"It's Working!" Our NEW System for Home School

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Don't you just love when you find a system that WORKS!!  With much thinking and consideration we have finally found a system for our home school!  I've been waiting to share this with you after our trial period which was this past summer.  It's simple, visual, and expandable!  Let me explain...

First, we purchased a Melissa & Doug magnetic calendar.  This calender comes with lots of magnets!!  We are using the month, year, numbered dates, and some of the picture magnets that represent special events or activities (see photo above).  The top half includes the calender and the bottom half is a magnetic white board!  (The calendar magnets contain very small pieces so I wouldn't recommend this for very young children.)

One of our daily activities is placing the numbered date on our calender each morning.  We "build" our calender throughout the month by adding each number for the day!  I like using this activity for number recognition and of course calender learning skills.  There are many calender learning activities that we can EXPAND into as we progress but for now it's simple, add the number then say the date (today is Monday, September 1st, 2014).

The magnetic white board space, below the calendar, is where I keep my daily home school activities The picture above displays four activities; ABC's, Math, Calendar, and Story Time.  My correlating lesson plan may have looked like this...

ABC's: Playdoh Mat for the letter Aa
Math:  Number puzzle 0-10
Calendar: Place today's number on the board
Story Time: Read, "Back to School"

During our home school time my child chooses an activity stick, we complete the activity, then she places the activity stick into the bucket (see picture above).  It's that simple!

I like this system for several reasons...

1. It provides accountability.  Each day we have a set of simple, age-appropriate, displayed tasks to complete and it's fun to accomplish each one, then put them in the bucket for DONE!
2. It's flexible.  I choose how many activities to display and which ones.  This creates flexibility to maintain our daily home school schedule yet adjust the length based on the needs of the day.  For example, if I have a busy day I am able to limit the amount of tasks yet still maintain our daily home school routine.
3. It creates choice.  Even though I choose how many tasks and which ones to display, my child still has a choice to pick which one is first, next, and last.
4. It's working for us! 

Above is a picture of how I made my activity sticks.  I used wood craft sticks (jumbo sized) for my activity stick and mod podge to adhere a paper with the activity name and correlating clip art to the stick.  Then I added a self-adhesive magnet. (To simplify this process just write the activity name with a permanent marker directly onto the craft stick!)

Pictured above is how I organize my daily home school activities.  Inside each daily folder are the activities I desire to complete for the day.  Of course some items do not fit in the folders like puzzles, stamps, or paints but it is nice to have a place for the paper items or books (see picture below).

I'm looking forward to sharing with you the many activities we complete with our new system officially tested and approved! Thanks for reading!!