I wrote a little post a while back on how to organize all of the leftover parts of your monthly Mother Goose Time materials. This time I’m going to show you what I do to get ready for the month and how I keep all the little parts organized and easy to view. The boxes don’t always fit this nicely into one folder. Some months the materials are a little bulkier than others. But it has never taken more than two gigantic folders stuffed full to contain the month’s activities. Let’s take a look at my method for organizing a month of Mother Goose Time.
When the box arrives I immediately put on a cup of coffee. No need to worry. You won’t be up all night going through the material. It’s just that coffee makes everything better. I’ve mentioned before that this curriculum is pretty much open and go. I have done an entire month of school straight out of the box with no problems. It’s just that I’m a control freak and I like to find little ways to make my day-to-day routine run a little smoother. For me that means opening each day’s individual packets and seeing the materials with my own eyes before I present them to the kiddos. I immediately pull out the Teacher Tool Bag for the month along with any special Bonus Day packets that might be included for that month. November’s bonus day packet is Thanksgiving themed, of course. The teacher tool bag contains all of the materials needed for the month’s basic concepts like the shape, color, country, sight words, and letters or the month.
I pull out the month’s theme web and post it up on the bulletin board. I use the theme web as my guide for library visits. When we head to the library I can give it a quick glance to know what we have coming up and which topics I might need to look for. Mother Goose Time provides a Suggested Reading List for each month but I like to have backup books ready if I can’t find the suggestions at my local library. Or, like last month, if someone STILL hasn’t returned the book I need and they’ve had it checked out since JULY! Yeah, that library is never going to see that book again. Good thing I had my backup books ready!
I also cut out the “Basics to Reinforce at Home” box from the Newsletter and post it up on the board. I like lots of little reminders on what we’ll be covering, as you can see. It also helps to see all of the spanish words we’ll be covering that month so that I have the opportunity to check the pronunciation before introducing them to the kids. Each month’s Teacher Guide has a code in the front of the book that can be entered on Mother Goose Time’s website for member extras. There are color sheets available for each day. I go ahead and print all 4 weeks’ sheets and hole punch them for filing in the folder with the other materials. This is also where the Suggested Reading List can be found.
I go through our personal library at home and see which books we might already own that relate to the theme for that month and I put the selections in their own basket on top of the bookshelf for easy access throughout the month. When I come across the Mother Goose Time book of the month in our box I put it with the other books in our special basket.
Once it’s time to organize each day’s lessons, I open up my Teacher Guide and my Lesson Plan Book provided by Mother Goose Time. In the Teacher Guide the left column of each activity shows the supplies needed to complete the lesson. I pay careful attention to this section for each activity as I go along because it will tell me if there are supplies needed from the Teacher Tool Bag For that day or if I will be reusing an item from a previous day. For instance, a lesson might call for an activity that introduces a new color bird for the month on day 3. That resource is not found in the day 3 packet. So even if I “open and go” with the day’s packet I will still need to locate that bird in the Teacher Tool Bag. It just makes my life easier to go ahead and find that bird and put him in with the day 3 materials.
I punch or cut out any materials ahead of time. If it’s a set of something, like the leaves in the picture, I’ll paper clip them together so they’re not all flying about, willy-nilly.
Sometimes there are supplies that are too bulky to be included in the folder. These counting monkeys and pattern blocks will go on the shelf beside the main folder rather than inside the folder where they’ll take up too much space. Once everything is cut or punched out and any Teacher Tool Bag resources are added, it all gets neatly placed into a single sheet protector. The “supplies needed” section of the Teacher Guide also makes mention of any items that might be needed from a previousl lesson. Organizing with the sheet protectors allows me to remove the completed items no longer needed but leave the items used for future lessons for easy locating. So on day 5 when the lesson calls for a material from day 2 I can simply flip back to day 2 and locate the item. When I’m planning I put a post-it note on the sheet protector letting me know if an item needs to be reused so that I don’t file it away.
I add my gathering list to the front pocket for quick reference and I slide my Teacher Guide into the outside front pocket and the Lesson Planner in the outside rear pocket.
It makes for a hefty folder that takes up about the same amount of space as the box, so it doesn’t really save a ton on space. But it neatly organizes each day so I can flip through and see each little thing with ease. Days are easily removed when completed and finished activities and lessons filed away. Any materials left over (whether from sick days or because we’ve lingered longer on a subject to nurture the child’s interest) get filed away in our “leftovers” folder for a rainy day or for days when Oliver is super eager and needs more than one day’s worth of material.
How do you manage Mother Goose Time? Are you the open-and-go type or do you like to open it up and make your own management system ahead of time? I love tweaking the homeschool day so be sure to share!
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