Some Helpful Organization in our Classroom

We have been a family in transition for the last year and a half and so our classroom has had several temporary homes.We will be moving one last time to our new home on October 5th (Praise the Lord!).

Thus our classroom organization has all been temporary in the three rental homes we've occupied.

Yet, despite our transitory circumstances, there are a few ways I've found it really helpful to keep our supplies organized and accessible.

We have our "workbox drawers" where I have often kept all the necessary teachers manual's and supplies for each subject organized, ready and accessible.  Right now, since I have a toddler who likes to empty drawers, my manuals are all conveniently accessible in their crate.

 For my son who is an advancing beginning reader, we have a word wall to help him practice his vocabulary and spelling words.  For my three year old, we have his letters up on the wall as well.  For both, we just used sticky tack to stick them up.


Because of our temporary circumstances, we only have one bookshelf in our classroom, but I keep it well stocked with library books for our current subjects.

I've put all of our puzzles in ziplock bags for easy storage and access for the children to work on during "quiet times" and have a few baskets out for my 12 month old to explore and play in while we do our homeschool lessons.  I've also posted a list with pictures of things my children can choose for quiet work.




We have a small math station, a religion "Mass/Prayer Corner" and a small table that is easily moved and used for projects. 

Plastic shoe boxes keep our various supplies organized and accessible but not easily dumped by my toddler.
 
To organize their supplies, each child has a crate by their desk to hold all of their school books, binders and supplies (our desks open on top so we don't use them for daily activities, just for storage of special projects).


To keep all of their papers in order,they have a binder where everything we save for the year will be kept.  I'll talk more about the binders as I explain what we are doing this year for each subject.

Much of our organization will change or be adapted to our new homeschooling space once we move but the beauty of our current set-up is that everything is easily transferred to a new location.

The Schedule and How Our Day is Organized

On a typical day of school, after attending 8:30am Mass at our parish, we begin our day with prayer (Morning Offering and Ave Maria), songs (Good Morning Jesus and You're a Grand Ol' Flag), the Pledge of Allegiance and then the Saint of the day.

The children then work in their calendar binders followed by phonics, handwriting and reading.

 I generally work with Luke first and use the HWT blocks and chalk board to teach him a letter (then send him off to play) while William and Miriam work on their writing and phonics, coming to me for help as necessary.  I then listen to each child read a short story to me from our reading books and we have a short recess.

Our morning is extremely flexible and prone to interruptions from our toddler who on a good day just wanders around the classroom emptying crates and baskets and knocking down pencil cases.  On a bad day, well, at times there are multiple children in tears for various reasons.

  After everyone is refreshed from our recess and snack, we tackle math

 

and then proceed to Exercise (P.E.) Spanish/Latin, Religion, History/Science, Music, Story time, Nap time for Luke and Phonograms/Spelling for William and Miriam. Lunch and another recess are also inserted at some point before naptime but it varies depending on when we started school and how efficiently we have worked through the various subjects.

 Normally we wrap up our day before 2pm and have our afternoon free for a trip to the library or family project, errands or free playtime, walks or bike rides and chores.Once a week we may also spend the morning with friends on a field trip for some hands on learning in which case, I'll apply this to whichever subject area it fulfills and we'll have school before and after.

To help the kids know what to expect for the day and to help the older children work as independently as possible, I love the idea of Workboxes or at least the many adaptations I've read about on the blogosphere. Since my kids are all so young and we have a destructive toddler who likes to pull out things from bins, I had to come up with my own adaptation.

We used these nice little pictures on our schedule in past years but I was ready to give each of my children their own schedule and thought that it would be too much work to print out the little tabs times three, cut them out and laminate them so I made a schedule book for each of my kids.

 I found the mini photo albums at JoAnne's Fabric store (I also got some at the Dollar store around Mother's Day for our Holy Cards) - they are hard to find! I then just typed the name of each subject (4 subjects to a page in Word) and added a picture to help the kids know what to do during our school day. I then slipped the papers into the photo sleeve and it is easy for me to adjust their schedules as necessary for the next day without too much effort.

For subjects that alternate like Science and History, I just keep them in the same photo sleeve and extra activities that are weekly, like Library and Religious Education(CREDO), are kept in the back of the photo book until their appropriate day. The kids really like their schedule books and enjoy knowing what to do "next."

To keep things clear in my own mind, I have a block schedule and lesson plan sheet where I plan and keep track of what we've completed.  At the beginning of the year I made a year plan and planned out our four quarters and divided the subject material up that we need to complete this year so I can stay on track and to help me with my weekly plans.  I try to lesson plan ahead during the week as we complete work in class and make sure to finish my plans on Saturday or Sunday so our week goes smoothly.   I only plan 1 week in advance so that my plans are accurate since you never know what may come up :-)