Lesson Planning

[BBG580]

How much time do you prep? Do you plan entire semesters ahead or just a week ahead?

 

I am not using boxed curriculum and I feel like I've probably chosen curriculum that all requires a bit of a learning curve and a lot of prep work on the part of the teacher but I am curious as to how others plan ahead?

 

I am planning to year round school with 8 weeks on M-Th, Fridays for errands/field trips and co-op/homeschool group activities and then one long weekend of Friday/Monday off during the 8 week period so we can travel and whatnot. And then 2 weeks off for Christmas and 1 full week off in the summer for a beach vacation. This should give me our 180 days of "school" time to report to my state.

 

I am preparing now because I am slightly terrified *and* excited to get going. We'll start July 1. I am hoping to have the entire first 8 weeks planned out before we start. I am using ToG, PR1, Unit Nature Studies with extra read alouds, a mix of Singapore and Miquon, and an ongoing world geography project that is linked in my siggy.

 

How do you plan? I really like the workboxes idea, unit/semester notebooks and so on. Just curious!

[FO4UR]

I plan the basic outline of our days.

 

I plan to spend 15min on math everyday with my 5yo, but I don't plan the page numbers.

 

I plan to spend about 10min sitting with my 5yo while she does her handwriting. We just do the next page...no planning the pages/activities really...just carving out the time.

 

Same for reading instruction. We do phonics work, and then she reads to me.

 

I keep it very simple for my 5yo. She listens in on her big brothers history/science/literature and soaks it all in. She's a precocious child, but still isn't ready for anything more than listening and oral narration.

 

My .02 fwiw. It sounds like you have a *lot* planned for a 5yo. My advice is to plan to start PR1 and math and do just those two subjects for your first 8 week session of school (maybe only one of those...math or PR1). Get the most important things (3R's) off the ground and rolling in a steady rhythm. Reevaluate after 8 weeks, and add in ONE thing...Reevaluate after 8 weeks, and add in ONE thing...Reevaluate after 8 weeks, and add in ONE thing...Stop adding things to your schedule *before* he gets burned out.

[trying my best]

2 summers ago we took a summer off like all school do and it was huge mistake. He forgot everything. Prior to that he had a good handwriting and new all numbers and letters (how to write). After summer all of it was completely new to him. I was like WHAT?!?!?!

Year around schooling is great (with some reasonable breaks).

 

This is how i prepare stuff. I set goals of what needs to be done this year. I write them down. I write down each subject i am planning to do and what he needs to learn within each given subject.

Math: Singapore 1a and 1b

and so on.

 

Then i have Pockets for him for ALL his subjects., That is how we store them and organize them. Each subject belongs to its one labeled pocket/folder. For math he has Singapore 1A in his folder, for Spelling he has ALL ABOUT SPELLING book in Spelling folder. and so on.

 

Once he competes the book, the new book will be replace the new one. He also has writing books there too.

 

It really works for us. These folders are like mini goals for us.

This way i dont have to plan every day. We just get our subject and do another page.

[Closeacademy]

I write up plans for my curriculum for the year or however long it should last. Each subject has its own quick reference sheet where I sketch out daily lessons over the course of the work.

 

Then I pull the lessons together into weekly lesson plans that include all the subjects except math and reading. Because math always slows down and speeds up and you never really know what book your kid is going to be reading that week.

 

So my weekly plans include--history/social studies, science/nature studies, languge arts, phonics and other things I want to include.

 

I put my weekly plans into file folders and add in the books I want to use for read alouds during that period and workbooks at their start week and any worksheets.

 

Each week, I pull out the file folder for that week and add the material to the workboxes we use. Our workboxes have 6 drawers--language arts, spelling/phonics/reading, history/social studies, science/nature studies/4-H, math and other. Our texts and workbooks in use are always kept in the workboxes and I just add in worksheets and read alouds & such.

 

Hope this helps. I have posts on my blog about how I organize and plan and a special tab for organization if you want to check them out.:001_smile:

[NanceXToo]

Well, we use Oak Meadow which is a planned curriculum, but they give you a weekly lesson plan/schedule whereas, especially in the beginning, I wanted a daily one.

 

So I spent some time in the summer going through each week/lesson, typing up a wordpad document of how I wanted to break each week/lesson down into a daily schedule for that week, and yes, it was time consuming, but I did it gradually, as I had the time and inclination for it, (and I'm a very fast typist anyway).

