Trialling yet another organisation method

I've been trying various methods of organising our daily schedule ever since we started homeschooling about 6 years ago. These have been in the form of scrawled notes on our fridge magnetic whiteboard, then written out lists on A4 pages posted up on the wall with blu-tac, to printed out Excel documents (showing too much detail). I usually just deferred back to writing up my diary/planner, pencilling in my intentions but writing in ink once it was done.

During the recent homeschooling camp, a friend shared her planning and recording methods, so I've taken on what I've learnt and attempting yet another variation.

We've trialled it for a week and both of the children are quite happy with how it's working. Mariposa is enjoying seeing me tick off that the work has been done for the day, whilst Maestro has always been methodical and quite likes how this works too.

Using Word, I've made up a timetable. Each A4 page has a timetable for each child, which has then been cut in half so we have A5 pages like so:

I haven't specified times, except for the 'out of home' activities such as violin and dance lessons. Except for those topics which are shared (such as Bible Study and SOTW), I'm letting the children choose the order in which they work.

A term's worth of timetable pages are collated and stapled into the front cover of a manila folder. In preparation for the week, I'll pencil in the work (ie: pages/topics) to be done, adding any reproducibles, their daily spelling worksheet, etc. into the folder. It also means I can plan ahead for trips to the library for research, and check for relevant excursions, even if it's just to the pet shop to look at kittens and puppies paws, down to the creek or park for nature study specimens, or an 'out all day' at the museum.

Hopefully this will create more independence for the children to just pick up their work and get on with it without waiting for me (and that certainly happened with Mariposa this week!) As the work is actually completed, I'll pen it in and tick it off.

This manilla folder is now going to live at the front of a box, per child. The boxes hold all of the books in current use.

It's just another way of doing the same thing, but hopefully creating a bit more order.