Monday, January 30, 2012

My "Everything Box" for AAS

Here are some pictures of how I organize my All About Spelling Supplies. This is my "everything box"--everything we need except our magnetic whiteboard is in here.

The Teacher Manuals are on top:

Under those you can see the Review boxes. My kids each chose a sticker to identify their box.

I love the AAS boxes because they fit the cards exactly--no sliding around or cards falling over. But before I had these, I found the best thing that worked was the $1 Sterilite flip-top boxes:

Those hold about 2 levels of cards each.
Taking a peek inside our Review box...

You can see that I have modified the review box to fit our needs. I like to have one daily review tab with all of the current cards, instead of a separate tab for each type of card. (I do keep the different types separated once they are mastered though). It's simpler to get my mind around one daily review tab instead of 3, LOL! So I took some of the tabs and turned them around, which is why they appear white.

The first tab is the daily review tab for me, and the 2nd and 3rd white tabs are for once a week review that I do between the daily review and "mastered" tabs. This is something I added because my kids needed extra review to make things "stick," and this has really helped us. After a card goes through the white tabs, I put the mastered Sound, Phonogram, and Key cards in their respective mastered tabs. I review these once every month or two. The Word cards get reviewed again a month later, and after that they go in the "Mastered" tab until time for the scheduled mastered review. If they pass that, the word card is "retired," but if a card is missed at any time, I put it back in daily review.

I love that it's so easy to modify the review for our needs. I also keep some blank cards in the back of each child's box so that I can add in words they miss from the reinforcement lists or from their writing.

Underneath the boxes I have a folder for my supplies:
  The kids keep a folder with their supplies in their workboxes. Their folders contain all of the Word Banks and other pages from AAS, plus blank paper to write on for things like the Writing Station. I also keep some blank paper in case they run out, so we don't have to go looking for it, plus stickers to put on their progress charts. I prefer to do the Writing Station on paper so that I can keep them--sometimes they write cute things!

Then I have a hand-held whiteboard, marker, and eraser--my dd likes to write her words on that, while my son prefers paper. (They could also write on the big white board, we just happened to have this one around and made use of it!).

I like to use the "Progress Charts" as a bookmark in the books, especially since sometimes I have 2 kids in the same book. Then I can easily see where each is, and it keeps the progress charts handy too!
When the kids were younger, we used the File Folder Game & Phonogram Bingo for an occasional change of pace.
Finally, some baggies with extra tiles and materials:


Typing it out, it seems like more than it is, LOL! But each day I just grab my "everything box," and we are set to go. I even have a pencil in my box so that I can lightly mark where we stop in the lesson. Then we can easily pick up there the next day without having to guess where we were.

Our tiles are on a magnetic whiteboard on the closet door in our family room/school room. I hung it vertically because I didn't have room for the horizontal layout. What are your best organizing tips?

4 comments:

  1. This a great idea!! I asked you about the homophone over at the Sonlight boards under LA board on AAS scheduling I believe. I need to order the next level so I will try to order through your link. ;0)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this! We have just started the school year and I have four kids in three different level books. What a logistical nightmare! Thank you for showing your box set up. I will be buying them through your link.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're welcome, let me know how it works out!

    ReplyDelete