Am I wasting my time planning curriculum?

[Mrs. Frankweiler]

This fall we will be starting our 2nd year homeschooling. I'll have a 2nd grader, 4th grader, and a K'er who will be "officially" starting school. (his prek lessons were hit or miss this past year.) One thing I learned in our rookie year was that if it wasn't planned and written out, it didn't get done. I also learned that I'm a major tweaker and I've realized that no planned curriculum (like WP) will be "just right." I would like some of the resources, dislike others, then feel like I wasted a lot of money buying stuff we didn't use. We did ok in the math and language arts areas, but I started out with grand ideas about using CHOW and GTG for social studies, and WP Animal Worlds for science. I'm embarrassed to say it was a total flop. We ended up resorting to a map skills workbook towards the end of the year so at least I could say we had done some social studies, and I don't even want to admit how little science was actually taught.

 

My problem is that I don't want to be stuck to a textbook for science and history (I'm leaning towards a lit-based approach.) So, this year I've decided I need to have everything planned out before we start school again in August. Sort of like a do-it-yourself Sonlight schedule that includes all subjects. For example, for each kid I'll take our Saxon math, break it up into how many lessons per week for the year, then I'll schedule each week in my handy dandy lesson planner. I think the tougher subjects to plan, history & science will probably need the most work, but at least if I pick books I know we'll use, it's more likely to get done. For some reason in my undisciplined brain, when something is written down it becomes the LAW and has a better chance of being completed than if I just plan to do it.

 

Do you think this has a chance of working or am I just wasting my time? Anyone else do this?

[Amber in AUS]

I have seen lots of people say they plan the year out in advance like you are suggesting. I know for me i would give myself permission not to complete it so it wouldn't work IYKWIM. All that work would be for nothing. I really need to work on my self discipline in that area. BUT if you are sure you would stick to if fairly well then go ahead and schedule it out.

[8filltheheart]

What has worked well for our family is planning in 6-7 week chunks. I find that especially with younger children it isn't a good idea to plan too far ahead b/c learning changes, interests, etc. Their learning styles and abilities tend to be rather fluid and they might need to slow down or increase pace over the course of the yr. I typically have a general idea of what I want to do for the yr in my head, but day to day planning is only for the few weeks at a time.

 

I, too, have to have it written down b/c if I don't, life takes over and we don't accomplish what we need to do. So I can definitely relate. (FWIW, I don't write anything down for my littlest ones.......they can take such learning leaps that it is really hard to gauge what they might be doing 2 weeks ahead of where we are.)

[WTMindy]

You might just plan monthly or quarterly in the beginning so that you can really get a feel for what you will like or accomplish. I LOVE to plan, so that is one of the best parts for me. You might want to look at Homeschool Tracker (there is a free version and a Plus version) because you can make lesson plans and then tweak them fairly easily. There is a bit of a learning curve to the software, but once you learn it, it is pretty fun.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

For some reason in my undisciplined brain, when something is written down it becomes the LAW and has a better chance of being completed than if I just plan to do it.

 

Do you think this has a chance of working or am I just wasting my time? Anyone else do this?

 

This is the way I work too. One thing I'm working on is planning by week/day numbers instead of dates. I'm planning out a progression of our studies, not a timeline. Does that make sense? So I'm working on laying out weeks 1-36, each with days 1-5. It provides flexibility within a framework. I won't plan out specifics for things like math though, where it's just "do the next thing."

[sagira]

This is the way I work too. One thing I'm working on is planning by week/day numbers instead of dates. I'm planning out a progression of our studies, not a timeline. Does that make sense? So I'm working on laying out weeks 1-36, each with days 1-5. It provides flexibility within a framework. I won't plan out specifics for things like math though, where it's just "do the next thing."

 

:iagree: This system has been working great for us.

[2_girls_mommy]

That kind of planning works for me. I do plan out the whole year, but I do it by months. I take the math book, the phonics, the history, music (anything with lesson numbers basically) and divide them by the number of months I want to do schoolwork. Then I divide it up. So I have a montly plan of the entire year. I know that in Aug. I want to do lessons 1-17 of math, 1-4 of history and music, etc. Then during the month I keep an eye on where we are. At the end of a month, I check to see if we are in the right spot, and what I want to do.. Can I skip a lesson, or double up one day? Some things I realized just weren't going to work and I had to accept that. But I got a feel as we went about what changes I needed to make.

