How I organize for school

This year, my daughter and I are doing My Father's World. Mary Helen is four, and "should" be in pre-k. We tried out a couple of pre-k curriculums, but none of them were a good fit. Then we took a few months off from school, and I decided to go ahead and buy the My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum. I had planned to use it anyways for kindergarten. We began in March and plan to use it through May or June of 2010, then start her with first grade.

Anywho. . . I wanted to share some pictures of how we set up and do school around here.


This is her school bag. It normally is home to a pencil as well. Keeping all the supplies in this bag is a lifesaver since Mary Helen love all things crafty. These items are only for school time. We have had too many frustrating days looking for scissors, glues sticks, and crayons!

An action shot!

These canvas bins house our craft sticks that we use for counting sticks and our picture cards for each letter. The jar with the white lid has our number cards for math. The green basket has our counting sticks.
Our magnet letters. The letters on the left are letters we've studied.
Shot of the whole area. I hang our badges to the left of the chalkboard and keep the week's truth written on the chalkboard.
I keep all our unit stuff organized in file folders. I write a general plan on the outside of the folder so I don't forget anything.

My folders in a cute magazine rack I got at a yard sale :)

Mary Helen's school folder. I wrote her name the way she should write it. She tends to only use capital letters or make cutesy letters, which is fine by me anytime except school time. There's also a chart with numbers, shapes, colors, etc. on it taped on the front.

Inside she keeps her calendar and 100 chart on the right and her weekly work goes on the left. Days of the week are taped in here.

I can't say enough good things about MFW so far. We are enjoying it. I love that I can get by with 20 minutes a day if I choose to, or I can extend things out as long as I'd like.