I am in the process of packing away over 25 years of homeschooling materials. As I was sorting, and purging, I came across my very last Mom Binder. I took a few pictures for you, because of all the things I did over the years, this was the most practical teacher tool for me. When we were in school, I carried it all over the house with me. If not, I would invariably be folding laundry and someone would come with a question and I would have to send them to get my Mom Binder.
Some of you may be old enough to remember the unwieldy binders that a “homemaking binder” used to be in the 1990’s. Women were encouraged to keep price comparisons, important phone numbers, household routines and all manner of information in them and carry them everywhere. I suppose my mom binder was something like that for homeschooling, but not always so giant and I only kept it with me around the house during my school times. I would imagine some of you will find a way to do this digitally, but I was never satisfied with my digital attempts and found it easier and faster to keep my little binder.
The binder I have pictures is the year I had two high schoolers.
As you can see, I kept it very simple – nothing fancy.
I put dividers in for each of my areas, starting with each child’s name.
Behind the name binders were their assignment lists. When they completed assignments, I simply checked them off, so that I would know where they were at all times. They had a duplicate set of assignment lists in their own binder. I had a weekly calendar for them, any assignment lists provided by curriculums, or instructions needed in the book of assignments. I didn’t always have to create assignments as much as clearly indicate a timeline I expected for each student as we worked through books and curriculum that we had chosen for the year.
I also kept lists of grades for classes that made sense. These were for high schoolers who had textbook style classes like math or science, I didn’t always need a list of grades for younger students. Grades were different for classes with narrations and writing assignments.
My state does not require attendance sheets, but the standard for schools is 180 days. So, during the summer, I planned our 180 days and all of our days off on a yearly calendar. I also used an attendance calendar during the year, to keep a count of days that we actually did. Sometimes we didn’t follow our plan exactly taking extra days off for events or sicknesses that could not be planned in advance. These calendars and other similar items I purchased from the Homeschool Better Together website. I highly recommend their materials.
For younger children, my binder would often have copies of things we were memorizing or loop schedules of my read alouds to them. Also, lists of things to cover in our one-on-one meetings. In the height of my homeschooling days, I had eight students from high school to preschool. The notes behind each tab were often reminders for me. It might be formulas my high schooler was memorizing for math, or which math facts to drill for my younger students. I just flipped to their tab and could find my footing.
The back of my binder simply had blank notebook paper and blank graph paper. I could take notes as I went through the day, or simply use these to work with the child. I didn’t always have the white board or chalkboard to work with, so we would just pull out a paper and work through the steps of a math problem, spelling word, or practice formation of a difficult letter. It just felt easier to always have paper available. When my kids were old enough to have any independent work, they had their own binders with lists for them to check off, blank paper, and time schedules to keep them moving through the day.
I encourage you to create your own mom binder. You can be simple and analog like I was, or create your own digital format. Anything that feels easy and helps you stay on track.