 

For the subjects that I plan myself, I had a general plan of the topics to be covered each mo.. Like for Science I had which animals or habitats I wanted to study each month. As It got closer, I had to gather my materials. I had planned ahead for planting seedlings in Feb. inside the house, gardening in Spring, and studying plants and trees in May. So as it got closer I gathered the books I needed. This plan worked well for me, and I have next year begun. Good luck!

[SeekingSimplicity]

We all have really short attention spans here. We may be really interested in sea life this week, and not care a thing about it next week. Instead we'd rather learn about rainbows, or stars or whatever. So I've learned to go with it. If I were going to plan things out, I'd just do a few weeks at a time, and be willing to keep those plans flexible so they can be adjusted to the kids interest.

[arcara]

I like to have a plan. It really helps me with all the little ones I have. For instance, I bought R.E.A.L. for next year and wrote a schedule for me to follow. I'm also working on SOTW 2 for next year. It makes it open-and-go for me during the school year when I'm so busy. I also plan by days instead of dates like others mentioned.

[Greta]

For some reason in my undisciplined brain, when something is written down it becomes the LAW and has a better chance of being completed than if I just plan to do it.

 

Do you think this has a chance of working or am I just wasting my time? Anyone else do this?

 

I've learned that for *me*, I do need to have a written plan in order to keep me on track and accountable. But I also need some flexibility written into it, because if something gets messed up, it's like the whole brilliant plan goes up in smoke and I get completely frustrated and throw my hands in the air and give up.

 

So here is my approach (so far ;)) to this coming year, which is 4th for my dd. First, I sat down and just made a very general plan for the year -- very general. In fact, maybe more like "goals" instead of a "plan". Things like "finish RightStart level D and get a good start on level E". "Incorporate Nature Study consistently." Things like that.

 

Then I divided the year up into three terms of 12 weeks each, and made a general plan for each term. For example, I want to do one Shakespearean play each term, so I said for term 1 that we would read Lamb's and Nesbitt's versions of The Tempest. I didn't plan out exactly when we would do this, just some time in Term 1. And I did similar plans for other subject areas. We'll cover the first six chapters of the Burgess Bird Book as part of our Nature Study. We'll do the first 60 (daily) lessons in Language Lessons for the Elementary Child. We'll study Renior and Rodin for Picture Study. We'll cover such and such chapters of our history texts (SOTW, OIS, TCOO). We'll do a lapbook as an intro to Chemistry. Etc.

 

Then, I will plan it out week by week, but not more than week or two in advance, as we go, always referring back to my Term plan to make sure we're staying more or less on track. That way I can keep other scheduling needs in mind, or if something else unscheduled comes up (illness, whatever) it hasn't blown my beautiful schedule. But I'll still have that motivation and accountability for making sure that the term does actually get completed.

 

I'm excited about it! I'm also having fun using http://www.myhomeschoolplan.com instead of paper. But YMMV. Good luck! :001_smile:

[LadyAberlin]

I plan weekly. I have written down how many lessons in each book need to be covered per week and then at the beginning of the week I write it into a schedule. That way if we don't do something one week I can adjust the schedule the next week and I don't feel forever behind.

[Chez J]

This is the way I work too. One thing I'm working on is planning by week/day numbers instead of dates. I'm planning out a progression of our studies, not a timeline. Does that make sense? So I'm working on laying out weeks 1-36, each with days 1-5. It provides flexibility within a framework. I won't plan out specifics for things like math though, where it's just "do the next thing."

 

Us too. Each summer I plan the schedule for history, science, etc. I dont' set dates to anything, but I plan for vacations and holidays. I know that I take nearly a month off in winter, so I just plan for that. I also plan in a few weeks of "catch up" in spring in case we get behind. If not, the we just finish early.

 

Then, I print the chart out, put it in a sheet protector, and put it at the front of the book. The sheet protector keeps it from getting destroyed during the year. LOL!

