Lesson Planning Poll

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

I currently do my lesson planning every six weeks, since we do six weeks on and six weeks off. I'm considering switching though, so I'm curious as to what everyone else finds efficient.  

[LilBearsMama]

For something like math, just do the next thing. So no planning really needed. Handwriting/copywork - do the next thing.

 

A unit study I plan out from day one to however long the study lasts.

 

Something like science (say an Elemental program) I look at what is recommended and plan by the week, but I do it in monthly sessions.

[Petrichor]

Open and go, but I have a Kindergartener.

 

I have a basic "loose" lesson plan/schedule that I follow for each week, that I decided before the start of the school year. 

 

I don't feel that it is as necessary to write out lesson plans as it was when I was teaching at a school because I just follow my (one) child's needs for the day.

 

For example, we use Singapore and Miquon. When I go to get the math materials out each day I think about how much of an attention span my DS has at the time and if we should review or move on to the new lesson, and if I'm feeling like Singapore or Miquon or a little of both. 

 

This certainly wouldn't work for more than one child, and I expect I'll have to move to lesson planning on more of a weekly and semester basis (depending on the class) as he gets into more advanced work.

 

 

 

 

edited for clarity (yes, I know it's still probably lacks clarity)

[Critterfixer]

I find weekly planning to be more or less doable. I've tried to set up six weeks at a time. Inevitably, something happens. It's just easier to plan the week and adjust on the fly.

[73349]

I do estimated weekly plans for a semester to a year in advance, and I keep them in a spreadsheet, adjusted as needed. When we get closer (a few weeks in advance) I print out the weekly checklist.

 

I've dropped paper plan books because I need to not have more to have to do the weekend before (so I really need to plan far in advance) but obviously there's a need for adjustability (because DS does pick up or slow down his pace at different times).

 

I turn boxes in the spreadsheet gray to show that something has been finished. It keeps me from going, "Oh, let's let this slide this week"--whereas with a plan book, once I turned the page to the next week, either I'd have to rewrite (messy!), re-print (wasteful!), or just forget about it.

[Ethel Mertz]

I voted "weekly." I do, however, do a lot of planning on a yearly basis in terms of selecting materials, getting a rough draft of what I want to cover for each subject, making lists of books needed, adjusting our daily schedule, etc. I tweak those yearly plans on a regular basis as the year progresses. On a weekly basis, I fine tune the week's assignments in terms of how much work we got through the previous week, any rabbit trails we want to explore, and whether or not DS needs more practice on a math concept or is ready to move on sooner than expected.

[HS Mom in NC]

Each year. 

 

I do the 36 week file folder system and love it.  I've been doing it for 4 years now.

[Chelli]

I plan for the entire year but I do it be subject so we are never "off". If we need to slow down or speed up we can because only the subject is planned for the year not all of the subjects together. It's extremely helpful to keep me on track if I plan that way.

 

ETA: Here's a link to the blog post I wrote on planning an entire school year by subject.

[happypamama]

I voted "open and go/daily." My goal with each subject is to get it to "do the next thing." For some things, like Saxon math, that's easy; for others, it requires a little more preplanning, but in the end, they all end up "open up, see what's next." But then for each week, I see where we are and whether, based on the week, if it's the right time for a particular video or project or readaloud or whatever.

[EKS]

I do it before school starts each year and usually end up redoing it somewhere in the first semester.

[Sneezyone]

I sketched out the first six weeks of the school year to help us get into a routine and then moved on to weekly goals that are adjusted according to their pace.

[pehp]

Whew, I think I've tried all options.  I started w/ 36 weeks at a time using file folders.  This worked fine for kindy when I had a baby.  I usually do a rough sketch of the year in the summertime now, but the actual PLANNING (which doesn't take much time) I do once a week or once every three weeks, depending on our schedule, activities, etc.  I like to have plenty of flexibility, but I also want to have a plan. 

 

But my plans are pretty open-and-go anyhow: Rod and Staff math, Miquon, ETC, spelling, mapwork, copywork, and our narration-readings are pretty straightforwardly open-and-go, so if I don't plan....I am still okay!  I *do* pre-read/skim our readings so that I can pull out challenging/new words and explain them before I read to my son. 

[MEmama]

I have a general plan for the year (and a hopeful plan for the next few), but it's fluid. I can generally map out a week or so in advance, but even then there's no guarantee we'll stick to it. Typically it's just open and go. If he needs more or less time in something, we accommodate. If he wants to do a different assignment that fulfills similar goals, that's fine. If we ditch something or chase a rabbit trail, that's fine too.

