Newbie -- Tips on Planning??

[Maddysmom26]

Okay I Ordered most of our curriculum for sept. This will be our first year hs'ing.

How do you even begin to plan out the lessons per subject for the year?? Time frames etc??

 

I know it has to fit in 36 weeks? How do you all do it?? Any help is appreciated??

 

does anyone use online planners??

 

I'm anxiously awaiting the packages, So I can start planning ;)

 

Once I sort through everything I'll post a list to get opinions if Im missing anything also. ;)

 

Thanks! :)

[Dawn E]

Check out donnayoung.org for lots of planners. It helps to break the year down in to 6 wk blocks so you can have an idea of where you should be at each point. I use her writable pdf weekly grid planner to type in our plans for each week. I've found that if I try to plan out too many weeks in advance I end up having to shuffle too much around if anything happens (or doesn't happen :) )

 

Another great planner is the Tanglewood corebook. It also walks you through how to plan your year, breaking the year down into 6 wk chunks.

 

HTH,

Dawn

[Greta]

does anyone use online planners??

 

 

I do! I use http://www.myhomeschoolplan.com

 

Here's what I do, but of course only you can be the judge of whether or not this might fit best for your family.

 

First I sit down with the materials that I want to cover in a year, and determine how many lessons or pages or whatever we will need to cover each week in order to finish it that school year. For example, math and Latin we do daily, but science we do three times a week, and geography just once per week. (That's not our entire schedule, but I'm trying to keep this simple!)

 

Then I sit down at my computer and enter this basic structure into MyHomeSchoolPlan. I set it up to have a Math and Latin lesson daily, a Science lesson on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and a Geography lesson on Tuesdays. It will repeat that basic structure for whatever time period I tell it to (you can set it up for semesters, quarters, or terms, or you can just do a looser year-round schedule where you determine the specifics as you like).

 

So, at the beginning of every week, that whole week's basic structure is laid out for me, already there to remind me what we're supposed to be doing each day. Then, either at the beginning of the week or just daily as we go, I can enter more specifics. For example, for math I will say we covered lesson 73 which was about Roman numerals, and for Latin we practiced the imperfect of amo, or whatever.

 

It also allows you to record the amount of time you spent, if you wish, and a score (like the child got 9 points out of a possible 10 on this assignment). I like those features, but they are optional.

 

There are other online planners, but I like this one for the simple, clean look of it, and that it's easy to use but still has all the features that I personally need. The customer service is great too.

 

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions about it.

[Skadi]

You don't have to use a 36 week schedule. The traditional school year was just based on kids having to help on the farm during the summer months. I think there are a number of benefits to schooling year round:

 

- less time has to be spent on review each year

- kids have more structure to their lives

- school gives kids something to do (every parent knows the dreaded "I'm booooored" mantra of summer break)

- education is seen as something that's done all the time

- vacations can be planned so that you don't run into the public school crowds

- you don't have to rush as much to get everything done in time

 

We do school for 46 weeks, taking a week-long break every three months (plus an extra two week vacation sometime during the year).

 

We divide the curriculum by the number of weeks we have to cover it, and then further by how many lessons we do per week (everyday for math, three times a week for history, etc.). I also break the year up into quarters (with our school year, there are four quarters of about three months each) and try to roughly stagger things so that we have stopping places before each week-long break.

 

Hope that helps!

[everlastingstarflower]

We homeschool year round, too. We "do" curriculum 3 days a week, attend Classical Conversations homeschool group & go to the library one day and then use Friday as a review day for memory work. We take a long break at Christmas/New Year's, and shorter breaks for Thanksgiving, Easter, whenever we need it. This year, we are taking a break for the month of May (we finished last year at the end of April). Last week, I heard my dd telling someone that she wishes we could start school again because she "just doesn't know what to do with herself when we're not having school".