 

Now, all school year, all I have to do is open up my wordpad document, hit "find" and type in the lesson number I'm looking for and it brings me right to it. I highlight that week's lesson, print "selection," and I have a checklist of what needs to be done each day in a given week. I cross things out as I go and I just found it easier than looking at a book that says "do all this this week" and trying to figure out how to balance the week myself without seeing it balanced out in writing.

 

Now that I've done this for two years in a row though, I think I have a good enough idea of how long all this stuff takes and how much we can do in a given day that I could probably just wing it. But I'll probably get a little compulsive about it (and want that list I can actually cross things off of, what can I say, I've been a list-maker my whole life and I like crossing things off LOL) and I'll probably do it anyway.

[DawnM]

I bought one of these:

 

http://www.wellplannedday.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?search=action&category=0002

 

I really like it. It allows me to put in assignments for up to 4 students per subject per day.

 

I usually only plan per week because inevitably we don't get around to all of it OR we can move ahead as we have time.....

 

We tried workboxes and it was a bust here. My Aspie about lost it and my middle son BEGGED to stop! I think if we were going to use it, we should have started in K or 1st grade. Starting in upper Elem. didn't work!

 

Dawn

[patchfire]

Some things get planned out for the year. For instance, I have SOTW planned out (with notes about what supplemental books to use, and so forth) for a year. I will plan out ds' first grade science (a la WTM) for the year. I plan dd's art & music appreciation, etc.

 

Some things I plan on a weekly basis. I can't evaluate ahead of time how well ds will grasp a math concept, for example. I have a loose idea of how long it should take to complete a given resource, but I don't schedule a specific lesson for a specific day until that week. I do school prep for 30-60 minutes weekly, which includes necessary copying & printing.

[3MonkeysMama]

I love that you are schooling "year round". We didn't at first and he lost a lot over the summer. Now we "keep our feet wet" during the summer at least with reading and math. I use the summer to purchase new curric. and get everything organized. I like to plan it all out in an excel spreadsheet for the entire year. It takes a bit of work but saves me time in the long run. We do school 4 days a week and use Fridays to "catch up" on anything that didn't get finished and expeirements etc (along with running errands). Right now we got off schedule a bit so I need to go in and revamp my spreadsheet. This is to be expected. I just like having it to keep the flow going and I can see daily/weekly progress.

[Melenie]

With a 7 and 4 year old I found it hard to keep to lessons plans. We also school year round and I feel that gives me some "wiggle room" to be more flexible. I keep a spread sheet of what I want to cover on a given day, what does not get done, moves over to the next day. Here is a recent blog post with a link to our spreadsheet.

 

http://www.tutormygirls.com/?p=2003

[nukeswife]

I just kind of plan as I go. I use mostly stuff that is "Do the next thing" so that makes it easy. As for the 180 days, if your in VA, you don't have a day requirement to report. I'm in SEVA and all I have to do is sent in my NOI with curriculum description and then send in my test scores. No days/times to record and report. That's why I stopped lesson planning, I really didn't need it for me, and the state doesn't ask for any reports other than test scores, or the teacher eval that some use.

[twacademy2010]

So far I plan one week at a time and I write it all out in a lesson planner in pencil because I am learning quickly that we wont always stick to my "plan.". I also have workboxes and those I get ready the night before to make sure everything is set. I have found if I try to wing in, I am very frantic and frustrated trying to make those decisions quickly but if I have a guideline, all is well in our world :)

 

ETA: I plan to follow a six week on, one week off, schedule that someone else on this board mentioned before. KK was in year-round ps and we really enjoyed that, so that is why we will go with this plan.

Edited January 17, 2011 by twacademy2010

[Amanda_Jo]

Most of our math and language arts are just a "do the next thing" kind of curriculum.

At the beginning of the year I figure out how much I'd like for the child to complete by the end of our year. I then count the number of pages and divide by the number of school days in the year. Then I write on the front of the workbook or binder-- Do _____ pages a day, _____ days a week.

 

Science, History and Fine Arts I plan out for the entire year ahead of time. They each have their own schedule page in my master planner, that way if life happens and we end up on week 5 in History, but week 7 in Art I don't have to completely rework a years worth of lesson plans. Often we straggle to the end of our year finishing one subject a few weeks in front of another. Summer often begins for us with a few weeks worth of a subject (or two) to complete. We like it this way!

At the beginning of each week I go over the plan and make sure I have all the copies and supplies we need ready.