 

It works for us to be flexible because overall it's within a framework of structure. Ours is mostly a discovery based, hey this is cool, learn together kind of homeschool instead of an I teach-You learn situation, so we can take it wherever we want within our general framework.

[PeacefulChaos]

I voted yearly, though I don't really do lesson plans to speak of... I type up a list for each subject for the kids, and they just do the next thing.  It's pretty simple.  But I do that yearly, so I figured that was the closest answer lol...

[SilverMoon]

All of the above??

 

I spend my summer getting deeply familiar with most of their books, writing up detailed lesson plans/syllabi for individual subjects for individual kids. Most of those are a year's worth, but some are half year. Super easy to plan things may only be a quarter at a time.  Except for history with integrated geography and/or literature, I do not merge subjects into one schedule. Ever.

 

When the rubber meets the road each kid has their own individual planbook (one intended for teachers because they have more room to write). That book is very rarely filled in more than one week in advance. Teens have those syllabi in their binders and use them to work out their schedule for the next week. Younger kids go through the process discussing needs and expectations as I write down the new week in their planner.

 

Very little ones just get a subject checklist, and their work is all open and go. My first grader has a list of all her subjects in a page protector at the front of her binder. She uses a dry erase marker to check off the completed subjects for the day. Subjects with loose pages live behind tabs in that binder. Everything else sits on her school shelf.

 

Homegrown courses that take more time to build I sometimes just do quarter or semester chunks during summer planning, and build the rest of it as I have time throughout the school year. I try hard to get most of the work done during the summer though.

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

Currently, I have a file folder system that I use for the six-week periods in which we do school. It holds any worksheets that they will have to use for their assignments. I think I want to keep that, but I'm thinking of writing down each subject's assignments for the entire year as a separate list. That way, I can still keep it relatively open-and-go, but still have that wiggle room that the six-week planning affords me. Based on all of your responses, it sounds like this should be feasible.

 

I need to be prepared, but with the laid-back nature of our homeschool, I also need to have that flexibility.

 

Thanks, everyone, for your insight!

[Desert Strawberry]

I chose daily, because I wrote it all out each day, but I chose topics, subjects and materials monthly. I sketch out a general list of subjects and rotation one or twice a year. It's meant to be once, but I need to reevaluate and change things up at some point nearly every year.

[ScoutTN]

For something like math, just do the next thing. So no planning really needed. Handwriting/copywork - do the next thing.

 

A unit study I plan out from day one to however long the study lasts.

 

Something like science (say an Elemental program) I look at what is recommended and plan by the week, but I do it in monthly sessions.

This is pretty close to what I do. Most of ours is open and go and I just take an hour or so on the weekend to review the upcoming week, print any pages etc.

 

History I plan out thoroughly and will do the same for our Narnia study and our homegrown science for this coming year, making adjustments as we go.

[mc26]

I voted weekly.  I have a rough idea of each semester/year, but plan 2 weeks at a time.  I love the idea of planning far more in advance, but, you know, life happens. 

[ALB]

I'm not currently making any plans. Pre-made plans is one of the reasons I went with full Memoria Press curriculum this year. But, since I might end up subbing out certain subjects in the future I guess I'll have to go back to making my own. I've tried doing it monthly and weekly. Weekly is hard, though!

For those of you who just do the next thing, does it ever bother you if you finish certain subjects way before others? I was always running into that and it drove me crazy that we were all over the place with our curriculum, some finishing as much as 2-3 months before others!

[ErinE]

I do a bit of everything. At the start of the academic year, I create a curriculum summary for each child and then book and video lists for the content subjects like literature, history, and science. I like having all the materials listed in one place so I can review them for subsequent children.

 

Since none of the planners I've used in the past had enough subject blocks, I created a weekly planner in Word. Curriculum summary and book lists go in the front of the weekly pages then I bind them all together.

 

The planner gets filled out a week to three weeks in advance. I've tried filling it out in six weeks blocks, but it's difficult to predict our schedule that far out. DH travels for work, and we sometimes go with him.

[rutheart]

In the summer, I write up 36 week plans for each subject and keep them in a filing cabinet. I use a hanging file for each week, with a folder for each child in them. I don't put dates on them, so we can pick our vacation days as needed (like when I had emergency surgery last month, so we unexpectedly took an early spring break). I also write down call numbers for any library books needed, that way I don't freak out if a particular title is unavailable, and can snag books that the library purchased after I made my lesson plans. Each weekend, I pull the next week's plan (i.e. Week 26) and look at my schedule for the week, and figure out how to spread out the subjects for that week. Sometimes I drop planned activities if we're going to be really busy, but I never drop subjects altogether.

