Step 4. Writing Procedure Binders

After completing seven years of formal homeschooling and having six children, I knew more than nothing (still far less than everything), but I still took Pam Barnhill's course "Put Your Homeschool on Auto-Pilot" for $69. This course was worth every penny and my time watching the self-paced videos. Unless you feel like a superstar homeschooling mama who knows what she is doing (does she exist?) I highly, highly recommend it.

I am beginning my annual blog series on planning one's homeschool year! This year, I am publishing 4-6 weeks early because we are going to be moving homes, so my homeschool year has to be done being planned this very week. (Then it's on to two weeks of packing up boxes, Moving Day, three weeks of unpacking the house, and school begins with my Orientation Week!)

How Do I Write a Procedure Binder?

Step 4 is to write a Procedure Binder for each child.

This teaching comes straight from Pam Barnhill's course and it was a game-changer for me in 2018-19. Even though I'm showing you the basics, I still recommend anyone interested to take her course because you would get so much more out of her detailed teaching than mine.

I need to minimize how often the children come to me asking what to do next, how to do that thing, and what is expected of them. I want to reduce my feeling that I'm in a space ship hurtling through an asteroid field--each asteroid of which is yet another question from my children that might be the final question that kills me straight dead--to feeling like I've really set them up for success and modeled for them planning. During our first year using Procedure Binders, I saw children coming to rely heavily on them, just as I'd hoped.

Each child has his or her own binder.

At the front of the binder is the child's Daily Schedule. How else will he know what he is supposed to be doing in each half hour slot?

Each binder has a tab for every single subject, no matter how minor.

Behind the tab will be a Procedure page. It will give instructions for that subject.

Examples:

"Practice piano for 45 minutes on the grand piano. Set a timer. Warm up with scales and technique. Review repertoir. Work on new learning."

It might list all the Grammar lessons for the year with check boxes next to each one.

It might give instructions for exactly how to log in to one's math software and to do one lesson per day.

For some subjects, I include the materials needed as well. For example, I will include loose leaf paper on which to write spelling dictation sentences. I will cut off the binding from the penmanship workbook and three-hole punch the pages to keep in the binder.

During Orientation Week (our first week of school), I spend a lot of time, maybe a full hour or more, sitting with each child one-on-one going through every page of his binder. I also sit with each child one-on-one and teach them how to log in to anything they need on the computer, how to navigate each text book's index, and so forth. Lastly (firstly?), we also work on routines and behavior (obedience) during Orientation Week: getting up on time, eating promptly and finishing, cleaning up after oneself, and knowing what one's chores are.

Let's give ourselves forgiveness, fellow homeschooling parents! We will have many stumbles and many moments and days that do not seem to go as planned: don't be a melancholic like me who condemns herself as a failure, but try, try again with God's grace fueling you!