Tracking Progress, Weekly Plans, And Responsibility Charts

A couple weeks ago I made a weekly lesson plan to organize what I wanted to do every week. I was really excited to implement it along with her assessment books. It never happened. I know the past couple weeks have been really busy, but even on down days we weren't completing activities and I wasn't getting a lot of notes. So this morning I decided to take a new approach to how we go about learning each week.

This is our new and improved weekly plan. It doesn't matter what day we do it on. It doesn't matter if one day is all art and no music. I needed something a little less structured. Some days I felt like I would look at the days activities and if I didn't think there was time for say mud painting nothing else got done either. My favorite part about the new chart is the added Montessori box.

A new lesson plan wouldn't solve the problem of getting in weekly goals. I had trouble figuring out where to focus. That may come from using them at Head Start and goals were planned each week with activities added to your lesson plan to help encourage those goals. So I created these goal sheets. You don't have to have the Teaching Strategies Gold to do this. (For more on that click here) You could pick a weekly goal and go off that. However if you want a more in depth goal you may want to think about going with Teaching Strategies. I flipped through and picked a goal for each of the girls to focus on this week. I then wrote in some activities that could help them practice these goals and help me get notes on them. These will be my main focus, but throughout the week everyday life and our lesson plans will show progress and good notes in things that don't apply to these. Those should also be jotted down.

Even though Adam thought it was an odd present I really wanted to get Molly a responsibility chart. I fell in love with this one from Melissa & Doug. I love that it has tabs like no teasing, sharing, and keeping your hands to yourself. I decided to organize it by things I want to work on the most up top. Then below I put one side as more chore like tabs and the other good behavior tabs. She gets so excited to get a magnet on her chart! I am so glad I got this to incorporate in our routine. I know it may seem odd with some of the chore ones, but trust me your two year old can do these. Taking care of our cat is Molly's job. She gets so excited to feed and water him. I'm sure Adam would love if she could do the litter too. She loves to load and unload the dish washer. If I mop she also mops. She loves to sweep. One of her favorite things to do with dad is help him take out the trash. Your two year old can learn responsibility.

 

 

This is what it ended up looking like. I love that I had room by her art corner. I'm the kind of person that needs things organized and accessible otherwise it probably won't be touched. We will see in the weeks to come if the new plans and logs are easier to work with.