 

As for math, grammar and CLE reading, we just do the next lesson.

 

Lesley

[mycalling]

I take the whole of the year's learning and divide by the number of weeks we school, which for us is only 28 weeks. They aren't dated though I did make a separate list of what dates those weeks might take place...and I've already changed our start date thus proving why I shouldn't date them!

 

I add page numbers of referance books for history and science and the kids will find extra books on the topic through the library's online catelog before we go get them. I'm doing research-based and peer-tutoring for those subjects this year since I've failed the last two years being responsible for them myself.

[PeterPan]

Mrs. F, if I could suggest, I'm guessing that some of the subjects you did went really well, and some of the subjects didn't. You only need to change the planning on the ones that DIDN'T. ;) For instance, math doesn't take much planning. You know you're going to do a lesson a day and you do it. You may have more subjects like that that are "do the next thing" subjects. Don't sit there filling out huge month-long grids for subjects where you just do the next thing. If you get behind by a lesson, you'll just be frustrated. :)

 

I vaguely remember you asking about CHOW with GTG and Animals Worlds last year. That wouldn't have been my first choice of things to put together, simply because it's like 3 fun things at once, no way to focus. But you have to look at it and see what you've learned. You've learned you don't like detailed daily plans (WP). You've learned the importance of a good spine for the subject. You've discovered you want more serious science. And you've realized you WANT to write your own plans and don't know how to create something you'll actually use.

 

You might like the method I use, which is table scheduling. (Ooo, fancy name!) I use Microsoft Word (but Excel would do or anything else) and create a table with columns for the chapters of my spine, the extra books and resources I'm pulling in, fun optional activities, etc. That's my overall plan for say history fun the year. Then we can work through it, at our own pace, spending longer on some sections, less time on others. I'm never behind, because it's just a list of things to work through, but I always know what I'm doing next. It's sort of the ultimate compromise in planning. :)

 

You might find your dc are at a good age to begin daily work checklists. Each dc can have a checklist. Some people put the assignment numbers, other people don't, so there are lots of ways to do it. Just having a consistent list of what you're trying to get done (math, spelling, history, PE, etc.) helps, even if you skip some of those things on a particular day. It improves your efficiency tremendously.

 

Work out a better plan for your history, definitely, lol. You might like something like VP that is conducive to that table method of planning. Or you might like SOTW, which can be done in a very "do the next thing" manner. A textbook for science can be a great thing. I think sometimes people try too hard trying to recreate the wheel. I was looking at some TOPS books (fun books used for explaratory science by SL, etc.), and I was surprised to realize many of the activities, we had already done. Textbooks can be a good thing. The key is to bring them alive, and that table method of planning can help.

[LoveBaby]

I'm working on my plan right now. I'm planning 4 terms of 10 weeks each. I'm going to plan our weeks by number and not date. I'm also planning out our content subjects only 10 weeks at a time. I find that I get a little antsy to change things up and get bored w/ a plan easily, so I think building in some planning and/or a new resource will keep things fresh for me as well as the children. I'm also scaling our plans waaaaaay back. We just get overwhelmed with all of the "to-do's" so we're focusing on the 3 R's and then doing 1 content subject/day. I've decided a simple plan that gets done is much more effective than big, fancy grand plans that we crash and burn through in a few weeks!

[Emmy]

I just want to jump in and say - I'm exactly the same way with packaged curriculum. I started HSing with WP and it annoyed me to no end to have things undone (because they weren't a fit for us) because I felt I had wasted money....and I added so much of my own stuff, I wasn't sure the cost of the TM was worth it at all...I do my own thing now and it's much more customized.

 

I am not much of a planner - I do small chunks most of the time. Looking at the whole year at once is too much for me to consider - so I'll think in terms of content. When we did SOTW 1 I said - ok, I'm going to plan all the Egypt, then it was Greece, then Rome. Breaking it down that way helped me look at it in smaller chunks.

 

I don't plan out math or LA though - it's just, do the next thing.

[Veritaserum]

This is the way I work too. One thing I'm working on is planning by week/day numbers instead of dates. I'm planning out a progression of our studies, not a timeline. Does that make sense? So I'm working on laying out weeks 1-36, each with days 1-5. It provides flexibility within a framework. I won't plan out specifics for things like math though, where it's just "do the next thing."

