MFW Kindergarten: How I Organize

Well, we are beginning week three of MFWK and I am getting into the swing of things with this curriculum.  You know, seeing what works, what doesn’t, finding shortcuts and what not.  Thought I would share a few ideas. 

The workbox system works great for us with this curriculum.  Each day’s lessons are divided into three main parts, so I just use three boxes:  Daily Activities, Reading Lessons, and Special Activity.  In the mornings Ds4 automatically comes in the room and grabs the first box, Daily Activities.  In it I have our 100 chart, a monthly calendar, and our popsicle sticks for numbering our days.  We keep a marker in there as well.  You know, as simple as that sounds, just keeping a marker in the box at all times, it really is a HUGE help.  You know how much time we have wasted looking for markers/pencils/glue/etc. for lessons?  How simple, yet ingenious it is to have a “box” with everything you need for a lesson…down to the pencil!

I keep a pretty basket next to the workbox system shelving for the books we will be reading for each unit.  This includes the informational books as well as the recommended fictional books.  Ds is free to look at these any time and knows they go back in the basket when he is done.

Last year I put up a simple homemade “bulletin board” to display the boys’ work throughout the year.  I am using this to pin up things pertaining to our themes in MFWK as well as ds’s completed masterpieces. :)

With MFWK the days have the same patterns to them.  The only thing that changes is the info you learn about.  It was hard for me at first to keep track of what all to do on what day and while the teacher’s guide is a great help, it was a bit of a bother to have to refer to it so often during our lessons.  So I printed up a checklist of sorts of each day’s activities, placed it in a sheet protector, and refer to it.  I mark off what we accomplish each day and can simple wipe it clean at the end of the week.

Finally I found a neat idea from this blog about planning ahead with MFWK.  You simply label 26 file folders with the week’s theme and put the resources you find to use that week in the folder.  Plus you can write ideas you have for the unit on the outside of the folder.  I just grab my checklist and folder and ds and I are set for the day. :)