school-time! Homeschool time, that is!
Rachel and I start her 2nd grade year on July 30th. I'm excited. She is tolerating my excitement.
She just doesn't know yet all that I've planned to make this a truly fun school year for her. She has perked up a bit about the impending loss of "free time" by a trip to Target for school supplies. School supplies make us both very very happy. I especially like school supplies when they are on sale - nothing like 25-cent crayons and $1 composition notebooks when you are a homeschooling mom.
I've been setting up our school room -
This little bucket of crayons, glue, etc. is teasing Rachel right now - She can't wait to dig in.
Buddy is not feeling happy about the idea of school starting. He thinks the desk chair is HIS and is daring me to try to sit in it right now...
I've been working on a way to organize Rachel's weekly assignments - trying to move her to some more independent work now that she is reading well and in 2nd grade. I used a heavy magazine file box and put in some sturdy folders that have pockets. There are 6 folders - one labeled for each day of the school week and the 6th folder is the "Mom" folder.
In Rachel's folders I put the assignments she is to do each day. There are worksheets, coloring sheets, index cards as needed, homework assignments for the day, etc. So each morning, she can grab her folder for the day and we can get started. She will have directions in her folder for any independent reading she needs to do - and there are notes that tell her when an assignment requires me to work with her.
It might sound time consuming, but really, it only took about 30 minutes for me to set up her folders for the first week of school. It won't be a problem for me to do that each weekend before starting a new week. And this way, if the phone rings or I have some laundry to do or whatever, Rachel has access to some activities that she can work on while I'm busy. Of course, since she is still only in 2nd grade, most of her school time will still need a lot of involvement on my part - but this is just her first baby-steps towards becoming more independent.
Here is a pic of her weekly assignment box:
The "Mom" Folder:
The Mom folder is where I'll keep a copy of our lesson plans for the week, lists of materials we need for each week, completed assignments from Rachel for me to check and then file at the end of the week, Rachel's reading log, documentation of grades, etc.
Inside one of Rachel's folders:
Rachel's daily work to be done in school is on the right and homework assignments are on the left side of the folder.
And finally, here is a sample of Rachel's history lesson from Story of the World - includes what activities we will do each week and the library books that we will need. I have it set up so that we will do the reading, color sheets, worksheets, etc on Mondays and Wednesdays. Then I have reserved Friday as the day that we will read related books from the library and do any special craft projects recommended by her history curriculum (we are studying Ancient History right now - and yes, I'm learning it with her!).
Is it time for school yet - I'm ready!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 7:59PM 