 

That's the way I like to do it, too. :iagree:

 

With skill studies (math, spelling, etc.) I like more flexibility because some kids work faster or slower than others. I have a guideline of how much time should be spent on those studies and loose goals for how many lessons should be completed by a certain time, but one of the reasons we homeschool is so that our kids can work at their own pace. :) I keep a blank calendar for each child and record which lessons were completed on each day.

[Matryoshka]

I do something like you say. I cannot at all follow someone else's plan. I'd tweak it into oblivion and spend as much or more time doing that than just doing my own thing. But I do have to have some kind of plan, or nothing gets done.

 

So I do just go through the things I want to get done for the year and split them up and figure out how many times a week we have to do it to get it done that year, and then based on that I make up a fairly flexible weekly plan of when I can fit those in during the weeks. I usually plan an "extra" day knowing that not every thing will get done every day, or we'll have a field trip, or life will happen, and then I can catch up.

 

If I have too exact a plan I just get depressed and give up. It would take something like less than a week for that to happen - then I feel like a slave to the plan. Pretty much all my stuff

 

Things that have helped: all history reading is now done at bedtime, so I don't have to cram it in in the morning. Also, I set up a coop with some friends to do biweekly science labs, because otherwise I don't do them. I find for some things I need outside accountability, so when I find that, I make some for myself. We also have a lit. book club for the same reason.

[babysparkler]

That kind of planning works for me. I do plan out the whole year, but I do it by months. I take the math book, the phonics, the history, music (anything with lesson numbers basically) and divide them by the number of months I want to do schoolwork. Then I divide it up. So I have a montly plan of the entire year. I know that in Aug. I want to do lessons 1-17 of math, 1-4 of history and music, etc. Then during the month I keep an eye on where we are. At the end of a month, I check to see if we are in the right spot, and what I want to do.. Can I skip a lesson, or double up one day? Some things I realized just weren't going to work and I had to accept that. But I got a feel as we went about what changes I needed to make.

 

For the subjects that I plan myself, I had a general plan of the topics to be covered each mo.. Like for Science I had which animals or habitats I wanted to study each month. As It got closer, I had to gather my materials. I had planned ahead for planting seedlings in Feb. inside the house, gardening in Spring, and studying plants and trees in May. So as it got closer I gathered the books I needed. This plan worked well for me, and I have next year begun. Good luck!

 

 

This is what I do also... I schedule block 4 week "units" (and invite the grandparents to come visit from out-of-state on the in-between weeks so that we have no distractions during our school weeks). I align my science curriculum to coincide with my literature units for the 4 weeks so that we have a general "theme" going. That makes it more fun :) I map out my curriculum schedule in blocks on an excel spreadsheet showing the themes and the other language arts & math units I plan to cover... without this type of organization I won't get anything done. PM me your email and I'd be happy to forward my "curriculum map" to you as an example. :)

[coffeefreak]

We are just like you :) In the past, I've planned a week, a month and a quarter and it NEVER works exactly as I have planned. So, here's what I've started doing:

 

1. I use Homeschool Tracker's Lesson plans and type up all our lessons for a subject (except for Math). There's no date committed to the Lessons, just the order of what you want done.

 

2. Then, when I'm planning the month/week, I go into Homeschool tracker and submit the plans. If something happens in that week where we miss a day and I still want to do that lesson, we reschedule.

 

I started doing this in April and so far so good. I'm starting to plug in all the plans for next year and I'm looking forward to having a less stressful year. Another plus to this is, if you're not doing a lesson with all of your kids, you'll have it stored for when you do it with your next one!

 

Blessings!

Dorinda

[debbielong]

...and the first year I plan it out for the year. I am finished with all the planning for the curriculum I have already purchased.

 

I have done increasingly more planning as the children have gotten older. When they were young, I didn't plan at all, as I didn't want to be restricted/limited to my predictions for how things were going to go. We often went faster in some subjects and slower in others - the planning would have been wasted.

 

This upcoming year, we are using no new curriculum. Everything we are doing, I am 99% sure will stick and I have a very strong sense of how quickly everyone can go in each subject.

