Getting Ready for School! - 8/26/12

Organization is key!!
Whew! It took a LONG time to get ready for school this year!

First I had to tackle the gargantuan MESS that we call our homeschool shelves. I thought I could do it in a day. It took more like a week. There was just SO much stuff to go through. I actually "got rid" of a lot of books. That means I decided to let them go. I listed a bunch of them on Amazon, and then the rest I am just going to give away at our homeschool group. The ones that don't sell within a few months on Amazon, I will box up and sell at a homeschool used book sale.
Here are the before and after pics:

Before

After

The next part was almost harder - deciding on curriculums , making 36-schedules, and daily planners for each child. There was some slight overlap for Jem and Scout since they are doing the same History topics and therefore some of their other subjects are linked up too, but much of their work is separate, so there was a lot of work involved. Each thing seemed to take about a day each what with the rest of life getting in the way.

Here is what I finally came up with.

 

For full file click here

Preschool Planner

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Sample of 3rd Grade 36-Week Schedule

3rd Grade Planner

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Sample of 7th Grade 36-Week Schedule

7th Grade Planner

Are we ready yet?? Not quite. I still have those Calendar Notebooks to put together. I'll have to do those in the morning. Oh, and I want to put a workbox system in place for the preschoolers, and maybe even Jem. I think it would make school more interesting/doable/independent/something for him.  BUT, that's a big project because it means cleaning out a whole set of drawers near my desk. Who knows how long that will take!!  We'll have to start school without that stuff in place and go from there. 

Oh, side note, this year we are trying something new. We NEVER get all of our planned school done every day of every week. So this year I decided to prioritize our plans for each day. The top boxes MUST get done every day. Then the middle boxes, and then the 3rd boxes. They are ranked in order of importance for our school year this year. We are focusing heavily on Math and Literature and then Grammar/Spelling and Writing. Time to get back to some basics and get on the ball this year. Last year we let things slide a bit. I really wasn't feeling good most of the year. I'm crossing my fingers that this year will be better and I'm hoping that going back to our more organized and scheduled life will help us accomplish our goals for the year. Fingers crossed!