Filing system

Over at Well Trained Mind Forums there was discussion about the use of a weekly filing system for all your school work.  I was intrigued by the idea and I love any reason to organize anything so I read and read some more and then I decided that this was something that would help me us stay on track this next year.  I already had a box and tons of file folders so I grabbed some markers and all our school work and went to work. 

This next year we are going to be using Tapestry of Grace for our history/literature/geography/writing and TOG is broken down into four units of nine weeks each.  There are roughly nine weeks of summer until we start our fall session, so I put together a summer session and then four sessions for TOG starting in the fall.

I also used colored folders for each of the boys individual work.  So they each have a set of ten folders.  One is a general folder with their names, then other nine are numbered and used each week.  Right now I am pulling out one weekly master folder which holds any work that we do together and then each boys weekly folder and keeping it in the basket by my chair.

This is my file box.  I chose not to use hanging files because I figured that I wouldn't need them at this point.  You can see the master weekly files at the front and the boys files (colored numbers) sticking up in the back.

Here is my weekly box. I am pulling the files and keep them in this box with any books I want to use with the boys and it also is currently home to my master home management binder which will be finished one day in the distant future soon. 

I did decide to take all our manuals apart.  I thought all of two seconds about it long and hard about it.  My decision was based on the fact that some of our books were tattered and torn in need of a little more care.  I decided to take those books apart and put the pages in page protectors.  I hole punched everything and made spine labels and placed everything in the excess binders I somehow accumulated recycled binders.

I went through all of our plans for next year that I had (grammar, math, phonics and handwriting) and divided out the number of lessons by the number of weeks and then put that number of lesson in each week.  For our summer session, I had some plans of some different fun things we would work on so I planned those weeks out accordingly and placed the resources in the appropriate week.

I am a little bit of geek about organization so this system was a lot of fun to set up.  We are finishing up our second week using it and I am finding that having the work divided out in manageable chunks has made it much easier for me to get through the material we need to in a week. 

Also I have been able to look at plans for next week and actually print out some extra worksheets to go along with certain lessons.  This system seems to work well for me because I am a visual learner and this helps keep my perfectionist/ocd tendencies in check.