School Area in the Kitchen

I was pretty sad when I gave up my school room a few weeks ago so my children could have more space of their own. Which is awesome because now they can get away from one another when they need a break. It seems to make them like each other more. Maybe they will want to share rooms again one day but until then I had to find a solution for our school stuff. First things first I needed to see what we use on a daily bases and make sure that was in reach and that we didn’t have to search for it. I then put that stuff in a white cabinet that I was using to store some freeze dried food storage items. Then I had to bring my calendar time and white board into the area, I was nervous I wouldn’t be ok with this hanging on the wall, but I am liking it. Here are pictures of what I have done. I am sure I will change stuff around. But as for right now it works.

Here is the area.

Here is the calendar time area, It is in the corner of the room by the back door. the frig is directly across from this wall which is were the calendar is at.

And since we are studying US history this year I placed the big wall map on our table and put a clear vinyl cover over it ( I saw this at a friends house). I believe it cost me $2.97 at Wal-Mart.

So this is the white cabinet that I am using. If you see on the top shelf is our pens, pencils, colors, markers and the pick box has all the pieces to the calendar time area. The second shelf has 2 accordion style files one I keep new worksheets and paper that they use daily and the other is for the papers they have finished and I will file those with the year of schooling. they 3rd shelf has a bible reader a bible and the young persons bible from the Robinson curriculum that we read from daily. There is also work boxes that are there too. I love the work box system! I had to use 1 for each of the boys instead of the way we had it one for each subject so there would be enough room for all the stuff we needed. What I do is inside each box is folders that have their individual work in them they have the numbers like before and they just peel the number off when they are finished with the folder ( below pictured). on the last shelf is flash cards and a puzzle for now.

Well there you have it my school area. As for how long it will stay this way you just never know I may find a new room or we just might keep it this way for a while.

    God Bless

     Jen

Record Keeping

 

Ok so this is something I struggle with. I see all these other homeschool families that do this awesome job at keeping records but I  guess I am just not that good. I LOVE thisgs organized but paper work is just somewhere that I struggle at. I know I know it s very important to do so I grit my teeth and do the best I can.

There is one person I d not have to keep them for any more which is my 8th grader the program does it for me. All I do is print it off weekly and I get a detailed account of what she did her grades and how long it took her to do them. Yeah for computers. She is using Switched on School house . Vinny (5th grade) was using it too but he was struggling a lot with the curriculum so he is back to work books. That is one of the awesome things about homeschool is if you have a child who struggles with one way of learning you can cater to them.

As for my 2nd and 5th graders I use I guess you would call it a journal type records. This is what I did last year and it work and I am going to keep doing it. I just us a spiral notebook and write down daily what they did. Then I store them with that school years things. Like a few worksheets and pictures of project they did that year so if I do get check for what they are doing (which has happened to a few families her in town) I can show we actually do school.

Here are a couple of pictures of what I do. If you notice the Start date was August 29th is because we do school for a week or 2 before I start keeping grades. Its like a run through of sorts.

 

This one is just what it looks like on the inside. It is very informal but it works. On the inside cover of the note book I write the books that they are using and then the abbreviations I use for each one so I do not have to write out each work book name every time I put what they are doing that day. You will also notice that William doesn’t have science or social studies written on his section that is because we are doing a unit study with the both of them. Vinny just has to do a little more in-depth. I have him research more.

What I do at the end of the note book or year I just put it into a 3 ring binder and add other things from the year and label it for the school ear and store it for later use if we want to have fun and look for fun or if I need to show it to anyone. Nebraska is not to strict on its record keeping laws. I feel very blessed that we do not have to turn in quarterly reports or anything like that. phew……

I hope this helps anyone struggling with all the paper work to make it a little more simple. Also that you do not have to go to great lengths to show what your kids have been up to.

God Bless

Jen