Organizing for Preschool: Part 1

I still have a ton of organizing to do along with a lot of printing and laminating, and figuring out where everything will go, but I thought I would go ahead and share the start of my organizing process for all the letter printables and such I am collecting.

I started with a 1 inch binder for homeschool stuff, but then decided that I need to split up "my" homeschool info from the actual printouts.  So I am keeping the 1 inch binder for keeping a calendar and resources, I haven't gotten the tabs and such on it yet, I will try to get pictures of it, when I get it ready.  Then I had a 3 inch binder sitting in the closet luckily, so I decided to use that for storing all the printouts.  It may not work for everything, and I actually got a little set of plastic drawers for storing the flash cards and such, but here it is so far.

A section for colors:

 I have a page protector storing the color game pages I laminated for the different LOTW color matching.

 A section for shapes:

 A section for numbers/counting/math:

 My section for each letter, I bought alphabet tabs ready made for this:

Examples of the T section, I punched holes in the laminated full pages and put some tracing pages in a page protector:

I used a page protector to store the smaller cut out activities, this is what may have to change as I start getting more and more of these printed out, because it will make my binder huge!

 This is my alphabet review section, for anything that isn't specified to 1 letter of the alphabet:

My You Can Read section:

Some are in page protectors, others laminated with hole punches, or the coloring pages are just hole punched since those won't be laminated:  So far I have only printed out Unit 1, but am thinking about how I am going to separate the different units. 

I am linking up to:

Planning and Printing

I have been spending nearly every free moment planning for tot/preschool the past week or 2.  My new black ink cartridge is already screaming it's going on empty!  I am going to try getting them refilled at Walgreen's and hoping they can do that so that I don't have to order a new cartridge every time.  I also have a laminator on order from Amazon!  Can't wait for it to come in!  I already have stacks of papers to be laminated as soon as I get it out of the box!

So what will I be using?  I decided that it would be easiest on me to go ahead and use curriculums and printables that are out there for the most part (though I do have a few ideas of my own that I am hoping to be able to make soon!).  So I went ahead and purchased Confessions of a Homeschooler's LOTW curriculum, and her K4 expansion.  I also purchased access to 1+1+1=1's You Can Read Bonus section.

I have 3 - 1 inch binders, one for each of the boys and 1 for me.  I did create a cover page for T's You Can Read section and a cover page for a School Tools section for my binder.  That is about all I have accomplished for that so far.  Once I get more done, I plan to take pics to share.  And if I can figure out how to share printables, I will make the cover pages I made available for download.

I had no idea how addicting planning for homeschooling could be! 

First Story Time

I have been awful about actually taking the boys out to do things because A) I didn't really know where to go and what to do and B) Taking 2 toddler boys for an outing was a little bit intimidating. 

Thanks to one of my amazing neighbors for inviting me to a MOPS group and getting me out and meeting up with her other friend (and my other neighbor's sister...it's a small world :)).  I have decided that this summer I really want to try to get out more and take M out more, because come September, taking care of 3 kids, one being an infant, it's going to be really hard to get out much.  Not too mention trying to stay in during flu season with an infant!

So this morning I got a text message inviting us to go to the park.  Now I am off from babysitting T for the month, so I texted my sister and asked if she and T would like to join us and I would go pick them up.  So we had a nice morning playing at the park and then we were invited to go to story time at the library by our house.  So my sister and I picked up a quick lunch and ate and then took the boys to their first story time. They did so good!  Both boys sat through the whole story and then sat and colored at the table!  I think it helped that we went spent the morning at the park so they had gotten lots of energy out running around and it helped them to have the other kids they knew so they could follow their example since the other kids were experienced story-time goers. 

I was so proud of them, and so glad to get that first experience out of the way!  Now I think I will definitely be taking them back regularly! 

Unfortunately I didn't think about taking my camera...so no pictures today.