Most of the curriculum that I use comes in these handy dandy workbooks. The work is organized, together, flip one page to the next type of lesson planning. I love this. It makes like simple. It makes piecing things together and planning a whole lot easier.
At the beginning of the year I was trying to tear out the pages to make up daily assignments and then put them neatly into a weekly binder. This was going to be great! Everyday I could just pull out the next set of lessons. I would know and Little Cheese would know exactly what was expected of her.
These books, unfortunately didn't make it that easy. The front of one page would be included in one "lesson" while the back of the page would start a new "lesson". How in the world do you fit that neatly into a pocketed binder divided into daily work? I couldn't. I gave up.
My husband had the solution. Three ring binders. We took the workbooks and removed all of the pages (in order of course) and then punched them with a three ring punch. The pages were then placed in three ring binders. Now, instead of trying to remove pages from the workbook everyday, I simply use sticky tabs to mark the beginning and end page in the binder. The pages are removed every morning (one subject at a time or it gets real messy) and the work is done. Once completed, the pages slide nice and neatly right back into their place.
I hope this h
elps!
you would love Cindy Rushton, the bindeer queen, have you heard of her?
ReplyDeletethanks for the notebook tip. I also love the look of your page.
ReplyDeleteAwesome idea! I was having the same problem the other day. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis one made me laugh, because it is SO true and The first year I taught first grade, we were required to send ONE PAGE of homework per night, 4 nights per week. And we were also required to use ALL of the workbooks that came with our reading series (Scholastic Literacy Place ... it drove me nuts, so I'll never forget the name :o) There were 7 different workbooks for each child, just for the reading series ... aaack! BUT ... as you've already discovered ... the front of the page and the back of the page are for different lessons. In spelling or grammar, different lessons = different weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big believer in workbooks as the mainstay of skills practice and/or assessment. Kids need some workbook type experiences, but they also need lots of open-ended authentic opportunities to apply and practice their skills, and to discover things on their own instead of being "taught."
That's the great advantage of homeschooling ... the ability to move the curriculum at the child's pace, and to offer rich multi-subject experiences that simply aren't possible or available in most public school classrooms. Your children are blessed that you are able to teach them yourself, and to provide all the extras and individual attention that's missing from most kids' educations today.
Victoria :o)