This pic shows my one-two punch for record keeping. In the last post I shared our weekly goal chart and the notebook for recording what actually got done in detail. This pic shows where it goes. I got large accordian files to store loose papers and projects as they are finished. The files are labelled by person and subject. I also have a file for "this week" which includes odds and ends in progress. We love binders for notebooking but love them less for looseleaf paper. The notebooks are saved for keep-it-forever projects like the book of centuries, the religion notebook, the geography copybook etc. Math, grammar drills, and so on go into the file to verify they are covering those areas. Binder/notebook pages often start out in the accordian file and eventually I will assemble them into the permanent binder when we have enough page protectors to house them.
This system has a lot of advantages over the binder-for-everything plan which we tried years ago. No more binders with pages half ripped out for starters. I always felt that was instilling a habit of carelessness. Many papers were lost as well. Page protectors for every single math page are impractical to say the least and add way too much bulk for everyday work. It also takes time to reinforce holes and sort into binders. Better to do that when you have saved up a bunch of work. The file takes seconds to open and deposit the work. At year's end you can close it up and label it and put the whole file into permanent storage for high school transcripts if need be.
I need you to come to my house (and not just so I can make you a cup of coffee). My filing system is so imperfect that I am, at this very moment, missing a document that is extremely important to me.
(Please take a moment to pray that it turns up--and thank you for helping others with your excellent ideas.)
Posted by: Alice Gunther | October 21, 2006 at 08:30 PM