How We Organize our ACE Paces System

I want to do a post on how *we* organize the ACE Pace system in our homeschool. Granted, it will be different for everyone, but this may be helpful to some, and also reading the ACE Homeschool Manual will prove worth your time as well.

First, we do have a School Room, and I realize that not everybody has been blessed with this, so keep that in mind as YOUR system is going to be completely different from mine, well, it most likely will be regardless of whether you have a school room or not. :-)

First of all at our school table, each child has their own space, chair, and cubby. They use their cubby to keep their school supplies, books, pencils, and Pace notebooks in.

I do require that my children keep their cubbies clean and organized, with nothing in them except 2 shelves for their school supplies and then the bottom shelf they may use for their personal art/craft projects if they choose. I also make sure each of my kids have a Pace Notebook, and they must always store their paces and goal cards in them.

On my side of our school table, I also have a cubby for each child. In my cubby for a particular child I store the whole current years worth of paces and score keys for that child. I keep the current in-use score keys on the top shelf, and then all of the other paces and keys are kept on the other 2 shelves. My children MUST ask me for their score key when they come to a score strip in their pace. They must use red pen when scoring (they put their pencil aside during scoring), and return the score key to me when done. So in the pencil box of each child you will not only find a few sharp pencils and eraser, but also a red pen for scoring, and a blue pen for their goal cards.

Everyday when they get out their Pace notebooks, they grab their goal card to see what they must do that day. As each subject is completed, they cross it off on that day's goals, and fill in the next days goals for that subject. We use blue pen for this. I do closely supervise their daily goals to be sure they are doing enough, yet not overburdening themselves. I love this system...I never, ever have to do lesson planning anymore! Woot! :-)

We have in our school what we call the 'community box'. This is just a plastic/rubbermaid type box that sits on the school counter filled with blank goal cards, stars for the progress chart, extra pencils, extra red and blue ink pens, calculators for the older two for their math (I do allow *some* calculator use beginning in 7th grade math), erasers, index cards, and other supplies, etc. Next to this box is where they can also find the pencil sharpener.

Every time I give my child a new Pace, they write their name on the front, along with the date. I remove the test from the center and store that in our test bins. Each child has a bin, and in that bin is a folder that holds the tests for all current, in progress paces. These hang on the wall by my own school desk.

I also make sure that the key for this new pace is on the top shelf of my cubby for that child. I remove the test key from the center, place reinforcement stickers on it (I am not sure what these are called, but they keep the pace from ripping out of the 3 ring binder) to cover each 3 ring punched hole and place it into my test keys binder. My test keys binder is just a 3 ring binder, with divider tabs in it. Each grade has it's own divider tab and I place the tests behind this tab in subject order (Math, English, Word Building, Literature, Science, Social Studies, Bible) in order of the pace numbers.

When one of my children is ready to take a Final Test for a pace, they first place the completed pace in the turn in box on my desk. (you can see the wire baskets on the shelf - on my desk)

The child then comes to me and asks for his or her test, which I get from the test folder. They complete their test in a quiet place with only a pencil available to them. When they are done, they give their test to me for scoring/grading. Of course in our school, they get lots of encouragement and cheering from their siblings, because in our school, if you get 100% on a test...everybody gets a treat from the test bucket in mom's school closet. ;-) So testing here is a day of FUN, not drudgery. And hey, if you have 2 siblings taking a test on any given day (which happens often with 5 kids)...you have a chance at 2 treats! lol

After I score a test, I enter the percentage grade on the front of the Pace that the test was taken from and I store these used Paces on my school closet in a box (everybody's used paces go into the same box for that year), which I either throw out or donate to someone who would still use them at the end of the year. In my school closet, I have nice shelving where I also store extra paces, or paces for the next year as I do try to buy ahead as I can.

I then record the percentage grade in a self-made file on my computer (you can also get the paper version of this from ACE), and place the completed test into a hanging file folder for that child. At the end of the year, all the tests and written compositions (which are also in their hanging file folder) for each child is placed into a manilla envelope that has the school year and grade written on it and stored in my school closet. I also print a copy of their grade report from my computer and place in the envelope. This is a great method, because rather than storing tons and tons of 'stuff', each child simply has a fairly thin envelope with proof/samples of their work for the whole year.

And finally, the child, if they pass the test (80% or higher), places the appropriate colored star (each subject has it's own color) on their progress chart. This is just simply a chart that you can get from ACE, that shows at a glance how many paces per subject the child has accomplished in each quarter.

Now at this point, the cycle starts again...give the child a new pace, have them write their name and date on front, remove test, have new score key ready to go, fill out goal card for the next day in that subject and so on...

I hope this has been helpful. :-)