Perhaps I’m the only one (by the sheer amount of info I found, it appears not. Unless there are only a few homeschooling Mama’s out there who are bombarding Pinterest with their many ideas & pictures. Theoretically, that could happen…), but I searched Pinterest a ton this Summer for various school activity ideas. Esp. ideas about organizing, because I have 7 students this year & not a designated school room. Or even space, for that matter. While I still don’t get a school room in our new house, I will be getting that space. This is my 10th year of teaching, so you can imagine the many, many different “systems” I’ve tried (& failed) over that time. It wasn’t so hectic when there were only 2 or 3 students, but now it’s a struggle on where to put their books, the extra pencils, scissors, glue, the curriculum needed for all the different grades,…. you get the idea.
On one of my trips around Pinterest land, I came across a really interesting idea: the crate system. The basis of this idea is to have a file folder for each child per week & in these file folders would be all of their work needed for each week. It’s a bit of work up front, but the users of this system all say it is totally worth it. I don’t have space for a file crate, but I do have a file cabinet, with one of the drawers that is easy to empty.
Even though I have 7 students this year, my eldest 2 don’t have file folders since their work is mostly on-line or DVD based. Which is why there are only 5 file folders in each week. Since there are so many, I tried to keep each child to a specific color(s) of folders throughout the year. That actually was the hardest part of this project: finding 5 different colored file folders & not having to purchase 100+ of them. As you can see, I didn’t succeed. I ended up using 2 different colors for 5 students (like Isaac has 2 different blue folders, Nathaniel has orange & white, Caleb has grey & yellow, Malachi has green & manila colored folders) & 3 different colors for Damaris (purple, pink & red). Oh well, they get it.
We are in our 9th week of school now & I can honestly attest to this system as awesome! It truly has kept things in line & helped tremendously with keeping an eye on what each child is doing (or not doing, as the case may be). Even though there are so many papers to fiddle with in the beginning, it’s nice & simple now for each of them to take their folders from the drawer, pull out what is needed for the week, work on it at their own pace, & it’s very easy for me to see at the end of the week how they stand. For whatever reason, this is even keeping my consistent, which is something I have always struggled with.
It’s so nice to say that we’ve done 9 consecutive weeks!
Maybe it’s a sad thing to say after 10 years of homeschooling, but whatever….. just keeping it real, folks!
I am using the crate system also this year! So far, it is working very nicely for us! I hope it continues to work for you!