My Favorite Resource This Week: Circle the Date Planner

Please visit Learning ALL the Time
for links to more favorite resources!

My favorite resource this week is the simplest, yet most effective, organizational tool I have ever used with my children. It is the Mead Circle the Date Planning Notebook.

I bought one notebook for each boy at Wal Mart. I cannot remember the price I paid but feel certain it was less than $10 per notebook.

Here's how we use them:

1. On Fridays, I collect the notebooks and fill in the pages for the up-coming week. I circle the date on each needed page. This is normally five pages (one each for Monday-Friday); however, if we plan to take a day off, I will only circle the date on the number of pages needed for active school days.
2. I write in specific page numbers and specific instructions for independent work and a note that says, "See Mom" for lessons we need to complete together.
3. I write in daily chores.
4. When I have filled in all the assignments, the boys place their planners in a "special spot" on their desks and work down their to-do lists each day.
5. Before I declare each school day finished, I read down each list, make sure I have graded all independent work, that all together work is complete, and inspect the quality of their completed chores.  If everything is done well, they are FREE! 
6. When they have finished their Friday work, they bring their planners to me for a conference during which we finish step 5 for that day and restart the cycle with step 1, preparation for the next week.

Here's what I like about these planners:

1. They are available in different colors, so each boy has his own. I know the red one belongs to Wilbur and the black one belongs to Orville (as do they).
2. The pages are large with lots of room to write...cause I always have lots to say (and write)!
3. It is spiral bound so we can easily keep the notebook open to the page for the day and keep all the old pages as records of what we have done. (Can anyone say easy end-of-the-year record?)
4. The circle-the-date feature means that we don't "lose" any pages because they are date specific. I don't need to write in instructions for Saturdays and Sundays or days that we are on a school break. All those pages would go unused in a date-specific planner.
5. It has made the school day run MUCH MORE SMOOTHLY! Really!!

Here is the best deal I could find online. It is not the exact same planner that we use, and I don't think they are available in different colors. I suggest checking your local Wal Mart or office supply store before buying online, however, should you buy through the link above, Amazon will pay me a small commission. Thanks! (I have not received any other compensation.)

Happy Date Circling!
Dawn

Not Back to School Blog Hop: Our Classroom

It's School Room Week at the Not Back-to-School Blog Hop.  The Olive Plants' classroom has not changed much from last year.   Except for this wall...

Before

After

(Please forgive the picture quality. I think my camera was damaged when I was assaulted by all the water at Six Flags!)

I am sooooo excited to have a white board in our classroom.  I have always wanted one and have pondered lots of ideas for how it could be used, but never bought one because of the price.  Then I watched one of the IEW Teaching Writing sessions, and Mr. Pudewa explained the many uses and benefits of a white board in a homeschool classroom.

I agree, Mr. Pudewa!  I agree!

He explained how to acquire a white board affordably, too.  There's a material you can buy at a home improvement store and put on your wall.  His explanation was much better than mine because I am home-improvement challenged and really only heard wah-wah-wah-wah-wah HOME DEPOT wah-wah-wah-wah-wah. 

That's "wah-wah-wah-wah" like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons.

Though Mr. Pudewa is far more articulate than that.  I'm just hearing-impaired when it comes to DIY instructions.

 

In fact, I understand about as much of what is said on Telemundo as I do HGTV.

Anyway... I also recognized the words "costs less than $20." so I took off for sent my husband to Home Depot, and he asked the guys what we he needed to buy and for step-by-step instructions on how we he could mount it to the wall.  They got us him exactly what we he needed, cut it to the right dimensions, and it only cost $12!!  Woo Hoo!!!

Thank you, Honey!

Thank you, Home Depot Guys!

Thank you, Mr. Pudewa!

This has been a real blessing because I use it to list our daily schedule, and we list words for IEW on it, too.  I'm sure more uses will present themselves, too.  With life being extra, extra busy right now, having a daily schedule writen in a highly visible spot is a life-saver. 

I won't attempt to give the DIY instructions since that is not my forte, but as the Home Depot commercials say, "You can do it.  We can help."

Or is that Lowe's?

Either way, if you're like me, it is probably more accurate to say, "Your husband can do it, and they can help him!"   lol!

Happy Teaching,

Dawn

p.s.  In case anyone from the FCC should read this, I was not compensated for writing this article and will not receive a commission should you or your husband visit your neighborhood Home Depot or Lowe's for this or any other product.  Thank you. 

Workboxes a la Olive Plants

I wrote in my review of Sue Patrick's Workbox System that I would share a few of the modifications I have made to fit our homeschool needs.

What I found most difficult about workboxing was having to fill the boxes every night. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I love to teach/lesson plan/do anything school-related. However, filling the boxes was taking over an hour each night.

Maybe that's because I'm an overachiever and do too much.

Maybe that's because I'm getting old and don't move as fast as I used to.

Maybe that's just because workboxing takes that much work.

I don't know for sure but I do know that I could not keep up with it all.

Then I read this at the HSBA Post and decided to make some changes. Rhonda's idea of using Homeschool Tracker is great, but I don't have a subscription or the money to buy one right now. So, I did what homeschoolers do best and improvised.

I have nine boxes for each boy. I have designated one box for each of the following: math, writing, reading/journaling, geography, memory work, handwriting/copy work/coloring, other language arts (spelling, reading skills, etc.), project, extra-curricular.

These are Wilbur's workboxes.

Here are Orville's boxes.