 

Planning ahead of time is fantastic when everyone has Februaritis, since I would plan basically nothing then if it wasn't already done. Also, if you start a school year and a subject is not working well as planned, you can still change your plans. It's just easier for me to make fun lesson plans in the summer when I'm not weary. We never would have tried paper mache or baked a cake if I was only planning every week or month.

Ruth

[Coco_Clark]

I'm really a bit of both. We do 4 seasonal quarters, each with 10 weeks of school and 2 weeks "off". During the Spring I plan out a general scope of the next year. What subjects do I want to do? What topics? Will they be done daily/weekly. Will they last all year, fall-spring, just one quarter. What curricula will I use?

 

Then over the Summer I write a scope and sequence for each subject: what I want to accomplish each quarter in list form- topics to be covered, books to be read, project ideas, feild trip possibilities, ect. In a few blessed subjects (math) I follow the given scope and sequence and there is no planning like this, but most things I tend to tear apart :).

 

Every few (4-6) weeks I take an hour to plug this information into an actually weekly planner.

[MinivanMom]

I can't really answer the poll, because we do a little of both.

 

For curriculums that I need to finish within the school year or things I'm trying to plan and line-up myself (history & literature readings, for example), I do all my planning on a yearly basis. I take a couple weeks in the summer and make a spreadsheet. I break it down into 36 weeks, so I know exactly what we need to do each week in order to finish by the end of the year.

 

For math (and lang arts with my younger children), we just open & go/do the next thing. No advanced planning required.

 

I plan our weekly schedule 2-3 weeks at a time. For my younger children, I use a weekly spreadsheet I've made with blocks of time for each subject. For subjects that I planned in the summer, I copy and paste what we are going to do each week. For open & go subjects, I just leave a blank box each day. Then I can write in what we do with a pencil as we go along. For my two oldest kids, I make them each a weekly checklist. I write down their assignments in most subjects with a little box next to it for them to check off. In subjects where they are working at their own pace, I just put a box to check off next to the name of the subject. So I might write "Science Reading" with a bit of empty space beneath it. Dd would then write in the name of the book and the number of pages she read, before checking of the box next to it.

[Mom22ns]

I voted by the semester, but the truth is it varies. When we started, I planned weekly. Even now, I make adjustments weekly. Sometimes we use homeschool materials that are open and go and we just do the next thing. Sometimes I am totally creating my own course and I plan the entire course (which we usually do in semester blocks), at a time.

 

I like to have each semester at least roughed out in my planning software before it starts. 

[Momto4inSoCal]

Last year was my first year homeschooling and I had planned on scheduling 6 weeks at a time. Half of the time I ended up with no schedule at all and we had to go 3 weeks into summer to finish our work. I planned this year during summer and did the entire year. It has been so much better knowing where we should be. I plan 2 makeup days a month and we usually use them. If we don't have makeup work I use the day for hands on activities.

[Maela]

I chose every six weeks, but it's actually every 5-9 weeks.

[Runningmom80]

I voted daily, but even that is being generous.  I'm lucky if I can even articulate what we did after it happens.

[Amy Jo]

I know what books I need for the year, but I plan every six weeks. Then I have a daily routine/schedule and every day I plug the books into it.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

Right now it's daily.

 

I tried planning a rough outline of the year during the summer but it got overwhelming and I never finished. I moved to planning an outline for the semester(ish - Sept-Dec) with more detailed plans for the first 4-6 weeks. It was beautiful on paper - and in my head. I think I planned way too much though and we couldn't get through it all. We got behind, my DH's schedule changed, holidays happened...

 

I started this year with a much more reasonable month long plan - I thought. Then we added a couple of extra curriculars and everyone started getting sick. There went that plan. Now I simply try to do something most days.

 

I really want more of a plan. I feel like we're not where we should be on some things right now. I also hate that some things have been getting skipped that I really wanted to get in this year. I feel like not having a plan makes it too easy to slack off. Having too much planned does the same thing though. If the plan is unreasonable it's easy to just throw the whole thing out.

 

Definitely following this thread and reading some of your blogs to help me figure this out for next year.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I voted daily, but even that is being generous. I'm lucky if I can even articulate what we did after it happens.

