Getting ready to teach (LHTH and Beyond)

[MrsDan]

Hello, I have four children: 3.5yoG, 3.5yoG, 6yoB, 8yoG. The little girls are doing LHTH. The older two are doing Beyond.

We have attempted to do HOD for two weeks and it's gone well. I love how it's open-and-go. Yet, with how busy our household is, I am finding that I need to plan ahead a bit. As I've perused online, I see some really cool set-ups for notebooks and such.

I have a two-part question:
1. What has worked on a daily/weekly basis to help you have your supplies in order (e.g. masking tape for mapping) and to have a plan for which of the activities you want to (some of the boxes have options for different levels of difficulty).
2. What is the most streamlined way to handle paper (purchased guides, student paper, records) that provides rich assistance to children and mom while not creating busy work or additional admin?

I saw the schedules for how to combine two levels in the other threads and that was helpful.

Thanks!
A

[hs.mama07]

Hi! Welcome to HOD!! We're also doing Beyond and LHTH right now and really enjoying it!

Here's what we do. Not sure if it will be helpful or not. We recently went through the process of moving, with all the lovely staging, showing, looking, packing, unpacking that goes along with it ahhh! and several family illnesses in the midst of all that. So I feel like I'm not fully on top of everything. But, at the least, we always know where our papers and supplies are and so far, nothing has gotten lost, so I guess my current method is at least partially effective, lol.

LHTH. Currently I just have a tupperware box I place everything in. Each week there is a "count on me" sheet, a number page (later in the book it will be colors if I remember right), a letter picture, and an art project. (this is off the top of my head . We display any food artwork and then usually just throw it away, as I've found those tend to get rather icky and messy (We takes pictures first if they are sad to see it go). Artwork is also displayed and then placed into the box. At the end of the year, we will go through everything and decide what to keep. My first son got rid of the count on me pages and some of the art work, but wanted to keep all his number and color pages and a good bit of his artwork (including letter art). Those, we placed in a three ring binder (using three hole punch and/or page protectors). He still enjoys looking through that book.

As for deciding which activity to do and being prepared, I generally just read through it right before starting and decide whether to do the older or younger option. I do this while my older son is doing something semi-independent, like copywork or while he is taking a break and the boys are playing. Usually, the items are so easy to find, it just takes a few minutes.

Beyond: We have a handwriting notebook for copywork and another wide ruled notebook for spelling. Then I have a folder to collect any other written assignments, like something written in story time or history (we have a stack of loose leaf paper--construction paper, wide ruled paper, and copy paper we use for these). This folder is also where we store our timeline. These notebooks and the folder are just stored with our school books in the kitchen, so they are easy to find and grab. At the end of the year I will sort through everything and save most of it in a three ring binder with page protectors. My original plan was to put everything directly into page protectors...just haven't gotten there yet.

Artwork goes into another plastic box and is mixed with non-school artwork (we have a lot of artwork in our family). This is not ideal. I'd rather have school art separated and put right into the page protectors, but, well, it's not going anywhere and it's all labeled, so when things calm down I will sort through it and organize it. All in good time.

Hope that helps some. Feel free to clarify if this doesn't answer your questions! Have a good weekend!

(Forgot to mention, we have all our art and school supplies in the kitchen which is where we do school...so usually I can find items needed for the day pretty quickly. It hardly takes any time to prepare. God bless Carrie for this!!

[StephanieU]

I would do similar to what the previous poster said. I would print out/copy all of the sheets for LHTH now and file them in an easy to find spot or binder. Then put the guide, Bible, devotional, and masking tape in a bin of some sort along with plain paper, glue, and some easy options for the letters (stickers, pieces of paper, etc). You can always substitute that way if you don't have the item Carrie suggests on hand. I also had a few weeks of the pictures of the number pages ready. I just used clip art since we don't get many magazines.
For Beyond, we just needed basic school supplies most weeks. We had primary ruled paper, scissors, colored pencils and crayons, and our timeline in an easy to find spot. I would then read the rotating box for the next 5-10 days the night before I planned on going grocery shopping so I could pick up any "special" items like cream. I did this with LHTH as well some times (but we only got through Unit 6 before shelving it because my little ones just weren't interested in school yet).

[MelInKansas]

I am a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of gal. I have the sheets for LHTH scanned (I ended up scanning as I went the first time around but now they are saved on our network storage drive) and print one off whenever I need it.

My kids all have 3 ring notebooks in which we keep all their work, except for some of the artwork. Page protectors for some things and some are 3 hole punched. There are subject dividers. For LHTH/LHFHG I also make a sticker chart for the reading lessons so they can put a sticker on for each reading lesson accomplished (and The Reading Lesson has some pages that are copied and written on and those go in the notebook too).

Beyond there are dividers in the notebook for their copywork/art with the poetry, and the other art projects. I keep the art projects filed in there, after they spend a little while on our art wall. I'm trying to remember what other sheets there are in Beyond, seems like there wasn't much. My older kids all had the same binder for LHTH through Beyond to store their stuff and then from Bigger on up are having one binder to fill each year.

I don't know if homeschoolers are ever audited in your state, but they really aren't in mine. But if I ever was, or ever needed to provide any proof of what I have done I have the guide to show what we did, and the notebooks to show that they did it.

I do throw a lot of paper away still though. Any 3D art or food art as others mentioned. I do try to take a picture, but really can't keep those things. (this would be the letter page in LHTH each week where they glue something onto it). Again they spend some time on the art wall before they are tossed. I have two ribbons in my kitchen and pin the artwork on there.

[my3sons]

I don't think there is much I can add to the already well-thought-out, encouraging, and thorough answers given here. (Great thoughts, ladies!!!) I'll just add that in lieu of buying a Teacher's Planner, Grading Book, and/or Calendar, I just use the guide for those things. I write the child's name on the guide, the grade level they used the guide for, and jot the dates they completed their work in it (i.e. either next to the units in the Table of Contents or just in the front of the guide). My kiddos check off the boxes at they complete them starting with PHFHG on up. Then, when I correct their work I initial each box and in the upper grades (like 7th/8th grade and high school), I simply jot percentages/grades in the margins right next to the boxes of plans. This works great! It also eliminates the need for my dc to be so super careful with their guide (which is a relief to my less than careful sons) . I do get a new guide for each child then, but it actually is about the same as I would have spent on a weekly planner for teaching, a grading book/online subscription for grading, and school-type calendar. I keep each child's guide right next to his 3-ring binder portfolio(s) of work from that year. If anyone asked to see what we did for the year, it is easily evident!

As far as supplies go, they are pretty much the same from year to year. So, once you have the general supplies on hand, that is what you'll use from here on out for the most part. I still always read through the Introduction of each guide I'll be using (even if I've used it before) and jot in the margin of the Introduction any special supplies based on which choices I make when reading (i.e 1 big binder or several smaller ones, notebook/index cards and recipe box, etc.). When I began homeschooling, I already had most of the supplies HOD uses on hand. But if you are finding you don't, then I think if you just skim through the first month or two of plans, really just looking at the art/history projects/science experiments for the most part, you can add those things to your art supply list. You'll see materials repeat and are usually very inexpensive and available pretty much everywhere. HTH, and I'm so happy you've had a super start to your year! Way to go, mom!

In Christ,
Julie