So in my last post I mentioned a new addition to our homeschool day, the Daily Page. There’s nothing overly complex about this little form, in fact, I’m kind of scratching my head as to why I didn’t come up with this sooner. But anyway, here is a sample, in all it’s glory.
You can click on this for a larger view. I’ll also include a blank PDF at the bottom of this post. I have one of these for each day of the week, for both children.
The assignment grid includes only the subjects they have on that day. By each subject, I handwrite their assignment on that day. They head over to their work boxes, grab the textbook, etc. out of their drawer, and we get to work.
As a side note, this little daily schedule grid also helped me during my planning time this summer, as I could use these forms as a way to hash out what we would be doing on each day and when. I wanted to be more strategic in my scheduling this year, ensuring that my son had something independent to do while my daughter and I went over math; that my daughter could be working on something alone while Dear Son and I did history, and so on. I felt like last year, each child had a little too much “what do I do now?” down time while I worked with the other child. These schedules take the guess work out of that as well. I’ll go into their daily work schedules more in a future post.
After the assignment grid, comes three simple checkboxes. They focus on behavior that I am specifically trying to ellicit from my children. These may change over time, and I may customize them for each child going forward, but for right now they deal with willingness during lessons, the ability to work independently, and timely focused completion of work (my sweet son tends to daydream.) They show these attributes, they get checks. They fuss, grumble, or lose focus repeatedly – no check.
Then comes the comments. In the past, I had a Daddy Report that we used with limited success, since it was a stand alone form that I would have to print, cut, etc. Now that this is integrated into our assignment sheets, it’s much more practical. On the comment section, I elaborate on how each child did in school, making sure to mention something positive even when they have negative comments, too. This gives my husband a full overview of what they did and HOW they did at a glance. It holds the kids accountable. It’s easy to fall into grumbling, especially. So this form helps to keep that in check.
Last is a space for “night work,” our version of homework. Anything that the kids need to finish or continue working on later in the evening gets written in this spot. Before they leave our basement classroom, they take their Daily Page, their remaining work, and head right upstairs to Daddy (he works from home) and they hand off their forms to him.
So far, so good! We’re only a few days into the new school year and things already seem to be improving in the attitude and focus department. Love it! I’ll provide a blank PDF below in case anyone else would like to customize this form for their own needs.