I often reevaluate our plan at our Christmas and Easter break. If we are ahead or behind I'll modify the amount we need to get done in a week...or I'll decide then to get more (or less) work done before the end of the year, let the child just finish the subject early/keep working during summer break or change the amount of work they are required to do each day to make the subject fit the amount of time we have left.

This year at Christmas break we were so far ahead in Science that I ordered a unit study to do this spring after we finish what I'd planned for the year before we even get to Spring break. One dd was ahead in Math, so I've planned a supplemental curriculum for after she finishes this one since I don't think she'll be ready to go on to the next grade yet. The other dd was behind in Math, but I think having a few weeks left of her math curriculum into summer break will be a good thing.

[boscopup]

Since I'm a geek and like to have everything in a database on my computer :D, I'm using HST+. I have everything in lesson plans (no dates), planned out for the whole year. Each week, I go through those lesson plans and assign what we'll do for the coming week. This takes just a few minutes. Some things are "do the next thing", and some are jumping around (like in the HWT book where I'm hitting letters we specifically need work on, plus I'm throwing in random copywork in place of the book some days).

 

I have at least 6 weeks of work all printed out already - any worksheets, maps, etc. They are in file folders by subject. So history pages are in one folder, math in another, etc. So after I assign things in HST+, I print out the daily assignment lists for the week, then go through that and pull out worksheets and such that I need. I place these in an 8-pocket folder (I just use 5 pockets - one for each day).

 

I can't plan individual daily assignments more than a week ahead at this point in some subjects, as we're still figuring out where we are (particularly in math).

 

I will be schooling year round, and right now I will pretty much do 6 weeks on, 1 week off, with some other random breaks when we need it (take off a couple weeks at Christmas, etc.). During my 1 week off, I'll make copies for the next 6+ weeks, so I don't have to make any copies Sunday night. The only thing I have to print out is the daily assignments list.

[ocelotmom]

This year, I planned the full year in advance for history and the subjects covered by the Ambleside Online schedule. This involves going through SOTW, assigning one chapter per week, finding supplemental books to go along with each week and reserving them at the library (I can schedule holds in advance) and rearranging the Ambleside schedule to fit better with SOTW and our style of doing things.

 

The planning takes a few hours over the course of a few days. I feel like it's worked very well, though next year I'll probably allow more than one week for chapters that have a lot of supplemental possibilities. I really like having the schedule - we're more likely to actually do the non-scheduled stuff if we have scheduled stuff to structure it around.

 

I don't schedule math, reading, handwriting, and so forth in advance - we just do them pretty much daily at whatever pace we end up doing them. I have general goals in mind for some things (I want to be through Math Mammoth 2B at the very latest by the time public school starts here next August, for example), but don't do a formal schedule in advance based on that.

Edited January 17, 2011 by ocelotmom

[mcconnellboys]

I plan my entire school year ahead.

[happypamama]

I plan about a year ahead, but mostly with just the topics I want to cover (and supplemental books/activities). We may or may not get to all of it. This year, I aimed for six-week blocks (with a week off in between), which sounds great in theory, and I think it would actually work very well, but it didn't quite end up working out that way. Next year, we're anticipating starting our year (which starts July 1 in our state) with a newborn, so the first couple of months need to be very flexible. A week by week plan will not work for next year (if it would ever work for me at all). So a general plan for the year that includes specific supplements, chapters, etc. is best for me. Then I like to take some time every weekend and plan out what I want to do for the upcoming week. That way, if I didn't get to a project from the previous week, it's not messing anything up to move it to the following week.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

I've planned science and history out for the whole year. The rest of it I plan 4 weeks at a time. I keep 4 weeks of plans in a 3 ring binder with pocket folders. In the pocket folders, I keep all the work papers the kids will need for that week. It has been working out great so far.

 

Here is a sample of a week's lesson plan:

 

 

 

Monday:

 

Opening Ceremonies: Pledge, Song, Poem Recitation, Calendar, Exercise Captain, Latin Vocab,

Science Vocab

 

Language Arts: PP pp. 116 plurals (need to make list on SPELLING CITY)

Assign spelling words

 

 

Afternoon: Homeschool Theatre Class

Library

 

 

 

Tuesday:

 

Opening Ceremonies: Pledge, Song, Poem Recitation, Calendar, Exercise Captain

 

Language Arts: FLL Lesson 77 p. 137. Addresses. Find abbreviations on mail.

