There comes a day in late June, sometimes early July, when a certain letter in the mail interrupts my summer reverie, and I suddenly realize it's time to get my story straight - it's time once again to "report in."
That's right, the annual school department letter arrived today, reminding me they need the end-of-the-year report I promised them way back last June (which I did), and, should we plan to contine home-educating our children for the coming year (which we do), we must send in our "stuff" ASAP - or by the latest, July 15th.
Well, you and I both know how quickly July 15th will arrive. It behooves me to get started right away.
- Step one: Write the end-of-the-year reports.
- Step two: Write the educational plans for the new year.
So I got down to work this morning, beginning, as always with my file crate, the hub of my home office (and described, by the way, in a ridiculous amount of detail, here).
First, I pull out last year's weekly folders (pictured at top), make sure they're all accounted for and in order, and set them aside. I will use the contents of these folders to help me remember what we did, books we read, places we went, etc. Once I've gone through them all I will file them away, probably in a cardboard storage box. Ideally I would purge the unnecessary stuff and file the rest in a large binder marked 06-07, but I probably won't take the time to do so.
After a year's time, the 52 folders are all too abused to be re-used, so I start again with all new folders. (This pains my environmentalist husband, but satisfies the office supply geek in me to no end. Ah, fresh manilla ...) This year I decided to change up the color scheme a bit. Last year I used all pale florals, but this year I'm going with soft Americana colors - red, gold and green. I think it suits my "boys' school" just right. ;)
Now some folks might say that messing around with a bunch of scrapbooking paper and matching folders is just a fancy way of procrastinating the real work to be done ... and I would say to those folks: True - but I really find that setting an inviting stage and refreshing the materials (I even dust out the crate) is a great first step when moving from from one year to the next.
Here are some photos from the project:
Here we have the crate awaiting new folders, the old folders stacked to the right in back and supplies for the planning binders in front.
Oh yes, the planning binders:
A new idea this year. I decided to break the year into three sections - gold for July to October (Ordinary Time/summer/fall), maroon for November to February (Advent/Christmas/winter), and green for March to June (Lent/Easter/spring). I'll post more about the planning binders soon (still a work in progress), but for now I will say each one will have an overview of the season and a planning page for each week of that time.
The new files were dated and filed in the crate (that's my homekeeping binder sticking up in the back, and I chose a plain magazine holder to hold the three binders.
For the time being I parked the crate on a small tv-tray by the bookcase in the learning room. I used to keep it on the longer dining table, but I am no longer using that as a desk, but rather a true dining table.
The contents include, from left to right: my homekeeping binder, 52 weeks worth of manilla folders stored in bi-monthly hanging folders, a set of three planning binders and at the far right, my month-at-a-glance calendar.
It's not the most convenient spot for it, but it works for now.
Once I've looked through all the folders and have made my notes, I'll work them up into a narrative - one for each son over six (that would make two so far). To further flesh out my reports, I also look through my month-at-a-glance calendar going back to last fall and I peruse the bookcases as well.
With the reports written, I'll shift my focus from past to future, and I'll launch into a plan for next year. And I'd very much like to talk more about that, but it looks like my computer time is up for now. I hope you enjoyed this peek into my "file crate day" - it feels good to have gotten this done! And now I'm off to start supper. :)
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