staci's blog:  Going Nutty.  Staci had been remodeling her plastic drawers.  I didn't have any Mod Podge for my big plastic drawers, so I figured I'd settle for a smaller project.  :o)  What a cool little project this would be if I could dress up these little boxes.

So I got out some patterned paper and thought - what would work with this type of project?

But it didn't stop there.  Oh no, siree~!!

They were looking mighty fine, so I kept right on going - and rearranging my shelves to accommodate.

Until I got them like this.  What do you think? 

Do you think I should LABEL them?