 

Write spelling words 2 times

 

Eddie- Read The Barn

Andrew- Read MTH: Dragon of the Red Dawn

 

Math: MUS Review Lesson 22

 

 

French: Practice j’aime with les fruits. Review family members.

 

 

Classical Languages: Eddie Roots of English pp. 60-62 The Root Domin

 

Health: Read Usborne Complete Human Body pp. 44-45 Hearing

 

Chess: Play a game with all the pieces

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday:

 

Opening Ceremonies: Pledge, Song, Poem Recitation, Calendar, Exercise Captain

 

Language Arts: FLL Lesson 78 pp. 138-139 Titles of respect

Copywork- address an envelope

 

Spelling Worksheet- Plurals! (LOOK IN BOOKMARKS AND WEB FOR SHEET)

 

Eddie- Read The Barn

Andrew- Read MTH: Dragon of the Red Dawn

 

History and Geography: SOTW Ch. 15 Alfred the Great

Coloring Pg. 60

UILE pp. 214-215

 

Math: MUS Beta Lesson 23 Telling Time, Hours

Corresponding Worksheets

 

Art : Make a water color painting

 

Music Learn On the Yangtze from Hands on Recorder book

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday:

 

EARLY MORNING MEETING AT BRYDEN

 

 

Language Arts: Spelling City alternate w/ reading Eddie The Barn

Andrew MTH: Dragon of the Red Dawn

 

 

French: First Hundred Words in French Sticker Books

 

 

Math: MUS Beta Lesson 24 Subtraction, Three Digit Numbers

Corresponding Worksheets

 

Science: MTHRG: Space pp. 54-55 Mercury

Planets Coloring book Mercury pp. 4-5

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday:

 

 

Opening Ceremonies: Pledge, Song, Poem Recitation, Calendar, Exercise Captain

 

History and Geog.: SOTW Ch. 15 The Battle of Hastings

Map SP 59

 

 

Math: MUS Beta Lesson 25, Ordinal Numbers and Tally Marks

 

 

Language Arts: Spelling Test

Correct missed words - write 2 X

Prepare speech to present to Dad

 

Book Reports on The Barn and MTH: Dragon of the Red Dawn

 

 

Library Bin Time

[mom2denj]

Where did you get this hanging file holder? I LOVE it!!!

2 summers ago we took a summer off like all school do and it was huge mistake. He forgot everything. Prior to that he had a good handwriting and new all numbers and letters (how to write). After summer all of it was completely new to him. I was like WHAT?!?!?!

Year around schooling is great (with some reasonable breaks).

 

This is how i prepare stuff. I set goals of what needs to be done this year. I write them down. I write down each subject i am planning to do and what he needs to learn within each given subject.

Math: Singapore 1a and 1b

and so on.

 

Then i have Pockets for him for ALL his subjects., That is how we store them and organize them. Each subject belongs to its one labeled pocket/folder. For math he has Singapore 1A in his folder, for Spelling he has ALL ABOUT SPELLING book in Spelling folder. and so on.

 

Once he competes the book, the new book will be replace the new one. He also has writing books there too.

 

It really works for us. These folders are like mini goals for us.

This way i dont have to plan every day. We just get our subject and do another page.

[trying my best]

Where did you get this hanging file holder? I LOVE it!!!

We have store here called Mardel

its only $12

Its called Filetastic

Here is the link: CLICK HERE

[Mommee & Baba]

This was the first year that I planned the entire school year and filed it. And I will be doing it again! It was SOOOO worth all the work I put into it this past summer.

 

We usually take summer off. June-August..but we're changing the plans. The kids and I get a little stir crazy with that much change and I find that the first couple weeks of our new school year I'm playing review more than I feel is needed...So this year we're going to cut back school during the summer months but we're not going to stop 100% either. Instead of doing school M-F from 9am-2pm...we're gonna complete what's been filed for the school year and when we're done with that...we'll work on the one things we didn't complete...unit studies and lapbooks as well as writing once a week. We'll do a little something EVERYDAY during the summer but it'll only be like an hour to an hour and half in the morning. Then I will be able to plan for the school year.

[AngelBee]

We have store here called Mardel

its only $12

Its called Filetastic

Here is the link: CLICK HERE

That is awesome!!! I am seriously thinking of getting each of my children one!

[trying my best]

That is awesome!!! I am seriously thinking of getting each of my children one!

Both of my children have their own as well. It makes it so much cleaner in the school room. We used to have everything on bookshelves. It was kinda messy since everything looked so the same. These pockets were life-saver for me.