Friday, July 12, 2013

School Year Planning - FREE Checklists and Pledge

I don't know about anyone else out there, but I seem to have kiddos that move a LOT!  They are not content to work alone at their school work, enjoy sitting still while we read for hours and only break for lunch-not giving the clock a glance!  If you have one of those kids, that's amazing and I envy you!

My kiddo's need to know exactly how many subjects they have to do, how much they have to recite, when lunch will be, how many pages they have to read, ask for snacks throughout the day, want to know when they can see a friend, talk more than they write and can't sit still for very long periods of time!  Does anyone else out there have one of these kiddos????  As a result, I have to make my classical homeschool a little bit interactive, hands on, creative, include movement, involve lots of outdoor time, imaginative play and I work hard at increasing their ability to sit longer, read longer, listen longer and write longer.  

I've found that a schedule helps with staying on task and focus.  If you have children with or without a diagnosis, a schedule can be a useful tool!  Once they know what they have to do it decreases that unknown and the anxiety they feel in not being able to estimate when they will be done (for those fidgety learners).  It makes the day seem like it will never end, when they don't have a checklist.  Once they do... now their day has a definitive end point and they can see how they're working towards that as they check off their list.  Here is a document that you can download and modify for your own child....
I would laminate this and use a dry erase marker to check it off each day!
I also am providing a ticket system document (sample page is below) for anyone who might find them helpful to their children.  Some kids are check a box kids and some are more interested in tickets.  Use what works best for you kid.  I left them both in .docx format so you can modify them to suit your own child's school day and needs.
Another thing that I do each year is a School Pledge.  It's just a way to start off the year with setting the expectations for our school year to encourage good school habits and behaviors.  Here is the link to that document if you would like to download it and then you can add your own school name and child's name in the headers/footers and modify the body of the document to reflect your own homeschool's expectations and consequences.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD DOCUMENT

I hope these documents will be helpful to you as you continue to plan this summer for the 2013-2014 school year.

2 comments:

  1. I definitely have one of those 'always moving' kids =) I've tried all kinds of check lists, schedules in picture form, etc. just to try to give my son the flow of how the day should go (and keep him on track), but so far nothing has really stuck. Can you explain those tickets? What do you do with them? I'm definitely a checklist girl, so I'm not familiar with that.

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  2. I love the pledge and tickets - very cool idea!

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