Me too! It frustrates me! Good thing we're not required to keep any records here....

[texasmama]

I do plans for every kid and every subject for the entire year before we begin.  Sometimes the plans change, and that is okay. 

 

I do them in Word documents, so I can just change them and print a new copy.  Yes, I know this is primitive.  I'm from the 80's, yo.  We were glad to have Word.

[FO4UR]

I do plans for every kid and every subject for the entire year before we begin.  Sometimes the plans change, and that is okay. 

 

I do them in Word documents, so I can just change them and print a new copy.  Yes, I know this is primitive.  I'm from the 80's, yo.  We were glad to have Word.

 

 

This is what I do.  "80's yo"   :coolgleamA:

 

Only, I rewrite our plans 3-5 times per year.  I'm bad at follow through.  October, December,  and February are months that will certainly be filled with RE-writing plans.  Oh well.  

[jaderbee]

I voted for a year because that's how I initially start planning. Last year I laid everything out to see if it would fit in 36 weeks. Then I planned the first trimester. After 12 weeks we took a week off and I spent a few days planning to Christmas break, etc. etc. Next year I won't have an extra student and plan to shift to 10 weeks on 1 week off all year. One of my favorite blog posts about planning is Merry at Hope for Homeschool's Teacher Binder and Routine posts: http://hopeforhomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/08/organization-teacher-binder.html. 

 

Some subjects- History, Literature, Art, etc. seem to plan well a year at a time. However, planning them means that we don't experience the joys of rabbit trails that other homeschools seem to enjoy. Also skill subjects don't seem to lend themselves to long term planning as development in math, reading, and writing doesn't always occur at an even or predictable pace. I hope to find a balance between preparation and planning this year. :)

[ondreeuh]

I plan for the entire year but I do it be subject so we are never "off". If we need to slow down or speed up we can because only the subject is planned for the year not all of the subjects together. It's extremely helpful to keep me on track if I plan that way.

 

ETA: Here's a link to the blog post I wrote on planning an entire school year by subject.

This is what I do, and I've recently switched over to Skedtrack. Love it!!!

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

I used to use Skedtrack. :)

[regentrude]

I can not vote because there was no option " I do not write lesson plans at all."

[Momto4inSoCal]

I took the daily/open and go to mean daily or open and go meaning you don't plan.

[MariaT]

I do what Ethel Mertz does, but I voted 'yearly'. I plan the general subjects for the year starting the spring before and spend the summer working out syllabi. Every Sunday, though, I make a one-page chart for each kid that lists the daily assignments for that week. This is the time when I check in with them to see if they are on track or if they are behind, and what they are going to do about it if they are behind. Which happens a lot. The one-page schedules go on the fridge. I do different colors for each month so it looks pretty! My boys never look at it. They make their own schedules and keep track of their own stuff. But it helps preserve the frail illusion that I have that things are really under control. And that is what I'm going for.

 

Years ago, when they were younger, I did highly detailed schedules in the summer that included, planning out when to buy supplies for science and history projects. Those were the days :glare: .

 

Maria

[IfIOnly]

I voted yearly, though I don't really do lesson plans to speak of... I type up a list for each subject for the kids, and they just do the next thing. It's pretty simple. But I do that yearly, so I figured that was the closest answer lol...

This :)

[kolamum]

I didn't vote because....

 

1. I plan annually with a "this is what I want to accomplish each term"

2. I plan weekly so that we can have an "open & go style" based on the term plans i made previously.

3. I also begin planning for the following year once the first year is started.

[FriedClams]

We use Sonlight so huge blocks are already done. Then we have open and go stuff - math, LA, sciecne, etc that I add in weekly. I also tweak Fun Friday stuff every week. It takes about 10 minutes a kid once a week to make sure all we had on the list last week got done before we move on to the upcoming week. I voted weekly.

[LLMom]

I like to plan a year at a time.  I even print it all out because I love something about having a whole planned out year on paper even if it doesn't happen exactly as planned. 

[Pronghorn]

Lesson plans? What are lesson plans? I have been homeschooling for almost nine years without them.

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

I can not vote because there was no option " I do not write lesson plans at all."

 

 

I took the daily/open and go to mean daily or open and go meaning you don't plan.

 

Yes, to me open & go is having no written out plans, rather just doing whichever lesson is next. 

[Wildiris]

I plan a year in advance, but life gets in the way and those plans always change. I do like to plan subjects that are not "open and go."