Daily Assignment Sheets ~ Free Printables

Our girls have several subjects that they work on independently {math, typing, reading, Spanish, etc….}. At times, it can be a little difficult to track exactly what has been finished when and then get that information transferred into my planner and records. Pieces of notebook paper get lost in the shuffle, so it was time to get a little colorful and laminated.

Enter the Daily Assignment Sheet.

Each of the girls has their own sheet that is laminated. Their page has the subjects that they typically work on independently ~ basically any subject that they need to let me know the information about.

Here is a sample of McKenna’s page where she tracks what she read in her Bible, her math lessons, reading each day, bonus science studies, Spanish lessons, typing lessons and any ‘extras’ {like blogging or letter writing}. There is also a space for her to record goals that she {or I} has set to accomplish.

The girls use a wet erase {Vis-à-vis marker} to write down what they’ve done daily and then turn them into me at the end of the week. I can then transfer over the information. So far, it’s working great!

You can download a copy of Daily Assignment Sheets to use with your kids too ~ click here to download them!

 

Visit these great companies!

• All About Learning Press ~ Spelling & reading programs that are easy to teach and easy to learn.
• We Choose Virtues….tools for inspiring character in children!

 

Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ Edit AND Save It!

It’s finally done and I am SO very excited to share this updated version of my Weekly Homeschool Planner with you all!!

What’s so special about the new planner? Each of the pdf pages can be typed in, edited, and saved to your own computer every time you use it. Type lesson plans into the page and print them off or simply save them to your computer ~ the choice is up to you!

Edit plans any time and even save the planner to your computer to have a digital copy each year. Organize your school day, record your daily learning, track testing results and more! Personalize it to fit your family! 

It is a homeschool planner you’ll use year after year.

Click on image for a peek inside!

The Weekly Homeschool Planner can be printed double-sided on 8 1/2” x 11” paper.  Here’s a little more detailed look at what the 138 page editable planner includes:

• 12 blank months-at-a-glance
• Daily attendance tracking
• 40 weeks of weekly planning and journal sheets: each page can be customized to the subjects that your family studies and can be saved to your computer!
• Yearly attendance tracking sheets
• Yearly curriculum planning sheets
• Yearly planning and evaluation sheets
• Preschool planning sheets
• Field trip/Event plan sheets
• Important contacts info
• Additional note space
• Standardized testing and yearly assessment result tracking
• Homeschooling requirement planning
• Daily to-do lists
• Main dish menu planner
• Customizable chore charts

If you use it and love it, be sure to join the Weekly Homeschool Planner affiliate program and share the planner with your friends.

Thank you all so much for your encouragement in putting this together!! :)

Preschool Corner ~ Planning Forms

This last week and a half has been spent planning, organizing, re-organizing and pulling together ideas for what our upcoming year is going to look like. Overall, it’s finally beginning to ‘click’ and I’m getting an idea of what the year will look like for Kaleb ~ and that’s exciting for me.

In all honesty, I feel that he gets the leftovers when it comes to learning time, especially as I’m trying to fit in all that the older three need to do. I really wanted to have something in place for him that he would be excited about, I would be excited about…and that would be fun! Cindy from Along the Way has been busy working with me to come up with some literature based units that we can do with our boys and it has been FUN!!! We’re working on some fun printables and lapbook-style units that we’re so excited about!

This week we brought home some monarch caterpillars and have a new space {thanks to my re-organizing} to watch and observe the caterpillars up close. Wednesday morning the kids woke up and were able to watch Kaleb’s caterpillar go into its chrysalis ~ SO much fun!! We were able to video tape it too and Kaleb was so excited about the ‘dancing’ that it was doing. :)

I’ve posted about the planning pages that we used last year, but this year I’ve revamped them a little bit and focused it more toward literature-based studies. If you would like to download the 2 page Preschool Planning form, just click on the thumbnail images below.

 

We try to get all of our ‘school time’ done Monday through Thursday. The first page has room for planning daily activities in the following areas: reading {related to something in the actual book}, doing {something that we can do that relates to the topic: lapbook, gross motor, math, etc…}, song/game, Bible {verse/song}, and crafts. The second page gives me room to expand my ideas and jot down notes for the following areas: Bible/Character, Language, Science/Nature, Math, Gross/Fine Motor, Arts & Crafts, Songs & Games.

