I seek your guidance, oh wise ones!
With the baby coming, and the overall plan to switch to a predominately literature-based course of study for a couple of months after little Heinie's arrival, I'm contemplating using a worksheet-based approach to the new binders, which will be designed to carry us through the next ten weeks. Something supplemental to add a little... a little... I have no idea what (paper trail? clutter? life is just getting too tidy? What, exactly, am I thinking, here?)
Anyway, I've seen some gorgeous binders. Spinneretta puts together a simply stunning homekeeping book, for example. But something for the kids - anybody do that? Anybody who does that want to share? If you'll share what you do, I will take pictures and 'fess up to what we've been doing (it'll be sort of a What Not To Do expose' on binder systems, if you will).
Yep, that'd be awesome. Right now, I've wasted four hours digging up clipart and making cover pages for various sections. All printed out on brightly colored paper for each child. And somewhere around the third printing of some stoopid calendar page, I realized several things:
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I should probably ask the pros on this one.
And I'm rapidly slipping into an unhealthy condition over the clipart, alone.
(Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right? *ahem* Right...)
I'm shooting for something simple, yet engaging for the boys. Somehow, their current binder system (lovingly slaved over and "perfected", with their input) has developed some kind of kryptonite-like residue on it. They can't use it. They can't put paper in it. They find a pencil in the pouch (or add the one they've been using all day). They can't even find the hole punch, if it's for the binder. (Though they can find it, use it, and then open the bottom of it, when it's for some project of theirs!)
Ok, I'm going to decompress a bit and find something to snack on. Talk amongst yourselves. And please, for the love of educational portfolios everywhere, throw me a line, here! Please?
Kiss those babies!
~Dy
And while I'm soliciting help - how can I get text to wrap around an object? You know, so the words can co-exist beside the photo. :-) Thanks.
4 comments:
Clip art is addictive, isn't it? I am clueless on organizational systems, but will be coming back here to see if some who are not so challenged offer good advice. My notebooks for the kids consist of totally random pages of their least sloppy work, hole punched and filed by order of time. You have a long way to go to beat me as the poster child for how Not to do notebooks!
I can't help you with the binder but I can provide a general answer to your HTML question.
Using the float style on an image will make it move to the side and wrap text around it. I'll try to do it here but I don't know if Blogger will keep my markup...
<img src="..." style="float: left; margin: 5px;" />
<p>Here's some text about your image that you want to appear beside the image. The Image should be floated left and the text wrapping around it on the right side. The margin style on the image provides some spacing so that your text doesn't run into the image.</p>
If that didn't come through or you didn't understand, let me know and I'll setup an example and email you.
Also, I'm not sure how Bloggers tools will work with stuff like that, but give it a shot.
Here's my system. It works fairly well. But, organizational people might just get the dry heaves if they read it.
For each week I have a file folder. It has our plan in it, along with copies of whatever we might need for the week. When the kids finish working on a page - a history narration, a handwriting page, whatever - I stick it into the file folder. At the end of the week, I stick the file folder in a drawer, and pull out the next week's folder and get it ready.
When I have a few completed weeks of file folders accumulated, I pull them out along with the binders and the hole punch, and I do one big session of adding to the notebook.
So far I've kept up with it in spite of the fact that I'm much like your children when it comes to the hole punch. But if I don't? I have a tidy stack of file folders, labeled with the week's date, that I can go back to if need be.
It's not the perfect system, but because it keeps the work divided by week, it keeps me sane. Before I had a huge "inbox" thing going on and sorting that mess out when I got around to it - well that was a nightmare and a half.
Have fun with your clipart!
Hello, Dy! Yes, I've been lurking and not commenting. Please, don't be upset with me.
First, I would love to say congratulations on that sweet little baby boy! I think it's awesome that you're having another little boy. EmBaby is gorgeous and I simply can NOT believe she is already 2! Your whole family is so beautiful and handsome. You and Zorak are doing an amazing job!
I wanted to throw you a line about the binders. :) I have spent hours making planners for the sprites (now you know who I am ;)). I did my own custom job on most of it but I did gather some ideas from the internet and various other homeschool planning pages. I don't know if what I've done would be of any service to you but you're welcome to take a look if you like. I can tweak the calendar and send it to you in a file then you could make minor adjustments as you see fit. The adjustments needed will make sense when you see it.
I've also made planners for my girls. I haven't yet started on little man's because I still keep up with his work. So, the planner pages are a little bit on the pretty side but could also be tweaked if you like what you see.
Let me know if you're interested. Just e-mail me at wilson_academyof3@yahoo.com.
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