Week planning with a accelerated child

[visitor]

Dear all,

 

Which planning system do you use for you accelerated children. I bought a homeschool planner but I just cant plan very well :)

 

When I plan to do 1 lesson for Singapore Math . He could do 2 lessons ... Or he finished his spelling lessons much earlier because he already knew them. Or he rushes through Science because it was to easy and he already read about it. 

 

And there are other days were he needs extra time because DS hits a wall and needs extra time.

 

It seems that what I plan is not the same what DS is going to do ....  

 

There are also other days and weeks were I can skip a lot of chapters because they are to easy for him. Or just skip an grade level .I know this is perfectly normal with an accelerated child but this does not make it easy to plan things.

 

I have a large family and when I dont write my planning. I will easily forget to do things ...

 

So how do you plan your kids work every day/week? Or is a week planner basically not a option for a gifted child because you just have to follow his capabilities , potentials and struggles. 

 

Thanks in advanced 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2017 by visitor

[maize]

Can you plan for time spent on a topic rather than assignments?

 

One of my favorite planning methods is a loop schedule. Pick a couple of core subjects that you want to do every day or nearly every day (math and any other skill subject you really want to emphasize, such as a language or music practice) and set aside time for those. Then put everything else in a loop schedule. On day 1 during loop time you start with the first loop subject; you can spend as much or as little time on it as you want before moving on. The next day you pick up with whatever subject is next in line--you may do three or four loop subjects one day and just one on another day, but the loop ensures you get to all of them regularly enough. If you want to do something--say, writing, or science, more frequently than other subjects but not necessarily daily you can put it in the loop more than once--so, science, spelling, history, art, science, literature, health, then back to the beginning.

Edited April 1, 2017 by maize

[MamaSprout]

I have a list of what needs done for the year for each subject. At the beginning of the week I put the daily stuff (review vocab for Latin, etc) into a weekly teacher's planner for each kiddo (I only have one right now but have had outside students at different times).

I enter the assignment for things like math in the evening for the next day. Everything is in pencil, so we have flexibility. I cross off what we finish as we go from the subject lists, and make notes all over them for things like books I want to add later or projects I find. This way, I've got my basics covered. I do this on spread sheets right now, but I've done this in composition or spiral notebooks, too.

So if she finished multiple lessons in something one day, I just write for the next day, "start lesson xyz, work examples with mom. One hour". For French I write, "Work 30 minutes". Latin is "worksheet one, review vocab" etc. I don't assign stuff I know she'll do, but I might say "read a chapter from a book on lit list today" knowing she'll probably read the whole book-or series- within the week.

We never work for more than an hour in a given subject (hour and a half rarely for Algebra). Things that I think she will want to go deeper on go to the end of the day so they don't bump have-to-do stuff. We do science three days a week and history two.

We used to be more interest led in our planning, but dd is happier this way. She can count on non-school time in the afternoon for her projects.

Edited April 2, 2017 by elladarcy

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I've tried a few different styles over the years, and I've had to adjust and evolve with the changing needs of my child.

 

At the moment I put together a weekly plan each weekend. It is only one page and it has a list of daily 'must-dos' and then a list of things that need to be done by the end of the week.

So, it's pretty loose.

 

My daughter (nearly 11) can choose when she does things and how long she wants to do them. It also gives plenty of flexibility for heading off on tangents.

 

I can't imagine trying to plan with scheduled times and allotted time-frames for my daughter. I just can't see that working. She really does her best and most engaged work when it's on her terms, but within a loose overall structure. 

[MamaSprout]

We don't schedule times- other than determining order at the beginning of the day. So it's not like "Math is 9:45-10:45". But if I know she's going to want to put in extra time on something, it goes at the end of the day. I go to work in the afternoon a lot of days, so making sure we can get the heavy hitters in before lunch is necessary. I wasn't sure my creative kiddo would like it, but now that we're doing it, it works pretty well.

Edited April 2, 2017 by elladarcy

[Pegs]

We have a little meeting at the whiteboard every morning to figure out which subjects we'll be hitting, and how we'd like to fit them into our day. I let DS pick two first, then I pick two, and I choose the order to make the best use of our time/attention/need for breaks.

 

We do maths, reading, and some form of handwriting (either a spelling lesson or copywork from a content subject) every day. Everything else just naturally falls into a bit of a loop, though I do try to alternate our science and history days.