At the bottom of the page, I also have room to plan what the basic layout of Kaleb’s workboxes will be for the week. I have 9 planning spaces {the workbox unit that we’re using has 9 boxes overall} ~ but we’ll be using only 6 of the boxes, with 3 as more some fun ‘extras’ for our day. I’ll be sharing more soon with pictures of our school area layout for this year, so stay tuned for that!

Are YOU getting excited for the upcoming year??? Link up what you’ve been doing and what you are planning on doing. :) Can’t wait to see what you ladies are up to with your kids this year!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

 

 

Our Chore System & Chore Chart Printables

We’ve had our new chore system in place for about a month now and so far it’s working well for us. In the past we have tried to use the chore system from Managers of Their Homes…but cards started getting lost, the younger ones had trouble getting them in and out of the pouches and overall it just didn’t work as well for us as I had envisioned.

I also want to explain a little bit of the ‘why’ behind our chore system and how we’re implementing it in our household. You may {or may not} agree with our reasoning…and that’s ok, but this has developed after a lot of talking and merging of different ideas. The full page chore chart goes along with our Weekly Workbox System Grid and is the same size, so it fits as the top page of the set and hangs on the wall.

The Basics of the System

In life there are things that we do on a day-to-day basis that are unpaid and things that result {generally} in a paycheck. Rick mows the lawn, does upkeep on the house, takes out the trash…but other than a thanks from me, it’s an unpaid job. :) He has a paid job that involves him showing up to work on time, completing certain tasks, etc… Neither of us want our children growing up thinking that money is just handed to them. We want them to develop a good work ethic and understand the balance between work and pay  ~ if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. If you DO work, there are benefits to that. We also want them to learn how to budget their money and manage it before they are in their teens or 20’s and don’t have a clue what to do.

The system that we’re using has two parts: expected chores and paid chores. The two sets go hand in hand though. The expected chores need to be done in order for the paid chores to get paid out. That means that no money is earned unless the basic chores are completed {and Mommy checks to make sure they are done!}.

There are certain things that we expect our kids to do around the house because they are members of the household ~ making of beds, picking up of rooms, etc… Those are the basic chores. Each of our kids has a set of 3 morning expected morning chores and 3 afternoon/evening chores.

Our chore charts are attached to our Weekly Workbox Grid and hang on the wall so the kids have easy access to them. They are laminated and have check boxes next to each of the chores so I can check off with a Sharpie when they have completed a chore {and remove the Sharpie marks later with nail polish remover}. The last column is the “Today I Earned” column where we they can see how much they earned that day. Payday is Saturday and Sunday is a day of rest and no earning. :)

Laurianna’s Chore Chart

Each of the kids has 3 additional chores a day that will earn them money. The money varies from child to child ~ the older they get and the more ‘responsible’ the chore is, they earn a little extra…but we’re still cheap!. They cannot earn the money unless they complete their daily chores {i.e. if they miss one of the daily chores, no cash even if they complete all of the ones they can earn on}. It might seem a little harsh, but the kids are quickly learning the importance of completing what has been put in front of them!

The Chores

Here’s a list of the daily/expected chores that we have for the kids on their charts. They obviously have other things they need to do during the day, but these are the key things we chose to focus on and they may change out if we are having difficulty with certain things being done. For example, oral hygiene is high on the list for a certain 5 year old....

Laurianna {age 9}: make bed/pick-up room, water plants, devotions, pick-up school stuff, clean up basement {family room}, shoes/jacket away, clean off dresser and under bed

McKenna {age 7}: same as above

Zachary {age 5}: make bed/pick-up room, brush teeth, devotions, pick-up school stuff, clean up basement/family room, shoes/jacket away, clean under bed

Kaleb {age 3}: make bed, pick-up room, devotions, wipe table/chairs, pick-up basement/family room, shoes/jacket away

The paid chores change daily, and again there are things that the kids are still expected to do {like put away their laundry}, but these are the extra paid chores by child.

Laurianna: Clean out bathroom sink, start load of laundry, vacuum basement and spare room, clean toilets, dust living room, and yardwork {25 cents a chore, max of 75 cents day}.

