Help with follow-up

[deltagal]

I still am not on top of things when it comes to following-up with my dc and their independent boxes. Some days there is a follow-up activity and some days there is not and I don't always check, etc., etc. A great example is the independent history in Preparing. On most days the student has an assignment, but on one day or so there is an oral narration. Since it is not an everyday thing, neither one of us are in the habit of making sure this is done and it often gets missed. It sounds like a simple fix, but when you are managing multiple guides and children those oversights start to pile up. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

[davisfam7]

Florence,
No suggestions here, just raising my hand and saying, "I am in the same boat!" I will be interested to see what others post. For a time in our house my husband, as the principle, was coming home and checking my oldest two's school work every night. This was great motivation for them and me. It kept us all accountable. His work has gotten a lot more difficult lately so he is more lax about the checking, and I find myself slipping too! Some week I am on it and good And some weeks it is chaos around here, especially if I have to work a day or two during the week instead of just the weekend!

[deltagal]

Florence,
No suggestions here, just raising my hand and saying, "I am in the same boat!" I will be interested to see what others post. For a time in our house my husband, as the principle, was coming home and checking my oldest two's school work every night. This was great motivation for them and me. It kept us all accountable. His work has gotten a lot more difficult lately so he is more lax about the checking, and I find myself slipping too! Some week I am on it and good And some weeks it is chaos around here, especially if I have to work a day or two during the week instead of just the weekend!

It's too bad we're not neighbors, maybe between the 2 of us we could keep on top of things!

[Heather4Him]

Florence, don't feel bad! I only have one child and struggle with the same thing.

I type up a "summary" of all that we did for school each day (have been doing this since Day 1), and then I print it out at the end of each week and save it in a binder. This has always been my "documentation" of our school days. This does help me to go over each box and skim through everything in the manual for the day, and then I can ask/check to make sure it was done, or have her do it. But, it is an extra step that takes time, and still doesn't always get done thoroughly if we have been extra busy or it's getting late.

[momtofive]

I know how hard this can be, to keep up with mulitple kiddos through the day! Especially when they are in a few different guides. I know Carrie has mentioned in the past that she works with each one on their student/teacher stuff and then later in the day has a little meeting with the child to check up on the work they've done.

It should only take a few minutes, just glancing over each box in their guide book and checking to make sure it's all done. Believe me, I know it's hard to add another thing in to each day, but it reaps so many rewards and time saved later on by trying to find out where or if something was missed. One suggestion would be to try to make a checklist for your child to check off each box in the guide as they finish them. They can see at a glance how far they are and how much is left to do. Then you could include an item on the list "Check work with Mom". When they get to that, you can go over their work together and make sure nothing is missed, as well as checking out the quality of work done! This way you don't have to remember it every day, it just becomes part of the routine.

I've resorted to this and it's helped us tremendously to stay on track each day and not miss anything!

Blessings on finding what works for your family!

[arstephia]

Since it is a 4 day school week, every Thursday afternoon I now sit down and make sure everything has been done/checked/etc. so we can have our "Free Friday" the next day and so I can not think about school over the weekend. I make sure my older kiddo's scores have been recorded into the Homeschool Tracker for the things I am 'grading' (practicing for my upcoming high schooler) like Math, Science lab sheets, and finished writing projects (I use a writing rubric to give scores) and they get points for their finished mapwork, notebooking pages, etc. I am not heavy into the grading, but for the high schooler I will need to quantify grades so this is what I am working with. ALL THAT TO SAY that I just use that one day/evening to make sure everything has been completed acceptably. Whatever hasn't gets taken care of on Friday, and they lose their free time. We had appointments Monday so today (day 4) I heard my son tell my daughter that he couldn't go jump on the trampoline just yet because he had to review the week's work to be sure he'd completed everything before I checked. So he gets it. It just took some time to get to this point, but it works for us.

[MomtoJGJE]

I go through each day after we are done and get their books and all ready for the next day. I get everyone's guide and go through their books from that day (looking over their work because even if I'm sitting right there, sometimes I miss something from a distraction) and then I get out everything needed for the next day. Even doing this with four guides only takes maybe 10-15 minutes (if there is something we missed) and that way we get everything done.

[deltagal]

So many good thoughts. You all make it sound so...simple. As I'm looking over your comments, I'm realizing that my challenge is manifold:
1.) oldest son (age 15) likes to keep his guide and books in his room where he does his work, which is not at all convenient to the school room where everyone else keeps their books,
2.) everyone does have a list that they check with notes -on some things- to check in with me, but I sometimes miss the things that are not routine to check in with me and on some days these things get marked off before they should, so I may not realize until "literally" a week or two or even a year or two (after the fact) that we missed something. And no, that is not a typo.
3.) I don't currently have a predictable time that I can "wrap things up" for the week or the day, but I think it would be worthwhile to strive for this. Perhaps, Wednesday (which we treat as our 5th day) can be our checkpoint? I'll have to mull this over.
4.) We're in a season now where one or more of us are out in the evening or late afternoon and if it is a child then obviously my husband and I are with them. This majorly impacts time available for bringing order to the next day.
5.) The good news is the one challenge that we are on top of this year is the disappearing book phenomenon. Since everyone now has dedicated crates with their books for the year, we're able to locate the next book needed in a timely manner. A real blessing and step-forward from the days when I kept all the books together in a cabinet and never could find a thing.

Here's to organization! Thank you all for your tips. Keep them coming if you have more pearls of wisdom.