On Saturdays, I place all the materials needed for the upcoming week's assignments in each box. I include activities like computer work and musical instrument practice. Sometimes a box will be filled with materials for a project. Sometimes it will contain a workbook or a game. Sometimes it will simply contain a card that says, "Complete two levels of math practice on mathletics.com each day this week." It takes me about three hours to put it all together which is still a lot of work. However, it makes the week run much more smoothly, and I have the energy for it on Saturdays, unlike at 8 p.m. each week night.

Here is a better view of Wilbur's boxes. He has a card box that contains a game, a DVD to watch, workboooks, copywork, and a cd with one activity in the bottom row.

I place the index card with instructions for each day on top of the materials.

Here is an example card:

Occasionally, I write "see me" if the instructions are too complicated to write out or if I know I will need to assist or give a test.

After a couple of weeks, I also stopped using the schedule strip. I kept putting the same numbers on it in the same order every day, so it seemed superfluous. I let the boys decide the order they will complete their work. This means if they want to do box 6 first, then so be it. Just so long as it all gets done, right?

When each boy has completed a box, he removes the tag from the front of it (I have them attached to the front of the boxes with Velcro) and places it inside the box. When all his tags are removed, he asks me to check his work. If everything is complete, he is done for the day.

Those are our changes. I'm curious, though. How many of you use workboxes and what works best for you? Please share. I have started a conversation in my Blog Frog community.

The Olive Plant Classroom

It is time for those of us participating in Life with My 3 Boybarians's Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop to post a little something about our school rooms. My school room is my favorite room of the house and has undergone many changes over the years. You can read about how I set up centers for the boys pre-K through 2nd years in Room of Many Colors. It truly was a room of many colors since I color coded the centers and painted murals on the walls.

InThe Cubby Hole I wrote about the remodeling work done to the next room we used as a classroom. It is now the boys' bedroom but it was their workspace during 2nd and 3rd grades. You can see how I took a very small space and used every square inch of it for learning. You can also see how their learning environment grew up a little as they did too.

Drum Roll Please… unveils the newly remodeled and larger classroom space that we currently use. In Audubon Plush Toys, I wrote about one the favorite elements of our classroom and how it works as a reward system for good work.

In Organizing Materials, Part I and Part II, I explain how I clean out the classroom at the end of one school year to prepare for the next and how I organize the in-coming materials.

I have also posted two recent articles about elements of our classroom. The first is I Think I've Lost My Marbles. It is about a behavior management system that has kept me from losing my marbles. In Stop! It's center time, I explain how I still incorporate learning centers into our 4th and 5th grade studies.

Thanks for dropping by Olive Plants. Take a little time to look around and feel free to leave comments, especially if you have a good tip to share!

Drum Roll Please...

The first room to be picture ready is our classroom. We used this room as the boys' bedroom before the remodel. Here are a few pictures of what it looked like then.

Pretty bad, huh?! Granted this was after I had begun packing and realized I had not taken before pictures. Normally, the beds were made and the room had a little more life to it.

A lot of work was done to this room. The window was replaced, and the wall beneath was replaced as it was crumbling from water damage. The carpet was removed, and the hardwood floors underneath were refinished. The old ceiling fan was much too large for the room, and so we replaced it with a much smaller one. I painted over the drab aqua blue with primer and Wal Mart's Color Place "Salmon White". It is a pretty peach, my favorite and signature color.

Here is how the room looks now:

What a difference!

I have added some elements to my classroom now that I have a little more space than before and will post about them later, but first, be on the look out for "What Was I Thinking?!?!"

Is It Time for School Already?!

Welcome to our Home School! As you can see, our "classroom" is not very large, but thankfully, a little creativity went a long way to turn this room into an inviting work space for the boys and me.
My space is in the middle. I have the three shelves for my teaching materials, the rolling cart for the overhead projector and related materials, and the filing cabinet with my laptop secured on top. I organize all my lesson plans using Microsoft Office One Note (best program available in my opinion). The green bulletin board serves as the Bible bulletin board. I have the memory verse for the week written on laminated strips, the Veritas Press card for the week, with others pinned beside it, and a mapping project that the boys will complete as we read Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen L. Taylor. I also have two dry erase boards mounted, one for each boy so they can see easily and keep separate assignments, well... separate.

As you can tell, Bruster is really happy with his area. He has his own desk, with his supplies and books stored in the desk drawer and cubby. Behind him is the Social Studies bulletin board. I post the Veritas Press history cards here as well as their best work. To his left is his "wall of fame." I have framed awards he has won and pictures of some his best work or fondest school moments. Below that is an organizer bin filled with math manipulatives. Above the bulletin board, I have mounted all the Veritas Press cards that we have covered as a time line. I attach them to the wall with rubber cement. They do not fall, and the rubber cement does not damage the wall. Since Bruster is my scientist, I placed fish themed window clings on the window to his right.

Since BT is our historian, he has the honor of being seated at the window with the fifteen-star, fifteen-stripe flag as a curtain. This was the flag during the time period of US history that we will study this six weeks. His desk contains all of his supplies, and he also has a "wall of fame" to his left. Behind him is a closet filled with supplies and a large bookshelf which houses the books for the year as well as music, math, and science supplies. To use every inch of space as effectively as possible, I attached learning centers to the sides and backs of each desk. I also plan to do group work at the kitchen table where messes can be more easily contained/cleaned up.

Please peruse the rest of the pictures and leave me feedback as a comment. I am excited about using the room as it is arranged this year. It feels organized and comfortable, and I believe it is an improvement over last year.

Teacher Center

Wall of Fame and History Timeline

Math Bins and Social Studies Board

Fishy Window and Bible Timeline

Bible Board and Shelving

Thematic Decor and Learning Centers