Our HS Series: Babs, The Binder System

Meet Babs, (aka "Big Ass Binder System) hence "BABS" in polite company ;)

She is the frame work behind our school. Shes my Personal Assistant, she's everything. Without her, the sky would fall, and Chicken Little would be screaming her (him? it?) little head off.

Although we have moved on a little from her, we still use her, she's just more "streamlined" (more about that in a later post)

We'll start from the most important bits.

These are my "guides". I have been known to clutch these in a death-like grip. They are mine. Anyone touching them knows the universe may and will implode around them *jokes*.

To the left (blue) is the "Weekly Guide" This holds the schedule for the week, and all associated worksheets. The Middle (green) that very egocentrically has "Miss Edumacated" branded on it, is my Teachers Guide/Reference (hey, I like my name! :p ) binder. The one to the right (flowery brown) is my science Binder, which contains most of the Teacher stuff for science (so at least I *appear* to know what I am doing!)

Let's show a bit more about them.

This is my terrible cursive writing on the tabs of the Teachers/Reference Folder.
Tabs I have are:
Calendar: Everyday stuff/notes for trips/DH's work schedule
Supply Lists: Contains what is says, all the supply lists from curriculums
Movie Lists: Lists for Science, General, and History
Library List: I put everything together here and this helped me use my local librarys online Lists (I created Weeks 1-36 with them, then added appropriate books, all I have to do is check them all and hold them near the week I need them. I keep these are they are a backup hardcopy in case the library loses my lists.
History: Has various references/teacher cheat sheets, review cards etc
ABCs: Bits from our Pre-K curriculum that can't be organized by week
VIP/Misc: This has a protector sheet behind it and holds all my membership/support groups/subscriptions/receipts etc.

Here for example is a page from the "Supply Lists" tab, notice all the crosses/marks, I do mark-up my stuff! lol.

 
Now onto science:

 
My Science Binder has tabs for the different "threads" so a General/Overview, Animals, Human Body & Plants. All my teacher stuff and Lapbook components go in here.

Now back to that lovely binder shelf, or more specifically this part:

 
These are my binders that hold "all" of the schedules and worksheets. There are Six binders, each with six weeks worth of work in them, and each, originally named from 1-6.

 
And they each have tabs in them labelling the weeks with all the stuff behind it, so I can just grab a new week and plonk it into my "Weekly Guide" Binder.

Heres a little look see at the schedule I made up (used excel for weekly schedule pages and word for notes pages. We have 3 "schedule" pages per week. One Core, One LA, and One Electives, plus the "notes" pages. (Don't have a picture of Core page, but its roughly the same as the electives page).

 
This is the Language Arts page, its a little hard to see, but the vertical rows are colour co-ordinated with the Pre-K LA. So when I glance at what Atlas is doing I can just glance for the same colour down below and see what I can give to the littlies, to occupy them, if need be.

 
This is the electives page, the bottom bit just says that the littlies follow along (for both this & cores) if they want to.

And these are the "notes" pages behind the schedule. They are divided by day, then further by subject, for stuff I have to explain further about.

Heres a close-up:

Lastly, we were doing 1 Chapter of SOTW a week, which meant a few chapters would be left over. I just put the extra chapters in a display book, to do over the holidays:

So thats Part 1 of "Our Homeschool Series". Stay Tuned for further Parts!

And Happy Planning!

xxx
Miss Ed.

Your friend in the fridge

The following is an unedited conversation with my daughter.......

Atlas: What friends did you have when you were younger mummy...

Mummy: (I was trying to type something out) ....Well, I had an invisible friend. A pretend friend no-one else could see.

Atlas: I have a pretend friend.....she moved away

Mummy: um....*trying not to laugh*

Atlas: What? She moved out of the fridge.....her bed was made of ice-cream.

At that point I lost touch with reality for a few seconds and couldn't stop laughing. BTW, this was during her curiously asking about Egyptians and the Afterlife/embalming etc, so this conversation just came out of nowhere.

Pinterest Projects are HAZARDOUS

You walk onto pinterest (well your fingers walk, but same old, same old) and find all these amazing projects, kid inspired crafts and things that SHOULD you actually do them, rather than pinning and forgetting, will make you the best mother in the world. *snort*....um yeah.

This is a myth. There are many seemingly innocent projects that can go extremely awry.

We have done many of these pinterest projects, and is about 80/20 (80% goes awry) An example of one is the "Bubble Snake Maker"

This activity looks great! Your kids will count you as the fun mother who provided an amazing activity to keep them occupied all afternoon. So ^ above is what this should look like. I know its usually meant for older kids, but my children (6) (4) (3) are great at doing this sort of thing! After all, they can blow bubbles in the milk and create an overflowing volcano with the straw, so this seems like the perfect activity.....um NO. Just NO.

