Posted in How we are using My Father's World Curriculum
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It's time at my house to gear up for the new school year. We haven't set a firm date for beginning school yet, but I'm leaning toward beginning sometime in the next 3 to 4 weeks. I've taken some time in June and this month to work toward getting things ready for the new school year. Here are some things I've been working on to be prepared for this year. Come take a walk with me through my preparation process.... Preparing books: If you've seen my post about organizing my school room you know that part of that preparation has been organizing the materials that I already have. Not only have we eliminated books and supplies that we no longer need, but we've also pulled from our personal collection of books items that will go along with our studies this year. One shelf on the big bookshelf is for this years study. Some of the books came with our curriculum and others are books we added by purchase or by pulling from our own book collection. I'm hoping that having them all on one shelf will enable me to remember to use those resources. Making Copies: Since we are going to be doing some major notebooking and lapbooking this year I decided that I would try to make all of my copies before school began. I don't have a copier at home, and have to drive a few miles to use a copier. I've found that it takes away too much time from what we are doing to make frequent trips to the copier throughout the year. Instead I've been making copies a little at a time this summer. I began with the copies I needed to make from my Teachers Manual. For a couple of years now I've been saving free files I find on the internet into my pc. I have free noteobooking pages, free lapbooks, free unit studies, etc. I have a folder on the computer for school and sub-folders within that folder for different subjects such as ... * Language Arts * History * Lapbooks and Lapbooking Supplies * Unit Studies * Notebooking pages ...and there are many more. Each time I find something I think we will use in the next few years studies I save it to the appropriate folder. So, this week I went through those folders and copied the files I needed onto a CD which I took to the place I make copies and printed the amount I needed for each child. I copied... * Notebooking pages * Lapbook activities * Planning forms * Worksheets I'm using the filing crate with hanging folders and file folders to organize all of my copies so that everything is in one place. Planning and Recording Forms: I have never really found a planner that I felt worked for me, and since I'm building a file for each child from grade K - grade 12, I would like to have a separate record for each child that can go in their file at the end of the school year. Using the computer I created a basic recording form for our study (Rome to the Reformation) this year (NOTE: This form, located on the right sidebar, is available to you for free download, so feel free to grab it while you are here). This form is double sided and covers a week of school. I copied 3 of them and wrote in the information that would be the same all year....name, grade, school name, school year....then made copies to last about half the school year. I'll go back later and make the rest of the copies. Now all I need to do is hole punch them, file them in my planning binder and I'm ready to begin recording their daily work. I have many resources that I want to remember to use throughout the year, but I always seem to forget about some of these things until after we've already studied that particular event. This year I wanted to be better prepared so I created a form for just this purpose. It's called a Topic Planner (I plan to make this available for free download on this blog soon), and has space to write in the topic being studied, the week of the school year, and space for listing books (both from the library and books we have on hand at home), documents to print, and websites with useful information or games to go along with the study. I've already begun using these forms. I'm going through the suggested books for the book basket for RTR, checking to see if our libraries have them, and writing them on the list noting the library they are in and their library call number. I plan to use this information to schedule holds for these books, and to take to the library with me to search for other books I noticed in the online catalog to see if they can be used as well. It is taking some time to compile all of this information, but I have more time this summer than I will during the school year to do this footwork. So, I'm hoping this will help things go a little more smoothly this school year, and keep me from feeling like too much time is being wasted trying to find what I need. Putting First Things First: I have found that my most important priorities for getting ready for a great school year are as follows: * PRAYER - Seeking God's guidance for the right curriculum/studies for the children, asking for wisdom in teaching them, asking for prepared hearts and minds of the children to receive instruction and knowledge and to have a willing spirit to learn, and asking for few interruptions and a smooth transition into the school year. * PLANNING - It is so important for me to plan ahead. I'm learning to be better organized and to plan to do only God's best for the children's education. * BE PREPARED - Making as many preparations as possible ahead of time will enable me to have all the materials on hand that are needed to teach that day's lessons, thus making our school days flow more smoothly. Here's to a great year in your homeschool, and may God richly bless you and your families on this wonderful journey!!  Blessings, Missy |
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