Quick Idea for Focus and Reference Charts

Okay, so I'm not such a regular blogger anymore... OH how I WISH posts could go straight from my brain to my blog! I would post all day!

We are smack in the middle of a great year of 7th grade ESL, 10th grade and now I have one in college! I can't believe it! Even with older ones, I still look for great ways to organize and energize our school area. Someone "pinned" an idea awhile back using a paper towel holder, binder rings and page protectors to store scrapbook paper and stickers, and I immediately thought of using it for focus charts and reference pages. It's a great individual-sized "chart stand" for the school table.

So, I stuck one together today, and simply used the pages I already had in the front of my 7th grader's weekly binder. Now they aren't cluttering up his binder and are always accessible.

(These particular charts are available here.)

Source: Uploaded by user via Cyndi on Pinterest

Maybe this will work for you! If so, pin it and let me know! I love sharing ideas. :)

Keeping them Thinking

...Or at least guessing!

You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but sometimes you can't take the classroom out of the teacher. For a homeschooler, that can be good and bad I suppose!

One thing I used to do as a ps teacher, and have continued to do at home, is to have a board in my classroom where I would have various things to "make them think." When I started homeschooling I wanted to continue this idea, and I came across E.D. Hirsch's Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. It contains all kinds of facts (which are interesting in and of themselves) but two things it has are comprehensive lists of English idioms ("get up on the wrong side of the bed", "as the crow flies," etc.) as well as proverbs ("Don't look a gift horse in the mouth", "Don't count your chickens before they hatch", etc) along with the explanations of each. When I came across this, I thought it would be fun to put those in the school room to see if they can guess what they mean, making it a fun way to learn the meanings and be "culturally literate." Another thing I found a couple of years ago is Object Mysteries, cards with pictures of random items that they have to guess. My son, especially, loves to guess what these are. I change them out as they figure out what the sayings mean, or figure out the mystery object... or if they finally give up. :)




It's been a fun way to keep us all thinking!

I didn't take a "before" picture...

... but here's the "after." The school closet is finally cleaned out! And, y'all. It took me all. week. My sweet family patiently stepped over boxes and files and books in the hall all week long while I moved things around. Looking at this picture, and looking at it in real life I think, "SO... what's the big deal?" Well, the big deal was why I didn't even take a before picture. Oh, my word. It had gotten completely out of hand.

And in the interest of being honest, I might as well tell you where this closet is. You might be imagining it in a school room or off of a hallway. Maybe in your mind's eye I have a wonderfully spacious home fraught with closet space and this is perhaps one of the closets in a spare room. No. This is the linen closet (I suppose that's what the floor plan meant for it to be) in our small powder bathroom downstairs. The "study" (our school room) is in the next room, and this space made the most sense for me. We keep towels and sheets, well, elsewhere. I actually had a homeschool friend use our powder room once while she was here, and she counted the Delta Science kits (in the top of the closet) while she was in there! LOL That's more interesting for a homeschooler than going through someone's medicine cabinet, I suppose. Now that I know my friends do this (and I don't mind.. I'd probably do the same!) it'll be easier now that it's all organized. (I'm here to serve...) Oh, and since I'm being so honest, need I tell you where I had to, um, perch while taking this picture? I'll let you guess. :)

So, there you have it. Last week's project. And, since order in one place creates disorder in another, I've got boxes of "stuff" out in the garage to file (I've got filing cabinets in the garage) and sell in our homeschool group's used book sale. More projects!

What's on the "school menu" this week?

A few years ago I was back-to-school shopping at Sam's Club and found a flourescent marker board (like they use in restaurants) and I thought it looked like so much fun... for something. (I just can't pass up stuff at Sam's!) So, I bought it and hung it in our schoolroom. I decided to put our "weekly specials" on it. Each week (usually Sunday) when I'm finalizing our lesson plans for the coming week I check through our calendar for any outside activities or things we want to (1) remember or (2) look forward to. I added some fun border around it (from the teacher's store.)

It's fun to change it out with fun lettering each week and the kids like to glance up there and see what the "specials" are! This afternoon as I was "changing the menu" for the coming week, I thought I'd stick a picture of it on my blog in case it might work for someone else.

Have a fun week, whatever you've got cookin' in your school!