B4FIAR – How I plan & organise

Posted on by Homeschool Ramblings

This post is to explain and show how I plan and organise our B4FIAR (and plan to do the same for our FIAR weeks).

Here are the items I use for planning each book we row:

  • Before Five in a Row manual 
Our Before Five in a Row manual which is an absolute must of course!
Planning sheet to get all ideas, books, crafts, activities out of my head and down on paper
Week at a Glance planning page this is just the back of the planning page above which you can write down what youre doing each day.
  • Pinterest – I have a board for every Five in a Row book there is! It took forever to organise but it truly is a time saver because when I want to plan a book to row I go to that board and just look at all the ideas I have pinned previously. Here is my ‘Katy No-Pocket’ Pinterest board to give you an idea. 

Here are the items I use to store my planned ‘rows’ ready to go:

  • Clear plastic wallet
Clear plastic wallet to store planning sheet and all other worksheets etc that are needed for the week. I also use this after we’ve rowed a book to keep any non-consumables and the completed planning sheet so I can reuse with the next child.
  • Suspension file box 
Suspension file plastic store box to store each plastic wallet and extra items that wont fit inside the wallet.
  • 6 Drawer Trolley
6 Drawer Trolley to organise each days worksheets and books ready to be used on the day they are needed

Here is how we keep our completed work:

  • 3-ring Lever Arch File
Large file to store all completed work. I also print out the photos I’ve taken and put them in this file to help us remember all the fun we had.
  • Plastic sleeves
Plastic sleeves to store the kids work. Its best to use a 3-ring file as the weight of the paperwork can get very heavy.

 How I plan:

First I gather everything I need

 

I gather the following items to organise each row: B4FIAR manual, Picture book we are rowing, iPad, Worksheets I’ve printed, Planning Sheet with clipboard & pen.
 
PICTURE BOOK

I’ll read the book to get an idea of the story and themes it covers. They are all such beautiful precious books that the kids and I love. 

BEFORE FIVE IN A ROW MANUAL
Basically I open the manual and write down all the activities I’d like to do on my planning sheet. 

IPAD

I use the iPad to search my Pinterest related board and write down ideas from here, printing anything I haven’t already done. It’s also great for reserving any books I want to get from the library so they’ll be ready for me to collect before we start. 

WORKSHEETS/PRINTABLES

At the start of the school year I printed, cutout and laminated all worksheets/printables I wanted to use for all the books we were going to row which has saved me a heap of time each time I plan a row. 

Lots of Printables/Worksheets can be found on the following websites:

PLANNING SHEET

All the ideas I write in the planning sheet side are then transferred to the Week-at-Glance side according to what I’d like to cover each day eg. 

  • Monday – Bible 
  • Tuesday – Math 
  • Wednesday – Language Arts
  • Thursday – Science/Geography
  • Friday – Art/Cooking

It’s then a matter of just slipping each day’s printables into my 6-drawer trolley along with any additional library books or activities we will do and I’m set for the week. 

So that’s how I plan and organise our ‘rows’ hope it’s been helpful. 

Feel free to ask any questions if you’d like more information or I’ve missed something. 

6 thoughts on “B4FIAR – How I plan & organise”

  2. Thanks so much for sharing! This is going to help me heaps as I start this with my boys soon. You have saved me lots of thinking 🙂 xxx

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