One of the things that is so nice about homeschooling, is that it gives kids responsibility and independence. It goes a long way for your sanity when they know exactly what they have to get done, aka…what is expected, and the knowledge that those things have to get done before the end of the day. So they could crank it all out in 30 minutes or take 4 hours to do it. Your choice!
Last fall I saw a lot of these in use in homes for school work. It’s an organizing cart with colored drawers. You can divide up subjects and or children in the different drawers. So for ours each boy gets one of each color. For every color, Elias’ is the one on top since he is taller. On the top I set out which books we will be reading out loud or using together for the day.
Then we stuck washi tape on some to label them. I knew I needed something easily removable so that I could be flexible on what goes in what drawers. Washi tape is something I have a LOVE for and it was handy…so thus the obvious choice. You could do some really cute labels on these I’m sure…pinterest… My creative juice ran out when I saw my washi tape.
For now here is what we have. Red=math, Orange=Writing, Green=Reading, Blue=Bible, Purple=Bonus. Bonus is usually something they really look forward to doing that still has a learning element. The only rule with the drawers is that you can’t do the purple/bonus drawer until the rest of the colors are done. It’s pretty easy on me since that is the rule and expectation. They know that if they really want to get to something, they simply put in their work right away. {As I’m writing about it, it sounds like a pretty good life skill to have!}
This morning when I got out of bed I found both boys doing math at the table. Elias read out loud to me as I got breakfast made and thus before we even sat down to breakfast he had 2 of his 3 things done. (math, reading, writing) Now this does NOT happen everyday, but I will take it whenever it does!!! And I think this cart helps us all have a physical and mental visual of what needs to get done that day.
You can find these type carts on Amazon. I found mine at Aldi this week for $24.99.