extending the life of our workbooks...

When you are homeschooling a Houseful, you definitely need to extend the life of everything you possibly can!

We do not write in any textbooks or workbooks. We use simple notebooks for some of our text...like our math textbooks. I do this to have a record of their math, for reference.

For things I don't really want to use the paper for we simply use the see through page protectors.

I use to give each of the children a page protector to use. However it easily gets bent when put away, not cleaned off good, lost...whatever. So I came up with a new plan...

I am ripping apart all of our workbooks...

YES you heard me right..the teacher is ripping the workbooks!!!!

Then I am putting them in smaller binders, inside the page protectors. This also helps extend their life..making them hard covered, not so easy to bend. The kids can pull down the workbook they need in the binder {with a label on the side stating what's in it...Explode the Code 3 for example} They open the binder to the page they were on, do the page, and wipe it clean! Simple as that.

To help us stay on track as to what page everyone is on, each child has a separate colored sticky note that is moved each day. Then if we have two kids in one workbook...it's easy to find where you were at. They use a wipe off marker..leave it for me to correct or look over, whichever is needed. I then have them record their scores, make changes/corrections, and discuss the page as needed with them. Then they wipe it off, {infront of me usually!!!} and return it to it's home on our shelf.

I do this to everything I possibly can!! I have preschool books, you know the types...follow the path from the bunny to feed him his carrot!! The first time I thought of this, was when I purchased a really cute and way too expensive preschool workbook {I couldn't resist it} I then took out the staples, and took it to town to laminate it. Yes it worked great. We have used and reused this workbook for years. Yes I could also purchase a nice laminator {that's on the to do list!} However I really like the page protectors. I can pull out a page, I can leave it together, I can put them in workboxes. If a page doesn't get cleaned good and becomes...well....nasty. I can simply pull out the original page and put it in a new page protector, and then we can move on.