A Favorite Homeschool Time Saver

With the start of a new homeschool year right around the corner, I thought I'd share one of my favorite homeschool time-savers.  I don't remember exactly where I saw this first pictured, but I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to implement it in our homeschooling.  It has been the biggest time-saver.

I created it last year, and I've already got it stocked and ready for this year.

Now, let me explain what it is...

I started with a hanging file folder box (this one just happened to be sitting in a closet leftover from my Norwex selling days).  I then added one hanging file folder for every month of our school year (August-June).  After that, I added one file folder for every week of our school year (Week 1-36).  I then put the weeks in the corresponding month folder.  ***If you're not a planner, then this may not seem like an ideal time-saver for you; however, I am very anal and very much a planner.  Being a former school teacher, it's also my nature to write out lesson plans.  Yes, I've already written my plans for the entire year.  Granted, I know life throws curveballs, and some stuff may not get done, and I'm okay with that.  I typically check stuff off in my planner as it gets done.  That way, I know from day-to-day, week-to-week, what may need to be covered or completed.***

Once you've got your weeks and months separated, it's then time to gather all the necessary worksheets, books, and other materials to go into the folders.  If I really wanted to be super organized, I'd have a separate system for each boy.  But -- I'm not there yet.  LOL!  If you take the time to do this at the beginning of the year, it'll save so much time each month, week, day.  Everything you need that's "extra" is right there in the folder.  All you have to do is pull out the corresponding week's folder, grab the material, and off you go.  Like I said, I used this last year and our days ran so much smoother.  I wasn't looking for materials at the last minute, making copies of worksheets, finding math quizzes, etc...it was all right there in the week's folder waiting for me.

I hope you give this time-saver a shot...if so, let me know how much you like it and how useful you find it.  I'm guessing you'll love it as much as I do.  Oh, and I'm going to venture to say that some of you public/private school teachers out there may find this just as useful.  Happy homeschooling!