 

Otherwise, I wouldn't waste my time:)

[yvonne]

I have to have a plan or it does not happen. To my surprise, I've found that no matter how many different curricula or different books I have for a subject (and I have the most books for the subjects that don't get done!), they do not just jump off the shelf and teach themselves.

 

This is the first year we actually got science done and the ONLY reason we succeded with it at all this year was because last summer I completely planned it out. It took several hours during the summer, but the payback was exponential because it took no planning or thought at all during the school year.

 

Like a pp, I planned out a progression of single lesson-sized chunks numbered 1-whatever, no dates att'd. So, if it was a day to do science, I could look at the spreadsheet and see "Day 1: Text-read x-y, Act. Bk. p. z, Workbook p. j." I listed the key vocab, concepts, necessary supplies in the last column.

 

Can't get the format right, but it looked something like this:

Day Text Book Workbook Activity Bk. Test Topic/Supplies

Living and Non-Living Things (Chap. 1) (sum.p.1-2)

1 Text p. vi-1 Act. p. 2-3 vocab: diversity

2 Text p. 2-5 Act. p. 4-5 Living things need:

3 Text p. 6-12 Act. p. 6 air, water, food

4 Text p. 13 Wkbk. p. 1-2 grow

5 review Wkbk. p. 3-4 move by themselves

6 review Wkbk. p. 5-7 respond to changes around them

 

 

I was never "behind;" we just did the next chunk whenever the boys did science.

 

I also discovered that they could do _a lot_ more independently than I had thought and that my lack of planning and preparedness had been the biggest obstacle to getting science done before this.

 

Another huge advantage to planning things out is that, because I'd gone through all the material ahead of time, I was much more prepared to teach it and to take advantage of any teachable moments.

 

Everyone is different. Some folks do really, really well "flying by the seat of their pants" and think it's crazy to "over"plan. Some folks (like me!) have the best of intentions, but simply don't get where we want to be if we haven't mapped out the route. And some folks are somewhere in the middle. Find the style that gets your goals accomplished & don't let anyone tell you you should be doing it differently!

 

yvonne

[MerryAtHope]

I don't think it's a waste. What I do is buy a Sonlight Core, and then my other subjects. I make a general plan of how I'm going to do the work (ie how many pages of math, what my LA plan is, etc...). Then each week as we go through the year, I take about 30 minutes to make up a 1-page schedule based on those plans. If we get ahead and I want to throw in an extra book, it's easy to do without throwing off the rest of the year's plans. If I want to drop a book or sub in something else, again, easy to do.

 

One year I made up the whole schedule ahead of time & felt really constrained by it, so I really like having a general plan and tweaking week by week. Like you, though, if it's not written down, I won't do it. Also for me, if it's not on a 1-page summary for the week, then it might not get done--I don't do well flipping from guide to guide, I need to see it all laid out clearly.

 

Have fun planning! Merry :-)

[Heather in WI]

One thing I learned in our rookie year was that if it wasn't planned and written out, it didn't get done. I also learned that I'm a major tweaker and I've realized that no planned curriculum (like WP) will be "just right." ... For some reason in my undisciplined brain, when something is written down it becomes the LAW and has a better chance of being completed than if I just plan to do it.

 

Do you think this has a chance of working or am I just wasting my time? Anyone else do this?

 

This is similar to what we do, so of course I don't think you're wasting your time. :)

 

I am the same way ... if it isn't written down, it doesn't get done. I make a general schedule in the beginning of the year where I know how many days a week we need to do each particular subject.

 

For history (which we did our own study of this year), I made a general outline of all of the subjects I wanted to cover for the year. Then, I picked books I knew I wanted to read for each topic, and fit them to the outline.

 

I saved the actual specific plan of what we were going to do for each week for the Friday before each week ... that way I could alter the next week's schedule if someone got sick, an emergency came up, or whatever. It worked out pretty well for us. :)

 

I do all of my planning in Excel.