 

I have a monthly/weekly planner I bought at Wal-Mart. I look at the lessons in each curriculum book and divide them up over the course of time I want to have the book finished to determine how many lessons need to be completed in one week and go from there. I write each subject down on our curriculum days and attach a lesson(s) to each subject. I only do it for a couple of months at a time AND I write it in pencil in case someone gets sick or we decide to have a mental health day. If that happens, I just erase and re-write the adjusted schedule. I could cross out and re-write but, my perfectionism won't let me. :D I don't do a schedule on the computer because I am an old-fashioned girl who likes to hold paper in my hand and write with my favorite pen/pencil. But, I know lots of other moms who use the computer for their schedules and it works great for them.

[PeterPan]

Just as an observation, some things are "do the next thing" subjects, where little planning is necessary, and some subjects (a very lit-driven history for instance) require more planning. When I plan, I start with a list of the subjects I want to cover, how much time each lesson/session will probably take, and figure out how many times I want to do that per week. Then I start assigning subjects to days to add up the time, make sure everything balances, and fit it to reality (outside activities, regular appointments, etc.). That's the overarching framework. THEN I can start making plans, tables, etc. for how I want to cover things that require more planning (history, etc.). But praise be for the things that are just do the next thing. Those get very little planning. They just go in the slot to do next.

 

The other thing to consider is that you have an older student who may have his own work preferences and habits already. He is old enough to use and prefer a daily or weekly checklist. Make him one and save yourself a LOT of grief. It doesn't mean he works independently through everything, but it does mean you give him back some control, choice, and sense of ownership in the process. This should not be Mommy tells you what to do all day, not with a 9 yo. So at this stage it looks less like the planning you're thinking of and more like a template you make it your word processor and use to crank out his checklists. I've done weekly and daily, and both are nice. Right now we're doing daily. If you do daily, a weekly chart can show *you* where you're at. I'm with the others and like planner books. I tended to use them a lot more in the past than I have been lately. Because so much stuff is "do the next thing" by this age, I use our office slots and piles. We have a together pile and an independent pile, corresponding to the two sections on her checklist. She works through her independent pile, doing the next thing in each. It's not that hard and certainly doesn't require a lot of planning. The together things are what take more prep work (languages, writing, that type thing). You might even find some of your things, for instance CW, have an overarching weekly flow. You just sort of get in it in flex, knowing that your goal is to finish the task (final draft, typed, whatever) by the end of the week. Again, that means daily plans aren't quite as important as a schedule that tells him when to be working on it and doing the next thing. Even the order of the day within that schedule isn't so terribly important, though I would have him do math or his weakest subject first, when he has the most brain energy.

 

Have fun and don't waste too much time on this. Do the planning, but don't hyper-plan. All you need is for reality to set in, your kid to go faster or slower than you planned, and all those entries go out the window. Prepare to be flexible. :)

[Maddysmom26]

Thank you all for the info! I really am not a very detailed plan every minute out .. type person.. ;) But I just wanted to get an idea of how others plan their days. I know that being our first year its going to be flexible until we get things going. Shes such a smart girl and really excited for hs'ing so that should help! I have already told her that there will be things she can work independantly on and others that we will do together. I just want to have some kind of structure to start with .. lol time frames etc for each class. I know we have to send quartly reports for NY, so maybe I can just roughly estimate what needs to be covered each quarter, then that should keep us on track.

Reality is setting in and we are soo excited to start this new journey! Im so glad that I found this forum, its been such a great resource & everyone is so helpful & friendly! :)

[Tracy]

This was my 1st year homeschooling. I generally just looked at how many lessons/pages were in each curriculum and figured out how many I had to do per week to get there. I used 36 weeks as a guide but did not tie myself to that number. For math and handwriting, I want those to be done year round, though, but in December and in the summer, it is lighter. I also found as I started that some of those lessons, especially math, took longer than I originally thought. It bothered me for a while that we weren't going to get everything done. But if dd is doing math 4x per week and she is doing well and making progress, what does it matter if we "get it all done?" I also ended up supplementing math, because she was asking for more/different material. So now she works out of my originally chosen curriculum 2x per week and does other things the other two days.

 

So all I am saying is don't try to plan out your whole year, because it is bound to change, especially in your first year. Just decide how many days/lessons per week you want to do each subject and then be prepared to tweak both your schedule and your curricula until you find the right balance for both you and your child.