Lesson Planning, The Bane of My Existence (Part II)

Welcome back for more!  I'm surprised you did not delete my feed from your reader and promise never to come back here!  LOL

Now for the shakedown on how I manage the Little's school work and planning.

The Littles each have a series of binders as well...one 1.5-inch one for the work they need for the week, a big 3-inch binder for work they have to do, and another 3-inch binder for work completed.  The smaller binder has a divider for each school day, Monday through Friday.  All the worksheets needed for the week are filed under the day they are scheduled.  (Note: I cut apart any workbooks and hole-punch them to put into the binder.)  As work is completed, I file the page by subject in the front of the binder.  When the binder gets thick, I'll transfer it to the competed work binder.   At the beginning of the school day (or, when I'm on my game, the night before), I take the worksheets from behind the day of the week divider in the binder and put them onto a clip board (color-coded, of course).  I also name and date each paper. 

The competed work binder has a divider for each subject and regular activity.

The work-to-do binder has a numbered divider for each week of the school year (a la The Full-Year Notebook System).  I file all the worksheets and papers needed for the year in this binder behind the week they are needed.  At the beginning of each week, I pull the stack of papers out and divide them up across the week in the weekly binder.  This system is working nicely for us.  It only causes problems when we are behind on a subject here or there.  One other note about this whole set up...I am the only one who touches the binders for the Littles.  They just have access to their own clipboard and an in box.  I imagine it would get messy if many hands were dealing with the binders.

I also have a weekly schedule for each student (also, color-coded).  Since DJ and Janie are doing most of the same work, I use the same sheet for both.  Where they are working on different things (like poems and music) I just list both and know whose is whose.  Here is an example of our weekly schedule.

As promised in my last post about lesson planning, here is an example of the planning grid for the Littles.  (In the interest of space, I deleted blank rows.)
 
The Grade Grid looks much the same, just with the actual work completed each day and grade (if assigned).

If you have any questions or comments about my crazy way of planning and keeping sane in the face of teaching four students with a toddler under foot, let me know.