[mama25angels]

We are just like you :) In the past, I've planned a week, a month and a quarter and it NEVER works exactly as I have planned. So, here's what I've started doing:

 

1. I use Homeschool Tracker's Lesson plans and type up all our lessons for a subject (except for Math). There's no date committed to the Lessons, just the order of what you want done.

 

2. Then, when I'm planning the month/week, I go into Homeschool tracker and submit the plans. If something happens in that week where we miss a day and I still want to do that lesson, we reschedule.

 

I started doing this in April and so far so good. I'm starting to plug in all the plans for next year and I'm looking forward to having a less stressful year. Another plus to this is, if you're not doing a lesson with all of your kids, you'll have it stored for when you do it with your next one!

 

Blessings!

Dorinda

 

 

 

This is what I do as well!

[Mrs. Frankweiler]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I love how everyone has different systems, and you use the one that suits you best. I'm sure I'll re-read this thread several times and pick and choose what will work for us.

 

Thanks again!

 

(not to end the thread if anyone has anything else to suggest!) ;)

[siloam]

I can't tell you if it will work, because you are not me. :D But I can tell you that as a chronic planner and tweaker that I do have to be careful how far ahead I plan, or at least leave myself some flexibility, or I just end up ditching things.

 

What I do is I have an Excel spreadsheet of what we need to accomplish. These are lists that break what needs to be done into daily chunks. From there I cut and past it into our weekly schedule as needed.

 

The problem I had when I tried to set 36 weeks ahead of time is I would have one light day where I did two days of work, and then I needed to drop a day or change 36 weeks of schedules (or however many weeks were left). :thumbdown: This way I might have a little work to do each week, but at least I can customize the schedule based on how much time we might have that week, or if a child needs extra work in one area I can schedule more, or give them a break if they need it in one topic. Lots of flexibility without having to redo things all the time.

 

Oh and until you do learn your children's learning styles and your teaching style and manage to mesh them together, you will have stuff you don't use and don't like.

 

Heather

[Pata]

This is the way I work too. One thing I'm working on is planning by week/day numbers instead of dates. I'm planning out a progression of our studies, not a timeline. Does that make sense? So I'm working on laying out weeks 1-36, each with days 1-5. It provides flexibility within a framework. I won't plan out specifics for things like math though, where it's just "do the next thing."

 

:iagree: This is our system too! It's alot of work, but it keeps me on track.

[Mommyfaithe]

What has worked well for our family is planning in 6-7 week chunks. I find that especially with younger children it isn't a good idea to plan too far ahead b/c learning changes, interests, etc. Their learning styles and abilities tend to be rather fluid and they might need to slow down or increase pace over the course of the yr. I typically have a general idea of what I want to do for the yr in my head, but day to day planning is only for the few weeks at a time.

 

I, too, have to have it written down b/c if I don't, life takes over and we don't accomplish what we need to do. So I can definitely relate. (FWIW, I don't write anything down for my littlest ones.......they can take such learning leaps that it is really hard to gauge what they might be doing 2 weeks ahead of where we are.)

 

:iagree: completely. I plan in 9 week chunks because that is how I report to our school system...

That said, I don't plan much before 5th grade. I have a general idea of what I would like to accomplish and a booklist that I want to complete...but the day to day is very flexible....

 

For the older kids I plan out all their subjects, but we are still flexible. One year I micr-planned every subject down to the last iota...it took me ALL SUMMER...then when we started school , the schedule didn't work...some of the books were terrible fits for my kids and it was so stressful...Then last year, I had a do-the-next-thing booklist, but no real plan...that was a disaster too...i ended up so scattered.

 

This year I am going back to my 9 week major plan and weekly planning for the nitty gritty.

 

Good luck,

Faithe

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[Caroline4kids]

I don't know if you do things in a CM way, but I really, really like www.simplycharlottemason.com . I love it because I can put my resources in and drop things out as desired. I put my planned curriculum into it, like HOD and MUS, and add individual books as needed. I even put nature study, PE, and piano into it. :)

[HiddenJewel]

I do this every year and it works just fine. I schedule it out by day not by date. Then if we take a day or so off we just pick back up on the next day. This year I will be scheduling by week and my girls will schedule their own days.

