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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: April 06 2013 at 4:49pm | IP Logged
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Specifically:
1. When do you plan your new school year as far as weekends? after the kids are in bed? during the school you should be doing now?  
2. During a school year, when do you do your lesson plans for the week? (Sat? Sun? evenings?
3. or, do you just use the "blanket" approach to planning that you made up at some other time that you use all year? (i.e. 2 pages Latin on T/Th every day all the time?
Just curious and trying to figure it out for myself. I have 8 in school, so it is really hard to keep track of where everyone is and should be. Tips on organizing this?
Aren't you all proud of how SHORT and SUCCINCT I kept this?? 
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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juliana147
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| Posted: April 06 2013 at 7:25pm | IP Logged
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Kim, I usually do a week/weekend of planning before the school year starts, and a planning day once a quarter, where the kids do something self-directed while I check on their progress.
Those planning days keep me on track. I consider them essential, and usually give myself a teacher reward of a nice cup of tea and a cookie or something when I am done. 
Grading, etc. is usually a few times a week, in the early afternoon, before I have to cook dinner. After school activities can throw this off, and then I have to catch up on Sunday afternoons. I try not to let that happen, though.
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- Juliana
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: April 06 2013 at 7:54pm | IP Logged
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I start planning for the year in February. It's how I relax and stave off the winter blues  ! I'm usually finished with the big picture plans (books, programs) by April to take advantage of the homeschool conferences and garage sales. Since I start early, I do it when the kids are working independently or in the evenings or weekends.
By the time I start school in August, I have all my weekly and daily plans created for the year and input into an excel planner (a hybrid I created, but I used Donna Young's V-planner last year as well). I try to review the upcoming week over the weekend and then do a daily review before the kids wake up (on most days  ). Each morning I print off the daily work to be completed and we go from there.
So far, that's what has worked, but I only have two actively schooling this year. Next year I will have 2 plus an early K learner, and by the time the fourth one is old enough I hope to be a pro at this planning thing!
Hope that helps!
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 06 2013 at 8:43pm | IP Logged
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Like Lara, I start in February, and I usually start in my head, just thinking about where we are, how far we're likely to be by summer, and what I want us to be doing the next year. When I really start writing things down, I do it when I can grab a moment -- at night, in the morning before people are up, while they're working on their own, whenever. They're used to the sight of me staring at bookshelves and talking to myself . . .
Planning for my younger kids is relatively easy -- I do refine and re-refine my booklists several times before mid-summer, which is when I generally do whatever buying I'm going to do. By then I'm REALLY sure I want those books and no others! But I don't do detailed lesson plans, beyond working out the logistics of who is going to read what when, and what I'm going to read aloud as opposed to having them do it independently. Once I've decided all that, we're more or less good to go. We have our booklist(s), and when one book is finished, we (or that person) start another. Meanwhile, math, for example, is mostly a matter of "do the next page." I do pick out copywork on the fly -- often on a daily basis. Mostly my kids doing copywork do the same thing, so I just think, "Hm, what do we feel like today?" And then I write it up, and we're good to go.
I do stop and assess things periodically throughout the year -- what's working, what's not, what do we need now as opposed to what I thought a year ago that we'd need now? And as a child finishes a book, I take the opportunity to rethink what he or she is going to read next, because the right book might not be what I thought. Also, I grade daily, as work gets done -- that is, I look over a math assignment as the child finishes it, so that we can talk about anything that's gone wrong and set it right while everything is fresh in the mind. That's when I make decisions about whether to move forward or go back and do more practice.
HIgh school planning takes longer, because I write out weekly plans for my now-rising-10th-grader to do basically on his own -- we do meet and talk, and I read his writing, but beyond that he's pretty much in charge of himself, which means that I have to have things worked out in enough detail for him to do that successfully, and I have to think about how I'm going to teach through the plans I make. We've been off school this week, and I've used a lot of this time to hammer away at that. Again, I want to be done by midsummer, so that *I* have a chance to regroup before it all swings into action.