What actually happened went something like this: "Hey kids, look what super cool mummy made!" **oooooooohhhhhh** "So what you do is this (demonstrates)" **yyeeeeyyyy, our go, our go** "Okay, have fun!" The kids then proceed to "breathe in" with their lips over the bottle **cack cack, cough, cough** "Oh, silly Chaos, you okay? Sweetie you breathe out through in, see (over exaggerates on breathing in away from bottle, and blowing out in bottle) so do you want to try again?" **yes, yes, I do it** ............. **cack cack, cough cough**

Yep. I had to end up being the "bad" mummy and confiscating the "Snake Maker".

Do you have any Pinterest projects that flopped?

Contemplating the MESS!

I'm sitting here....procrastinating as usual (this time its procrastinating in going to bed......during the day I am tired, then once everyone else is in bed, I enjoy my quiet & alone time so much, I have the singular thought "I can sleep when I'm dead".

Upon my procrastination journey through Pinterest (My link to my boards is right over there >>>) I started thinking about the mess children make and the myths some people seem to believe (that or they have major denial mode kicking in, I am guilty of this too). They think if they limit or take away the toys, this will limit the mess.

I am coming forward to say THIS IS NOT TRUE. Children have the imagination & determination to make a mess from whatever comes to hand. Locking your cabinets & cupboards won't help either. Gosh forbid you leave one singulat cupboard unlocked, they will find that cupboard and create mass destruction.

My children are capable of making the GROSSEST mess compiled just of their lunch ingredients & paper. I can go into my beautiful just cleaned loungeroom, and find that they have left the dining area, jettisoned themselves across the house, and created a mess of crumbs, crust, apple skin and cut up miniscule paper ALL OVER my just vacuumed carpet. They have got this routine down pat to two minutes. 120 seconds and the loungeroom goes from decor magazine to landfill. AND for the LOVE of all that is holy, do NOT let my children get a hold of tomato sauce or peanut butter. I made the mistake of leaving both on the benchtop whilst I went out back to feed the dogs. BIGGEST mistake ever. I came back inside to find one of the dining chairs re-upholstered with peanut butter, said butter was trailed all across the wall, into the hallway across my whitegoods, and smeared all around the walls of the bathroom. The entire tomato sauce bottle was upended on my carpet. Cleaning peanut butter off the toilet wall has to be the most gross situation.

And my children aren't the only ones to try to dip into my never-ending patience. My DH has big feet, thus big shoes, and has the habit of taking them off in the middle of the hall, middle of doorway, middle of room, anywhere where I am likely to go a** over t** and nearly kill myself.

And the final drama? The toilet paper has to be locked away. The children will rip it into pieces and create snowmen, and if they don't touch it and you leave it (h I don't know, where its MEANT to be) then the cats seem to think the TP is some sort of alien bent on attacking them, as you'll wake up to it shredded into pieces and them still skulking around waiting for the TP to attack again.

I gave up on rugs about a year ago, after going through about 10 rugs in 7 years. My children seem to congregate around the rug, and plot ways for its demise. This includes, but is not limited to: - Yoghurt splats, leaving their "leavings" (when they were younger of course), said tomato sauce, stashing noodles and rice just to smoosh into rugs, and many other bewildering situations.

Now don't get me wrong, my children, DH & my cats are nice, good people. :D They just have certain creative centers that seem to focus on destructive imaginative. If I clean a room, internal sensors on anybody in the house automatically "pings" and knows, and they head towards this lovely shiny room, and become.......NOT my family, people I don't know. They go absolutely barmy, like a snowstorm, until room is suitable for their messy tastes again, they calm down and leave.

Luckily, I have a special secret whenever I am getting frustrated and upset, I just head over to Parenting Illustrated with Crappy Pictures and suddenly, I'm giggling and laughing and everything is okay again, I soldier on.

So whenever your having a bad day, and everyone has got you down, just head to her site, and rest assured, everything will seem okay again :D

xxx
Miss E.

A timeline of Me: What I actually look like

So any coming across me on any forum, will see my "classic" avatar

ie.
But what do I ACTUALLY look like? Well, it changes any given day. Yes, I do need glasses, no, most of the time I don't wear them. Actually I need to go get some more, I have been through so many pairs over the years, I just sort of gave up :p (My children spent about 4 long years consistently destroying each pair of glasses I got)

This is me about 7 years ago (sans makeup, professional photographer)


And about the same time, a photo taken by myself, with makeup:


And this was about 18 months ago, (sans makeup, self-taken)


And this was sometime last year (camera phone, no make-up, and obviously annoyed that I had to take a photo of myself (I hate photos) No trickery. My kids wall is Purple, and my hair is RAINBOW

I've sort of been ignoring my hair of late, which means I have plentiful roots of my natural hair colour (which I haven'y seen since my teens, I'm naturally a sort of mousey blonde that sparkles and changes with the sun, I didn't like it because of the sterotypes and it was that fair (and my hair was already fine) that it looked like from far away that I was bald Oo )

So my avatar would be me, before I became a rainbow fairy, if I was a good girl wearing my glasses (and not squinting at everything) and probably just after I have had a shower :p Elsewise I pretty much look like the above pics (or a fair amount worse). So I much prefer my avatar, its pretty much putting my best face forward, so to speak.