[Suzannah]

... the ONLY reason we succeded with it at all this year was because last summer I completely planned it out. It took several hours during the summer, but the payback was exponential because it took no planning or thought at all during the school year.

 

yvonne

 

Me too! Somehow I came across Kendra's site www.preschoolersandpeace.com and read her description of her planning weekend. I couldn't get any of my friends to join me so I just did it throughout the summer. It was such a huge improvement to our daily schedule that I'm already in the process of doing it again.

 

Blessings!

 

Planning Weekend

http://www.preschoolersandpeace.com/?p=300

 

School Planning

http://www.preschoolersandpeace.com/?p=593

[Lovedtodeath]

 

We all have really short attention spans here. We may be really interested in sea life this week, and not care a thing about it next week. Instead we'd rather learn about rainbows, or stars or whatever. So I've learned to go with it. If I were going to plan things out, I'd just do a few weeks at a time, and be willing to keep those plans flexible so they can be adjusted to the kids interest.

:iagree:When I make a big plan for 12 weeks or a year, we never finish it. I even bought a pre-planned curriculum and we still don't finish it. We are learning plenty though, and if it takes us 3 years to get through a pre-planned curriculum, at least we had all of the books and supplies handy along with directions. Without that it wouldn't get done at all, so I don't think buying it was a waste.

[Kari C in SC]

This is what I have done over the past 10 years more or less. If I don't have a plan, it just doesn't get done. Last year, I did Knowledge Box lapbooks for Apologia Zoology 1. We did ALL OF IT! That was a first for me with science. I also tried to make my own American Girl Lapbook. I wanted to do 4 to 6 girls and we only did 2. I think it was because I didn't have it all planned and ready to go. It was too easy to say that I would get to it later in the week, etc. This summer I am planning a state study. I hope to actually print out the clipart I want to use, page number the books, etc. I really want to actually finish the state study, so I will need to do a lot of planning.

[melissel]

I also plan in chunks, usually up to the next holiday or break I expect that we'll take. Sometimes I stick to it, sometimes I don't. I agree with the others who say that I get more done when I plan than I do when I don't plan.

 

However, I also wanted to say, it's only your second year. You're still on a learning curve. At this point, I wouldn't consider anything wasted time--just experience. Take it easy on yourself and you'll find your groove eventually.

[ncmomo3]

I do this every year and it works just fine. I schedule it out by day not by date. Then if we take a day or so off we just pick back up on the next day. This year I will be scheduling by week and my girls will schedule their own days.

 

This is exactly how I handle scheduling. The year is entirely scheduled but the flexibility is built in. Like a previous poster said- it helps with my goals and accountability.

[momto2Cs]

I do plan ahead. I make a general chart of the order we'll do everything in on a daily basis, for reference. Then I go by the month for figuring out specific lessons, etc. I don't see it as a waste of time. Instead, it keeps me n track, lets me know where we are in relation to where I want to be, and it's good practice for when I have my teaching credential.

[Christine]

Okay, I read your post (which I can totally identify with) and skimmed the replies.

 

I plan by days / weeks (but the weeks don't really "mean" anything). I plan each subject seperately and then throw each subject into a master schedule.

 

This may be as clear as mud. . .

 

In which case I invite you to my blog, Core Foundations. I think you will find it all "spelled out" there. (This honestly isn't a shameless plug, as you needn't even look at the "blog" part, but go to the other pages.)

 

You mentioned Saxon; I have those courses already scheduled (unless you are buying the new editions). I also have other courses pre-scheduled, but you only mentioned Saxon.

 

I have blank schedule formats so you can do your own. (perfect for history or science --allowing for "spines" and additional reading)

 

Donna Young also has planning helps. (She didn't have those available when I started. . .)

 

Hopefully, even if you don't like the schedules themselves, it will give you an idea of "it's do-able" -- and you won't feel like you are crazy for thinking you need a plan.

 

'Course, my husband regularly declares I'm crazy. . .but I'm not sure that has anything to do with my need to plan / schedule.

[Mrs. Frankweiler]

'Course, my husband regularly declares I'm crazy. . .but I'm not sure that has anything to do with my need to plan / schedule.

 

Mine too!

 

Again, thanks for all the great info! I'm really learning a lot from you guys!