But I have never been good at "lesson plans," per se, even when I was a classroom teacher. Even for my CCD class . . . I start out writing out these detailed plans for what is evidently the express purpose of not following them at all . . . so I never do it for long . . .
Sally
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Willa
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| Posted: April 10 2013 at 2:38pm | IP Logged
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I start looking back over the past year in Lent and thinking about the next year in Easter. During the spring and summer I choose books to use, and what method I am going to use for the next year (prayerfully...) I plan way more than I actually use, but this helps me psychologically get my momentum going, so I need the time.
When I had several in school I did the blanket approach you mentioned during the school year. I made checklists and the kids basically just "did the next thing" with help from me as needed. I had a couple of subjects that I "taught" -- writing and some memory work, I think, and we worked in a group -- and the kids that needed a boost/tutoring, I would work with in the morning, while the more independent ones would go off on their own and just come if they needed help or the syllabus said to discuss a book. In the afternoon I would check their work and on Fridays I would print out new checklists for the coming week.
Recently with "only" three in school, I spend Friday afternoon collecting materials we've worked on the past week, and getting things organized for the next week. If that isn't enough time, I spend a couple of hours on the weekend in addition.
Though there are only three, I find planning rather challenging nowadays, since I have a junior in high school, a 10 year old 5th grader, and a 13 year old who is dev delayed and doing 2nd grade work. They have very different temperaments, as well, and there are not many ways I can combine them. I try to keep literature/history on the same topic, at least, even though the materials are very different. But planning seems to consume more time than I want it to.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 10 2013 at 4:37pm | IP Logged
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I find that having somewhere (on the computer, it doesn't get lost so easily) to jot things down is handy.. then when things occur to me or I think of a way I want to do something.. I can write it out.. so that I spend a lot of my thinking time doing other things and reducing the sit and work on it time.
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G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Kathryn
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| Posted: April 10 2013 at 4:37pm | IP Logged
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This is probably one of my top 3 challenges...planning! I never seem to have a block of time without someone needing something or when dad can take them out of the house so I can sort and purge and plan. I feel like I need 3 days at LEAST 2x a year but alas, doesn't happen. Honestly I could take maybe 1 day every 2-3 months.
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 22 2013 at 12:17pm | IP Logged
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I love to start planning in the late winter/early spring to carry me into the nicer weather and through those dreaded weeks of burnout. Thinking about new materials always gives me a nice perspective on our approach/long term plan/things we love and helps bring some freshness back to the days.
When it gets down to the nitty gritty, I have found a blanket approach like using HomeSchoolTracker+ or an excell spreadsheet works best for the broad planning. Then I can just fill in any page numbers, specific picture book titles, or other details on a weekly basis.
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Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Barbara C.
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| Posted: April 30 2013 at 3:45pm | IP Logged
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Usually around February or March I get a general idea of what subjects I want to emphasize with each kid for the next school year and deciding what curricula I want to use. I also get an idea of what kind of "light work" I want us to do over the summer (usually math practice).
Then at some point before we start the fall semester in August I plot out the first six weeks of assignments in a day planner. Some subjects I pretty much know that we'll keep on a consistent pattern, but math is one of those subjects that can vary and may need to be tweaked for more or less practice in a particular subsection. So, I plot out about six weeks at a time.
Usually around November/December I decide if I want to make any changes for the Spring semester and order those supplies. Then I fill in the first six weeks in a day planner. Then repeat.
Of course, I've learned to write everything in pencil. Sometimes things just aren't a good fit. Or sometimes you end up putting your oldest in regular school in October and have to restructure your homeschool plans to account for subjects that are no longer "joint subjects".
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Barbara
Mom to "spirited" dd(9), "spunky" dd (6), "sincere" dd (3), "sweet" dd (2), and baby girl #5 born 8/1/12!!
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: WHEN do you plan?