Oh and Dressing Gown and Uggboots are my wardrobe staple when home ;)

xxx
Miss E.

Planning & Organising...The Circle of Life

I've had a few people PM me in one of the many forums I visit, in hopes that I will have that "perfect" planning/organising/scheduling solution for them.

I'm afraid I probably don't

I'm good for ideas, but won't be able to come up with a solution for your unique situation, why? Because only you can do that.

The fact of the matter is, NO-ONE will have a perfect planner system that will work for every single year of their child/ren's homeschooling journey. They may have one that they "make do" with for the whole of the cycle, if its not in them to come up with something different or change it.

Because your children & you, all change throughout the homeschooling journey. Just because a particular curriculum or planner may work for you this year, does not mean it will work next year. In fact, in most cases, it won't. It's in us to evolve, change & re-arrange, so this comes across in our learning styles and in the way we organize.

Last year we went with the workbox/filebox/crate system. And this worked brilliantly, for that year, if you'll remember we were also using Sonlight, already planned out, and I could just dump the appropriate sheets into that weeks folder. This year, I started to plan that way, only to realize, I just had too many sheets in each weeks folder, I am putting together my own whole curriculum from different curriculums/resources. The sheets were getting bent, the box wasn't holding up to the weight and it was just generally starting to be annoying.

This year we are going with a binder system ala Sonlight style. I think this will work quite well (I will be photo-blogging next weekend on the whole binder system, so you'll have more info then.

What about next year? Well I can tell you now, the binder system probably won't work for us then. Next year I will have 1 in preschool, 1 in Kindergarten/Prep & 1 in 2nd Grade. The Binder will just be too all over the place, everything won't fit in unless I have about 10 binders, and it will just be higgledy-piggledy. My initial plan thinking now, will probably be to mostly use Proclick Binding to make whatever subjects into individual books. I will probably have one folder for stuff like pre-k/kinder stuff. I will also pro-click the lesson planner. So everything will be via child & subject, then student & Teachers manuals

And What about the year after that? Well....thats quites a whiles away :p But since by then, the children can really start having individual subjects and not relying on me to initiate each subject (the youngest will be in prep/kinder by then) I will probably get on the Workbox/drawer wagon and follow that. or individual weekly books, or student binders etc.

Right now, all subjects are pretty much teacher intensive as my kids are young. I have to hand everything out, explain everything, and generally lead the whole herd through the day :p. So as such, I have to look at ideas best meant for the "teacher" and not directed towards the student.

The Point being, don't get frustrated if your current planning isn't working out. It happens to the best of us, and your system will always be evolving! I think probably the best chance you have of finding a "perfect" planner is finding someone in a similar situation (curriculum wise) and with similarly (is that a word? hmmm...dictionary time after this!) aged children, and see what they are using.

Try to remember what styles you are currently using, as this most affects your end planner. (e.g. if you are using something like AAR, a workbox system isn't going to work out very well, unless every drawer is filled with "lesson with mum" :D lol )

Good luck with your journey!

xxx
Miss Edumacated

Why I haven't posted for a few days...

I just missed Wordless Wednesday, which would of explained it without writing. I have been snowed under with doing the final notes for my planning sheets (basically the final bit before plonking everything into folders and pronouncing myself done).

Unfortunately this involves a great amount of desk space.......oh and apologies for the picture, I won't be getting a new camera till next wednesday, so this one has been take with my iphone.

Yep. Thats half a giant folding table (the kind they set-up for markets or impromptu meetings :p ) You don't want to see the other half....no, trust me on this. I think I have enough energy drinks to create a life size pyramid. Plus 2 bottles of tomato sauce....because, yeah, there just essential on your desk.

So once I find the table again, I will post more...I promise :D

xxx
Miss Edumacated

Mums time to Get Creative!

When homeschooling your child, sometimes you tend to forget YOU need an outlet too!

Some people, like myself, can get quite crabby when we don't have a creative outlet in the works.

So remember to schedule a little time in for yourself, even if its just once a month, to do a fun little project. This can be cross-stitch, sewing, crafts etc.

There are so many things that you could try, even just once. Here's some of my past projects for ideas:

Sheet Felt:


3D Felt (Merino wool) Art Sculpture:


What I like to call Zen Landscaping:


Digital Scrapbooking or Making your Own Signatures:


Making Pixel Art/Skins for the Game Mincraft:

Fire Hydrant Skin


Old Monitor Man


Egyptian God Horus


Participate in forum swaps. This is a swap I sent out to someone years ago:


If at the end of the day, you don't have time, and are in need of stress relief, why not use your childs face for your art? :p


OTHERWISE at the end of the day, you'll be taking out your stress on something you own, like your ...I don't know...wedding cake topper for example?


So now that you've done reading this, go pencil in a lil mum time into your planner, you deserve it!

xxx
Miss E.