Sharing Work Plans and Journals

I have set up a separate page on this blog to share links to posts about Montessori work plans and work journals.

I just put up a couple of sites that I've read most recently with the topic, but I know I've read others and I'll add them as I have a few minutes here and there.

In the meantime, please feel free to leave a comment with a link to your own posts or articles/posts that are particularly helpful for you. I'll add them to the main part of the page. Best yet, if you have a search tag so we can link to the blog/site and just have those posts up :) Though particularly insightful posts I will likely link directly as well.

Eventually, I'll put together a chart showing some options.

I DO have more posts coming - everything is in draft form for now (stitches in my finger have slowed down my typing!). However, I also wanted to answer two questions about work plans/journals:

1) The work plan (or work contract) are what YOU make of them - signed by the adult/child or just a loose agreement or a verbal discussion about the child's plan for the morning/day/week. A checklist feels great to those of us with more traditional backgrounds, but if it is a pre-filled checklist with work options by month, then it's probably not going to fit YOUR child who has particular needs and interests, may be far ahead in math and not so much in language, or vice-versa. You might not have some materials ready; a child's interests might be something else of equal (or greater value); etc. So that is my one very personal and very professional piece of input: design it for YOUR situation; try not to make it look like "school at your own pace" - we are aiming for exploration, responsibility, freedom, community dynamics... :)

2) Pretty much the same goes for work journals. Pair up a contract(plan)/journal combo that works for YOUR situation. Mine won't always fit yours; yours won't always fit mine; but swapping ideas encourages creativity and we adjust and adapt as time goes on (see my own previous posts about Legoboy's changing needs).


:)