Mini Office--Getting Ready for the School Year!

Well, we've been getting ready for the new school year to start and made these "mini offices." (A mini-office is a specific application of lap-booking, where you put together information they will use throughout the school year for their work). They were a lot of fun! I had the kids fill in their multiplication chart, names of shapes, prime numbers, Roman numerals, names of states etc... It was my sneaky way of doing some summer school ("really, this is a craft...").

Here's Zac's cover...

Anna's cover:

(She says that's a "Rainbow Crystal Cave" on the front of her's.)

Inside when you first open it up are some language arts tips.

(We hid magnets under the "COPS" on the left and the "run-away train" on the right; these hold the flaps closed. I saw something similar on another office online and the kids liked that idea, so we borrowed it!).

"COPS" is our acronym for editing--Capitalization, Organization (neatness etc...), Punctuation, and Spelling. Under that are "rule-breaker" words (We're using All About Spelling; they send rule-breakers to jail!) The right side shows sounds for OUGH, and the jobs of E.

On the middle panel, I remind them to "Spell with their ears (ie listen to the sounds/write the sounds) and Check with their eyes (did they choose the right phonogram for that word etc...)" I also had vowel sounds, which I thought might be a handy reference, but found them unnecessary after they learned them in AAS. 

The whole middle page flips up too, here's the inside fully opened:

I had the kids label all the states, and then in the middle is a place for them to record spelling, capitalization, and punctuation rules, plus samples of cursive letters, both caps and small letters.

The left flap has an additional tab that opens to show more "rule-breaker" words. The tab covers these up and has a place to put "this week's list" so they can study words that don't follow phonetic rules each week. I was going to make this a pocket on the flap, but then I saw that a dry-erase marker can write on and wipe off of the laminate, so we're going to try that instead. (This is another aspect we didn't end up needing to use).

This is the back:

I didn't take a pic of it fully opened, but all of the math concepts are on the back of the folder--so the items you saw on the cover picture show on the same side as the back when it's opened.

The kids had a lot of fun doing these and have thanked me about a zillion times, so I hope they'll be helpful this year! Both kids have already taken them to their own desks in their rooms, so I also hope they won't be lost before the school year starts, LOL!

Update: The math facts and how to spell math words ended up being the most used aspect of the mini-office for us. My daughter referred to hers for several years, actually.