McKenna: Wash breakfast table, laundry from washer to dryer, vacuum bedroom, wash bathroom mirror, clean bathroom counters, and yardwork {20 cents a chore, max of 60 cents day}.

Zachary: Load the dishwasher, clothes out of dryer, clean out the van, vacuum bedroom, wash patio door, wash bathroom mirror/clean walls, and yardwork {15 cents a chore, max of 45 cents day}.

Kaleb: Help sort dirty clothes & help start laundry {with Laurianna}; vacuum living room & kitchen; empty bathroom trash; wash patio door; help with dishes; and yardwork {10 cents a chore, max of 30 cents day}.

Payday

Saturday is payday at our house because there aren’t any chores that earn money on Sunday. When we pay the kids for their chores, we also divide out the money that they have earned as follows: 20% giving {we want them to be generous from the start!}, 40% savings and 40% spending.

Rick and I are huge fans of Dave Ramsey and have led his Financial Peace class at our church several times because we have experienced first hand the importance of being debt free. We were deeply in debt {not including our house} to the tune of almost $65,000 around the time Zachary was born. We got serious about paying off that debt {gazelle intensity as Dave would say} and paid it all off in 19 months! We made many dumb money mistakes over the years and really want to teach our children how to deal with money now while we can ~ so they don’t repeat the same mistakes that we made. If you are interested, I would highly recommend the book Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. That was a bunny trail, but I think it’s important that you also understand a little more of the why behind what we do!

The Charts

Obviously your house and chores may not line up with what we have listed, but if you’d like to use the grid that I made, you can download the blank chore chart templates, write in your chores and then laminate them to use. The Chore Chart printables have 5 pages, all the same format, just different colors ~ purple, pink, blue, green and white.

I’m revamping Kaleb’s a little bit, since he can’t read yet. His will be a picture version of the chore chart and I’ll be sharing that soon with you all too! It’ll be more ‘preschool-style’ when all is said and done. :)

You can download the Chore Chart printables pdf file by clicking on the image below.

Preschool Corner: Preschool Planning Form

Want to know how much we actually did this week?

{silence}

I played hookey. Serious hookey. As in 'leaving the state and escaping spending time with my husband and meeting a GREAT blogging friend in real life' hookey.

Meaning nothing got accomplished in the way of schoolwork {unless you count Mommy getting re-energized a part of schoolwork}. Which really ~ that is VERY important, no? {grins}

And I can't wait to share more on my meeting with Carisa from 1+1+1=1 and Jill from Forever 'n Ever 'n Always. Such absolute fun. Really and truly!!! But she holds all the picture proof...so I'm at her mercy!

BUT...I do have something to share with you all! I realized the other day that I never shared my preschool planning pages with you all, so it's another printable this week for you all {and yes...they do look a lot like my Tot School planning forms ~ just a little different}.

Click on the thumbnail to download printable

I'm also working like crazy behind the scenes to get the preschool part of my website up and running so you all can access my printables in one easy place...little by little it's getting there. But enough about our crazy week, tell me all about the fun that's going on at your place!!!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and include a link back here too! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

What's in My Homeschool Planner?

Are you the least bit curious? I've finally printed off the last of my planner pages, have all my pretty binder clips, found a lovely 3-ring binder, some nice colored dividers...it's pure bliss!

I am using a lot of the forms that I have in the Weekly Homeschool Planner I created {and you can have it too!}, but some of the forms are a little more tailored to our family. Since we have a double-sided printer now, I can print off the forms the way I want them to go in my binder...'cause I can be a little particular like that! You can get an idea on the layout of my pages in this pdf sample of my homeschool planner.

Want to know what's in the planner and how I have things divided out? I found the funky notebook and dividers at Walmart and went from there.

On the back side of my hokey title page {can't stand a blank piece of paper...} I have a page that lists all the homeschool requirements from our state and school district: statute & code specifics, what is required of me, from me, contact information for the local school district, who was notified about our intent to homeschool, where the letter of intent was mailed, and when records are required from us.

