*Today (2012-13) we are into our third year of homeschooling and I still use this binder (only with some changes you will find in this post). I’m sharing this “older” post today at 3Boys&aDog’s linkup since it is about my Homeschool Binder. If  you’d like to see the varied ways to see other ways we/others use binders see this link.

Today I thought I’d share my Homeschool Binder (aka my HS brain!). I made this after the same idea I got for my Home Management Binder you can view here.

This year marks our first-official homeschool year. After a year in preschool and a year in public kindergarten my oldest is learning first grade at home. I have a lot of reasons why I decided to do this and I shared some of my thoughts in this post.

I spent months researching just about anything that had to do with homeschool it seems and made my decision to give it a go.

We started homeschool last week and I’m loving it and the boys (I have a 4 yr old too) are enjoying also- though my oldest doesn’t always want to do his work. Thats expected. Things don’t go smoothly always but since we aren’t constrained to the clock thats okay. I love-love-love…LOVE the freedom we have! And I love getting to be in charge. I really feel like this is natural and the way its suppose to be for us. Maybe in 9 months I’ll feel differently, we’ll have to wait and see 😉

I bought a binder about…maybe 3″ wide and the “special” kind of tabs that also come as sheet protectors. They fit great with sheet protector pages. If you don’t want sheet protectors to hide your tabs you want this kind. I used my scrapbook supplies to make my own custom front/back design.

The monthly tabs I really like. Behind each tab are some if not all of the following forms. We may or may not use most of them.

• Daily Check List
• An objective list for the month or whatever time frame.
• Reading List
• Extracurricular Activities
• Field Trip Log
• Read my post here for some great homeschooling resources (including FREE).

I  looked at a number of different forms and I experimented with some. I’m using some other forms like a master /hourly form also but I’m very flexible. I REALLY REALLY like this Daily Checklist because it provides me with an easy way to record what we actually are accomplishing daily. I feel like I NEED this since we don’t follow the hourly schedule to a T and my homeschooling approach is very “eclectic” and flexible.

Some of the other dividers include a section for each of my boys. They each have their own notebooks but I keep some lesson plans, etc in my notebook for them. I also have a legal section to store my “approval” to homeschool letter from our school district.

Well, this is what works for me, for sure!  If you’re homeschooling, what works for you?

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