Organizing Our Homeschool Papers and Plans in Weekly Files

I was really inspired this summer when I read about the file crate system that Dawn is using. I thought, "Wow -- I like that idea!" While she uses hers for school and just about every aspect of their daily life (menu planning, etc.), I was just interested in getting our school stuff organized.

Because of this, and because we are using Winter Promise as a good chunk of our curriculum for this year (social studies, science, and reading), I actually didn't date our folders, but made 36 "week" folders. I realized that we might not finish a folder in exactly a week from time to time, but I think this will make me feel less stressed out if I am "behind" than if there were dates assigned.

But, just in case there are some things that are time sensitive, I have also made twelve folders in the back for each month of the year. That way, I can throw things in there ahead of time (like, for instance, if there is a Christmas activity that I know we want to do) even if I don't know exactly which week we will be on at that point.

(I just used an $8 file box from Target and put five folders inside each hanging folder.)


Inside each folder, I currently have our papers and assignments for all of our Winter Promise things. In addition to this, I have already cut out all of the Timeline Figures that we need to put in our timeline book for that week.


Each week will also have our weekly schedule (I'll only do these no more than two weeks ahead at a time), which I am using from Donna Young's website. I will also check our monthly folders to see if anything needs to go in them before that week, as well as putting in any needed copies or various other papers that we need that week.

My planning was so crazy and disorganized last year. But, this year -- I already feel so much more relief that it is all organized and ready to go!

This post is linked to: Works for Me Wednesday (Back to School Edition) and Thirsty Thursday.