organizers

I would love some suggestions also. Teachers wanted us to use the accordian folder for to and from school, yet no one helped him at school so things rarely came home, no assignments written down etc. but he would receive homework deficiencies.
Time to take matters into my own hands on this one, any suggestions appreciated.

If the kid is already at the lying stage “I did it and handed it in” then you have to work with that first. Starting a year fresh can be an incentive - most kids it seems do start oiut with the idea that maybe this year will be different.
There’s a neat book called “Homework without Tears” that is *full* of ideas for just about every situation. (Canter is the author — and it may be at the library.) One that I like is the “Okay, no homewokr? Well, you’ve still got your “study time.” Here’s your assignment.” When the kid knows they’re gonna have to park th eir hind parts in the chair for X minutes *anyway,* they usually find that assignmnet.

I have a.d.d. and l.d. and hated to do home work. their is a few things you can do but the worst problem is that if I didn’t like the home work then I just didn’t do it. You have to find a reason for them to do it or it will never get doen. I had to have my teachers write my home work down on papper and they signed it but that still did not help much. Heres what I meen, if you child likes sports or going to the movie then he/she will remember every thing about it and make sure that their their on time. One of the things I had to do was read 1 book each quorter and I walked up to the teacher and siad just flunk me and get it over with because i am not going to read any book. to this day i have read 3 and i’m well out of school. funny thing is now I spend my time writting books and still can’t read hardly at all, good thing for spell check. The worst problem is that people don’t ask the kids what they want to read or do they just give them their work and expect theme to do it. hope this helps.
and don’t ever give up

My son has ADD.
I know all about missing assigments.
We had success this year with organizing a folder. It took some work and the willingness of the teacher but made a hugh difference.
What we came up with is using an ordinary folder. any thing that needed to go home was STAPLED to that folder. The teacher also include this weeks agenda. She also took the time to fax over everything she STAPLED in for my son so that there was a second copy. What I would do was when he finished his assignment I’d fax back a copy. It really worked. My son had started to gain confidence and made hugh strides. Unfortunitly not all the teachers were as willing. Good Luck
DAwn

We had a similiar problem, we knew what his assigments were because they had assignment books that ad to be signed by the teacher after homework was written down in the AM, and then signed by parents after work was completed in the PM, but he would FORGET the things he needed to complete the assignment. His texbook, notebook, folder, etc would “disappear”. After trying everything else, this past year we came up with a program where he had to make it 10 days straight where he didn’t “forget” any supplies and then he would get to leave school and go to McDonalds for lunch. If he missed a day, he started from Day One again. This works because I teach for the district and am able to have lunch at the same time as he does. This worked wonders!!! His teacher said he would announce very loudly on those mornings that he was not buying lunch because he was going to McDonalds.

Hopefully a similiar concept might work for you.

Ask for a set of textbooks to be kept at home. All of the students at the school where I teach, middle school, have a set of books at home. Then, there is a set of books in the classroom that everyone usues. This plus an agenda planner makes homework much easier. There are always vocabulary words and chapter questions and review to work on at home.
Nan

Organizers:

http://plannerpads.com/

http://www.daytimer.com/content/welcome.asp

My son’s middle school assigned a planner to all the kids, it works pretty good when the teacher signs that hw has been written in correctly and parents sign that they have seen the assignment and it’s been completed as well as having the extra texts at home. Pretty much rules out the excuses. We have a contract with my son also where he gets points for signatures because at first he was forgetting to get the teachers to sign. Now it’s just part of the day.
A second point to the teacher signatures, my son wouldn’t alway write down the assignments correctly (like leaving out a page number or such as that) so when they signed, it meant that my son had all the right info down. I put it on them if we were unable to complete something if they signed and it was incorrect.
The one thing I had some trouble with is that sometimes he was allowed to do hw in class but wouldn’t always get it written down that it was already turned in. A little harder to remedy. Email is great if the teachers are willing.

There are several ideas that you can do for both you and your child to make sure he/she is doing his or her work. One, use a accordian type file with each subject listed. You will be able to see what your child has done in each class. Another idea is to buy a calander type planner and ask your child or his/her teacher to write down on the date what his/her assignment are for the day. You may also want to contact the teachers to see if they will work with you on this organizational tool. A child that is organized my be willing to focus on his or work.

If your child is having trouble handing in the work he has done, it can help to use one sturdy, plastic, brightly colored folder for everything that gets handed out in school and everything that has to be handed in at school. You can buy these at Staples and other office supply stores for next to nothing. Sometimes kids with ADHD get confused if there are too many places to put stuff. As far as recording assignments, you might try a PDA, if the child is old enough. Technology is fun for kids and looks cool (which means they are more likely to write down assignments) and it works well for planning for tests and long-term assignments. Palm has just come out with a very reasonably priced PDA — I think it is called Spire. It is under $100.

Andrea