Planning and Organizing

I love planning and trying to be organized. Most people who know me would probably say I am organized, but I rarely feel like it and always in search of the best system to make life easier, whether it's for school, the housework, chores or meals.

Last year we did Sue Patrick's Workbox System,  quick overview, you take your children's assignments for the day and divide them up into a set of boxes that they work through fairly independently. The great part is that you can put fun things in some of the boxes - things that you may have on hand for the kids but you usually forget to pull out. Or things that you never make time for. The kids can see the fun things in the boxes and it is motivation to do the work in the other boxes to get to that fun activity. This worked great and the kids really liked being able to see what they needed to do that day and knew when they finished everything they were done.

This year I have revamped our workboxes and have also adding in a filling system for me that makes it easier in planning.  Each of the boys have a file container, with 1-36 dividers. 

I took all their consumable books apart and broke them up into weeks (1-36), anything else needed (readers, etc.) for week 1 will go in that file, anything needed for week 2 will go in week 2 file etc. For books that aren't consumable I made a chart divided into lessons and we will mark off each lesson after it is completed.

Behind the week dividers I have a file for each day of the week (Mon. - Fri.), this is where I will take the weeks work and divide it into days, so it is easy to grab in the morning and place in the workboxes. No having to hunt for each book or supplies, there are all right there.

Next, I have a file folder for "text" books by subject, so we don't have to hunt those down either. 

Last I have a file folder for each subject. This is where I will put their finished work.

This makes it really nice because everything is all in one container/file box that sits right by their desk on top of their workboxes. I don't have them work in any specific order they can pick and choose which workbox they want to do when. There are a couple boxes like Latin and Classical Conversations that we do together, but the rest is up to them.