Getting Ready

It seems as though everyone is getting ready to go back to school in the next couple of weeks. While the kids aren't actually 'going' anywhere, I am finishing up my plans for teaching them the things they'll need to know so they aren't laughed at when they go to important dinner parties. Yes, I plan my childrens' educations so that they can fit in well at parties.

To that end, I've created a notebook for each of the boys. Harry's is green and Sam's blue so they are easy to find. Plus I'm reasonably sure that by this point they do know their colors. Annika is jealous, so I'll have to make her one too. In pink. Anyway, inside the super-cool, color-coded binders are tabs labeled with their major subject. Except Math. We are skipping Math this year so they can spend more time battling their Pokemon. (Kidding, we're skipping reading.)

Actually Math is self-contained in it's own little workbook and since I only got five of those little tab things, I left it out. The tabs are: History, Geography, Language Arts, Science, and Latin. In the front of the notebook, the boys find this:

Kids Daily

Each day I will write what they need to do--list the subject and the assignment. I'm hoping that they can work somewhat independently and they will see that the day will end at some point. Obviously I'll be right there if/when they need me, but this way they can see what they've already finished and what they still have to do. Interestingly, we have more subjects than will fit into the boxes, but I don't want to overwhelm them first thing in the morning. Life won't end if we have more to do or if we don't get everything finished, but on the whole I'll say that when the list is done, so are we.

Harry is going into third grade, so he'll be way more independent, and probably bouncier, than Sam, who is going into first. I'm anticipating that we'll spend more time in the first few weeks of school getting adjusted to things than doing serious school work. That of course, assumes that I set an actual start date. We'll see.

Oh, there's more coming. An awesome (if I do say so myself) organizer for doing Story of the World. And how I'm organizing language arts. I know, you can't wait.