Rose in BC Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I am homeschooling three children 10, 11, 11 yrs. I am good at general planning (yearly) but often fly by the seat of my pants each week and am realizing this is not working too well. The problem is finding the time to do weekly planning. It's funny, when the kids were younger I was forced to do something most evenings to prep for the next day. I.E. cutting math manipulatives, etc. Now that they're older I can just wing it but I know it's not the greatest for them or for me. When do you spend time planning for the week ahead? How much time do you spend planning each week? (I really think I just need a kick in the pants!) Rose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frontier Mom Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I try to plan all I can for the year ahead so that each week I only have to gather copies and do a little refining on the weekend. However, like everything else, if I don't lay it out ahead of time, it takes me much longer to plan the upcoming week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trivium Academy Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 Thursday I start assessing what happened during the week, Friday I do our Weekly Report for our blog (this helps me) and then I file away the week's papers and pull out next week's. I pull all the books we'll need for the coming week and look at exactly what we'll be doing. I use sticky-notes in the books if there is something I want to remember. Then I plan out the week in a spreadsheet. The planning is really for me at this point, we will get to the point where I create assignment sheets for the kids individually for them to be responsible for keeping track of their independent and 1-on-1 work. We're in a quarter right now and I've sort of winged this one b/c we've changed directions with educational philosophy and we're in transition. Our quarter lasts 9 weeks, then we have a week off. I plan to use that week to plan out the next 9 weeks with a list of books, collecting papers and all that we'll need for the quarter- planning one subject at a time. I'm thinking I'll get manila folders to store the papers and paper clip a day's work together and separate everything by week. Manila Folder - Week 1 of 3rd Quarter Day 1 -paper clipped together Day 2- paper clipped together etc. It's a thought running through my head right now. I'm trying to get us organized not only in thought but also in reality :001_rolleyes: I've also been thinking I'll save one bookshelf just for that quarter's books so I don't have to look on our history shelf, science shelf, etc. for what we need. Certain curriculums we use, I don't have papers so I'll keep the curriculum books with the quarter's books. I hope that gives you some ideas, it is just so individual because what works for one won't work for another. I've changed how I do things so many times, I get it done but sometimes it's just by sheer will! :blushing: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st_claire Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I agree with planning in advance. Try a year, or if that's too much, maybe just a semester at a time? Send the kids away for a week (camp, grandma's, whatever) and focus on planning. Then everything will run much more smoothly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g007girl Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I do a rough schedule for the year, then break it down. I schedule our planned weeks off throughout the year. Then I use the yearly schedule to do the weekly/monthly planning. I usually have a schedule typed up for the next 3-4 weeks. Then every Sunday I organize for the week, sometimes 2. My kids have 5 folders: one for each day of the week. So, I put all the papers/assignments in the folder for the week and we're all set to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dayle in Guatemala Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I plan each subject one semester at a time and then I spend about 1 hour or so weekly making sure I have everything I need to teach that week: science stuff, copies made, books ready, papers corrected, and fine tuning lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth in Central TX Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 Same here; I plan the full year out in July for the next school year. I input the plans into Edu-Track, and then each Sunday night I print out a weekly schedule for each of my boys. Edu-Track does have a "bump" feature that lets me move an assignment into the future if we didn't get to it in the week I had planned; however, because I have a scheduled laid out, we usually stay on track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rose in BC Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 I am going to set aside the rest of this week to do some 'bulk' planning. Beth I see you use Edu-track to input your plans. What do the rest of you do? To this point I have used old fashioned pen and paper (coil bound notebook). Maybe I need to change this up a bit? I am definitely not computer illiterate but I am a bit uncertain of creating my own spreadsheet for this (again, maybe I just need some encouragement that this isn't too difficult or time consuming). Thanks so much for your responses. It's just one of those reflective times in my life. Rose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth in Central TX Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 It really depends on your personality, and what you will consistently use. There are many software options along with using Excel or just pen and paper. All of these will work, but what you're inclined to use will probably give you the most success. I started off with pen and paper, but then moved to Excel. Now that I'm scheduling 3 boys, it's easier to use software. I also use Edu-Track to track their literature read, standardized test scores, extra-curricular activities, etc. For me, it's a good fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