The binder then is divided up into the following sections:

Blog

I know not all of you would have this section in your notebooks, but between this blog, No Ordinary Moments {my everyday blog}, and Totally Tots....I need a place to keep track of when things are due, what's due, and a place to write down any ideas that I get. I have a running list of post ideas as well as calendars that I've printed off using Cozi that help me keep tabs on stuff.

Monthly Plans

This is where I keep our 'Year at a Glance' sheet and also copies of monthly calendars so I can map out our school year by date including breaks and what we're planning on studying for geography. The 'Year at a Glance' gives me the overall view of what to plug in and I can get more specific with the dated calendar. At the end of this section I have copies of my Geography Planning Sheets so I can plan out each of the countries we are doing and write in resources as I find them.

Weekly Plans

This is the 'nuts & bolts' of our day to day school life. My planning pages for each week are four pages long {only 2 pages front/back}, mainly because of the ages of the kids. The bulk of the girls planning is done on two pages {Galloping the Globe, math, reading/writing/language, Bible, science, Latin, and art}. The second page from the girls is the workbox planning sheet - how each day of the week will lay out. {I'll be posting some of my workbox stuff soon!!}

Kaleb and Zachary take up the next two pages. I'm using my Tot School Planning form for Kaleb and a more basic planning form for Zachary since he is Kindergarten this year. I have space for Bible, math, language/spelling, science, handwriting, and geography for Zachary.

Curriculum Plans & Evaluation

This section helps me keep track of what I am using this year for texts, if it is already purchased {I am still hunting down a few things} and what we have/haven't completed. It's great for me to see it all at a glance and remember some of the more obscure textbooks that I have for us to use.

The yearly plans and evaluations sheets are a place for me to keep track of my goals for our kids that year ~ and a great place to periodically check on through the year and see where we are {or re-adjust the goals that we have}.

I also have pages in this section to keep track of our testing results {yes, we do standardized planning at this point} and any other important evaluation information.

Notes & Contacts

Lots of blank pages for me to jot notes and ideas throughout the day and also keep track of the various homeschoolers and resources in our area.

Reviews

A little section for me to keep track of my review due dates and information for review writing.

Ideas

When I see something online or in a magazine that I like I try to either rip out the page or print it off and stash it in this section. I just punch it with a 3-ring punch and can flip through some of the fun ideas to use during our school year.

Household

This section sees {ahem} little use. I think it's really there to just humor me and appease the side of me that likes to feel 'on top of things'. I have detailed lists of all the glorious things that I would like to accomplish in our house on a daily basis. Really, the thought of it just makes me giggle. Seriously.

That's it! A quick glimpse into this years planner for you all! Now I just need to actually USE it and start planning!

The Places We'll Go...

I made a new form {surprise, surprise} to help me visualize our year in segments. I haven't pinpointed exactly when we're going to start...considering it would be most helpful to maybe get our schedule in place a little more before starting.

Truthfully, I'm stalling because I'm a little more nervous with figuring out a day with the three oldest. But shhhhh....

Click on the thumbnail to print off the form

I have figured out a rough plan of action and in case you were wondering what countries are in the works for this year and roughly when to expect them, here's our outline:

Weeks 1-6: Intro/review, Spain, Italy and the solar system

Weeks 7-12: New Zealand, Australia, koala bears, and South Africa

Weeks 13-18: South Africa, Kenya, and Morocco

Weeks 19-24: Nigeria, Egypt, {insert something related to Egypt here - specific, eh?}, and Brazil

Weeks 25-30: Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, and Argentina

Weeks 31-36: Argentina, Mexico, and Canada

Tot School Planning Form

I mentioned a few weeks back in one of my Tot School posts that I had pulled together a form to help me plan out my 'school time' with Kaleb. My theory being if I actually have an 'official form' staring me in the face I would be more consistent and have some better activities for Kaleb to do each day.

My goal is to plan at least 3 intentional activities to do with Kaleb each day. I also made room for additional ideas{songs/fingerplays, gross and fine motor, or lapbooks}. The form can be printed off front and back and I've been tacking it up on our fridge so that I can see the week at a glance too ~ and it is helping me out! In case you are interested in using it too, you can click on the thumbnail image below and print off your own copy.

If you'd like more information on Tot School, visit Carisa at 1+1+1=1 and join in the fun!