What’s in my File Folders

As promised, I’m going to try and detail the contents of some of my
file folders.  (This reminds me of when people say about authors:
“I would even read their grocery lists!”  Friends of mine who ran a
speculative fiction ‘zine did just that once: they asked their
contributors for their grocery lists, scanned them in, and dedicated a
whole issue to them.  Of course, I read every last bread, milk, and
juice.  Because I’m that kind of person.)

This is a picture of my fle folder for the first week of July. 
(I took the picture at the end of that week, but am just getting around
to posting now.)  The folder includes:

• A set of coloring pages about Noah from Abeka’s Bible Friends Coloring Book.  (Their online catalog is difficult to link to, so I haven’t provided a link.)  I’ve had this coloring book for ages,
  and Katydid (I think) colored in it when she was about the same age as
  Farmerboy.  We were talking about the Flood — comparing the
  Biblical story to the story of the Flood in Gilgamesh, the Hero. 
  Farmerboy looked the pages over, but didn’t actually color anything, so
  I’ve just been moving this forward week to week so I don’t forget it.
• A flyer for our village garage sale
• A Roman coloring page that Farmerboy did
• Katydid’s math work (place value)
• A copy of Annie’s Precious Blood post, so I can read the prayer with the kids
• Gareth’s math work (from Saxon)
• A list of art classes at a local museum for July and August

At the end of the week, I put the flyer for the garage sale on the
refrigerator so I would remember to do something about it.  I moved
the Precious Blood prayer and the list of art classes to the folder for
the new week. 

Now, in reading back through Dawn’s original file crate post I see that she does two things I haven’t been doing:

1. She moves the folder from the week past to the back of the crate, so that the current week is always first.
2. She has the folder out and open so she can look at it throughout the day.

(Correct me if I’m wrong, Dawn!)

I think both of these practices would increase my efficiency, but
practice #1 is easier for me than practice #2.  In order to leave
the file folder open — which would be a nice visual cue — I’d have to
put it on the kitchen island, where various people would cover it in
Legos, books, papers, mail, and apple juice whenever I turned my
back.  So, for now, the folder will have to remain in the file
crate.

In this week’s file folder (in no particular order):

• Lesson plan for the week (a piece of paper with notes for Faith,
  History/Lit, Math, and Spelling which I scrawled down in my spiral
  notebook last night before I went to bed, nothing fancy.)
• “What God Made” coloring pages from the Abeka Bible Friends Coloring Book.
• a handwritten list of projects to put on the whiteboard
• Magnifikid
• handwritten list of books on Mesopotamia and also Geometry to run down
• A Dell flyer (my Mac’s screen burned out)
• handwritten planning sheet for a geography course for Katydid:
  “Birds of the World”.  I need to type this up, perhaps laminate it,
  and post it for her to work on in the coming year
• Boy Scout camp flyer
• some addition work from Katydid (3 pages)
• Assyrian coloring pages
• information on fireflies

Things I have in future file folders:

• reminders of doctor’s appointments
• seasonal activities
• activities tied to the liturgical year

And probably a bunch of stuff I can’t remember right now.  Which
is the beauty of the system, of course: I can put a piece of paper in
the folder and forget about it, but it pops up again when I need to
remember it.  I don’t need to wade frantically through huge stacks
of paper or anything. 🙂