st_claire Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I like to do all my planning on the computer, but I'm a big nerd ;) I scan my materials, then pick and choose what goes where, then assemble it all into a big pdf. Then I print it out and bind it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenstet Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I started using Homeschool Tracker and I am finding it a bother. I like the old teacher planner. Everything is right there and I can add and change as the days wears on. Next year will be different because I need bigger squares for planning for 2 kids. I made my own 3 ring planner. I don't know how well it will work though. I do like the Homeschool Tracker for the daily task list though. If I worked harder at making my dd more independent I can see it's use. She just looks at my planner though and knows what we have to do for the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMindy Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 and I am constanly changing and tweaking it. :-) I try to set aside some time on Sunday to make sure everything is ready to go for the week. I make a list of all the things I would LIKE to get to and make a note which day I am going to do them. I am so much more likely to do them if I put them on my list. :-) I'm a list kinda gal! My weeks run so much better and we really maximize our time when I take the time to plan ahead. One thing I did this quarter was with our TOG to make up a notebook of the whole unit, which forced me to plan ahead for this. This has been great and I am going to do it again for the final unit. It has worked really well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Alfred Academy Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 For me, I spend about an hour on Sunday or Monday night planning our week. During that time I make copies, pick out poems and pictures to read and study, and make sure I have everything I need in one place or make a list for the things I need to locate/get. Just spending that little bit of time really makes for a smoother week. Oh and I also look things over in the morning while the kids are eating breakfast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephanie in FL Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I saw your TOG notebook on your blog Mindy and loved it. I also followed the link to Karen's blog to see your inspiration for the notebook. I am putting together notebooks for the kids this week, so we will be ready to jump back into the swing of things. Thanks for the notebooking ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narrow Gate Academy Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I usually plan for the next week on Friday or Saturday afternoon. I just mark the number of assignments in each subject on my semester planner, make sure I have library books on hold two weeks in advance (3 for ILL), and put together any mapwork or booklets that we will need (I didn't quite get all of these planned out at the beginning of the year so I'm trying to play catch up now as well.) Next year, we'll probably go back to weekly assignment sheets for the kids as well in order to help them transition into working more independently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rose in BC Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 and I am constanly changing and tweaking it. :-) I try to set aside some time on Sunday to make sure everything is ready to go for the week. I make a list of all the things I would LIKE to get to and make a note which day I am going to do them. I am so much more likely to do them if I put them on my list. :-) I'm a list kinda gal! My weeks run so much better and we really maximize our time when I take the time to plan ahead. One thing I did this quarter was with our TOG to make up a notebook of the whole unit, which forced me to plan ahead for this. This has been great and I am going to do it again for the final unit. It has worked really well. We have just started with TOG yr 2. I love your notebook idea but I am a bit intimidated (I guess I just have to jump in and try and create such a thing. One other question. You like to create your own planners. Is this with pen and paper or using a computer program? Rose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendy in ME Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 We do weekly planning. I write out a plan of action for the following week every Thursday afternoon. I work Friday through Sunday so I like to wake up on Monday morning with a blueprint for the week. By not planning out each day I have a little bit of wiggle room to move things around if something comes up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoggirl Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I look through all of our materials over the summer and try to get a rough idea of where we need to be where by when (OM goodness! What a poor sentence!). I want to have a school year that is approximately 36 weeks long. I want to be "about half-way" by Christmas, etc. So, I look at what we have to accomplish for the year and figure out about how much needs to be done on a weekly basis. For example, I know that to finish just R&S Grade 7 English (grammar only) I need to schedule 3 lessons per week. If I count the total number of math sections in a text, number of tests, reviews, etc. I can determine about how many days per section we will need to average. However, I don't detail it all out for the whole year. Someone could get sick, we could have an emergency, who knows??? It may be easy to rearrange schedules on EduTrack (I don't know...I don't have it), but I use Excel, and I don't want to type in a bunch of stuff and then have a day or two shifted around for whatever reason. So generally on Thursday afternoon, I start pluggin info. into our spreadsheet for the next week. Some things are more specific than others (like the aforementioned R&S). For Latin, I might just write in 40 minutes per day. I kind of know how long we should spend per chapter/lesson, so if we are pacing too slowly or too quickly I can adjust our amount of time. For other subjects, I may just write everything that needs to be accomplished for the entire week in the Monday box and put an arrow through the end of the week. Then it is ds's responsibility to manage is time to get a week's worth done at a reasonable pace. Sorry. This seems disjointed:confused: Anyway, that's how I basicall approach things. Big picture kind of sketched out; details handled on a weekly basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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