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Homeschooling can get messy.
With more than half a dozen subjects per child, the sheer volume of written work that needs to be organized and graded can be overwhelming. Until this last school year, my kids would write out any written assignments on a loose sheet of notebook paper. The paper would then get shoved into the workbook itself, it would magically find its way into a 3-ring-binder, or it would get hopelessly lost, never to be found again. Obviously this method was not an efficient process (and had a negative affect on my sanity).
Then last summer I happened upon a clearance sale at Target. They were clearing out tons of spiral notebooks, and the price was ridiculously low — less than 2 cents per notebook!
So I decided to clear them out of their stock and purchased over 100 notebooks (spending less than $2).
When I got home I separated the notebooks by color, pulling out the blue for Jerah, the green for Jaden, and the purple for Joely. Then I wrote the subject names in large, bold print on each notebook: science, math, history, Wordly Wise, grammar, writing, logic, and Lightning Literature. When school began last year and my kids had to write down answers or notes in any of their subjects, they just grabbed the appropriate spiral notebook.
I have to tell you that this method was such a lifesaver for us. Fewer papers were lost, and all their work in each subject was kept neatly in one place. It made checking their work a thousand times easiery. Seriously, I really don't know why I hadn't thought of doing it that way before!
But I do know we'll be continuing with this "spiral" method from now on. And I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for some more inexpensive notebooks. After all, this is all I have left for the upcoming school year — only 42 notebooks — and I know my kids will complain if I don't have enough of their colors …
Joy is the wife of 
Mine is up: Curriculum Fair Survival Tips.
.-= Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers´s last blog ..Curriculum Fair Survival Tips =-.
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What a cool idea! I can only imagine the looks that you got while buying so many notebooks though. LOL Love it!
.-= Angie @ Many Little Blessings´s last blog ..Our 2009-2010 Homeschool Curriculum Plans =-.
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I'm so glad to read this! I've been thinking about doing the same thing. We are going to workboxes this year & I thought it would be so easy to just toss a spiral in for each subject. Glad to know it works!
.-= Amyswandering´s last blog ..wfmw – dfw staycation =-.
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Great idea! We sorta do this already, but not subject specific.
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Golly! What an awesome deal!! Go, MOM!
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We use the nonspiral scribblers, but we don't color code them. One of my children tries to, though, picking the green out of each pack of scribblers. We found that taping in extra sheets works quite well, if you end up needing to put some of those in.
As my children get older and more responsible, I let them decide whether to use loose-leaf or scribblers.
Annie Kate
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I am glad to know that I am not the only one who buys these in bulk. I have been doing this the last year or two and it helps so much. I need to do what you do and do one color per child. Great idea. I just write name and subject on them, but color would help keep each child's straight.
.-= Lynn´s last blog ..Sour Cream Potato Salad =-.
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We use lots of binders with loose leaf paper in it, kind of the same but different
I love seeing all the neat home school ideas and am so glad you have started this meme!
.-= Stephanie´s last blog ..How Does Your Garden Grow? Harvest Time! =-.
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Great idea! I'm going to do something similar this year. We use 3-prong folders for our notebooks for various subjects. Last year, I just used what I had left from previous school shopping trips and the kids would pull out every single folder trying to find the one they were looking for. This year, I'm color-coding them by subject – blue for history, green for science, red for writing…or something like that.
I'm thinking that, doing it that way, I should only have all of a certain color pulled out at any given time. Maybe.
.-= Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers´s last blog ..Curriculum Fair Survival Tips =-.
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@Amyswandering, Workboxes? I'd love an explanation of what you mean
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@Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, I wish there were a way I could color-code per subject AND per child. Hmm. Thinking…
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@Joy, It is a system developed by Sue Gregg.
http://www.workboxsystem.com/
It is basically a way for Mom to organize everyone's work the night before so they know what to do, the order to do it in, and have everything they need in one location. Moms who are using this system are reporting that they are actually getting to all the fun stuff that usually gets pushed aside.
This page has tons of info:
http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dwstdgn_447mphsmf8&revision=_latest
I'm going to start posting workbox idea websites on my blog in the next couple of weeks (hopefully!).
.-= Amyswandering´s last blog ..wfmw – dfw staycation =-.
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Witty title.
You of course had me thinking spiral vs. mastery and then gave it a whole new twist. We love our cheap spirals, too. Although, I thought 10 cents each was a steal!
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Awesome Idea. I am only homeschooling my youngest child and we have only been homeschooling for a few months. I am already finding it difficult to keep track of tests and written work. I think I am going to buy 2-3 subject notebooks for each subject, this way I can seperate test, written work, etc for each subject. Your handy tip saved my sanity early on. Thank You so much for sharing!!!!
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