s/o planning/scheduling lessons. . . how do you

[Alicia64]

do it?? It just seems like life throws so many curve balls that your scheduling has to be done in pencil because so many things change.

 

Example: say I've schedule two pages of math u see each day for my boys. On Monday one boy struggles heavily with just getting one page done.

 

On Tuesday the other boy is sick and throwing up.

 

On Wed. -- well you get the point.

 

I honestly don't understand how people sit down in Aug. and schedule out the entire year.

 

On another issue. . .

 

Say that you hadn't planned a trip in 2012 and then dh's job wants him in Washington DC for a week and he's taking you and the kids too.

 

You decide to spend two weeks before studying DC with the kids -- all of your other plans for geography or history or whatever go out the window because of the DC study.

 

Do you see what I mean? How do you "roll" with life and schedule at the same time.

 

I'm not being sarcastic -- I'm honestly asking how you do it. Because I want to do it too.

 

Alley

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Well, I'm one of the ones who plan out the whole year. It's just something I need to do for myself to see exactly where I'm heading and exactly what I should expect to do each day.

 

However, I'm perfectly willing to completely change my plans. It is impossible to foresee everything that can derail the schedule, so I try not to cram too much stuff into one day of plans. Several times last year, I spent more than one day on something that I originally planned to spend only one day on. But, there were other days when things went much more quickly than I planned, so I could work ahead a little or catch up if behind. I postponed some things and completely gave up on doing other things. To me, an unscheduled visit to a farm, or watching a bird building a nest in your yard are way more productive uses of time than rigidly sticking to your plan just because it's your plan.

 

Flexibility is the key. I still follow the basic outline and plan I've established for us, but I don't make it the be-all, end-all of our homeschooling lives.

[LaxMom]

We use HST+. I can reschedule the entire assignment list in a couple of clicks. ;)

 

And, yes, life does happen. If we don't have a plan, though, we get off track more because the adults in the house find themselves unprepared.

[Lily_Grace]

I plan, in pencil, two weeks in advance, and a catch up day at least once a month. I've gone through our teacher's guides and penciled in next to certain lessons where I hope to be at the end of the month/semester/year so I can see if we're staying close to a good pace as I make out the weekly lessons.

[athena1277]

My plan for the year involves determining how may days per week of each subject we need to do to finish in a year. They I make a weekly schedule of which subjects are done on which days. Like this year we do FLL on M/W/F and WWE on T/TH. Then, instead of writing out what we do in advance, I write out only what we will be doing for that particular day. Of course, that is easier to do when you use open-and-go curriculum.

[Dana]

I plan the course materials for the year. I print out my plans and use a highlighter to mark what we've accomplished. I have goals for each quarter and that helps me keep on track.

[bluemongoose]

We use HST+. I can reschedule the entire assignment list in a couple of clicks. ;)

 

And, yes, life does happen. If we don't have a plan, though, we get off track more because the adults in the house find themselves unprepared.

 

This is what I do too.:D

[Ria]

My plan for the year involves determining how may days per week of each subject we need to do to finish in a year. They I make a weekly schedule of which subjects are done on which days. Like this year we do FLL on M/W/F and WWE on T/TH. Then, instead of writing out what we do in advance, I write out only what we will be doing for that particular day. Of course, that is easier to do when you use open-and-go curriculum.

 

I used a similar method. First I'd figure out how many days each subject would need in the year. From there I could break it down into how many times per week we'd do that subject. Math was daily no matter what program we used, but things like grammar, history and science were more flexible.

 

I used a planning book and wrote in pencil. I usually had enough leeway throughout the week to make changes as needed.

[TheCoffeeChick]

I plan out the entire year each summer, but I don't put specific dates on it. Things that are just open and do the next thing, I don't plan out, I pencil in what lesson we did on my planner on the day we do it.

[ChrissySC]

We use HST+. I can reschedule the entire assignment list in a couple of clicks. ;)

 

And, yes, life does happen. If we don't have a plan, though, we get off track more because the adults in the house find themselves unprepared.

 

 

I was exhaused from bumping and merging cells in Excel and erasing.

 

HST all the way- I create lesson plans for the entire years, and I assign them 2 weeks at a time. :) So very very awesome - I am the latest cheerleader for them, LOL

[angela in ohio]

I sketch out a plan for the year in each subject area, but then I plan each week as it comes. That gives me the perfect mix of accountability and flexiblity. I've tried just doing the next thing; I've tried planning each day before the year starts; I've tried everything in between (including HST+.) :D This is the only way I've found to balance our goals and the bumps of daily life.

[Rhonda in TX]

I add padding into the schedule. I know I want to end the semester the week before Christmas. On my schedule, it shows that most classes will be finished the week before that. However, I know life will happen. That's what those empty days are for. We also do things like take a whole week off at Thanksgiving. If any classes need some catch-up time, we can do some work over that week.

 

I also use HST+ which allows me to reschedule without a whole bunch of rewriting.

[Already Gone]

This may catch up with me one day, but I don't exactly plan. We school year-round, usually 4 days a week, but sometimes 5, so there's a fair amount of wiggle room built in. I figure that as long as I have a good sense of what I'm doing for the rest of the week, I'm okay. And for the most part I just "do the next thing," as someone above mentioned.

 

I log what we do every day, and if we've done enough to count it as a school day, I mark it accordingly.

 

'Course we're only at the beginning of first grade, so who knows. But this worked just fine for K and I don't foresee any serious problems for this year at least.

[TheReader]

I do plan the whole year, to get a feel for how much of each subject, book, etc. needs doing (in an ideal world) per school day. I need to know the pace to shoot for, in other words.

 

Then, I try and account for those real life things that I know will mess us up. For instance, an out of the house appt. every Tuesday morning, or a wonky schedule every Thursday. So, I schedule some subjects to only be done x number of days/week (even if that means a larger chunk per day) so that on "off" days we are not "getting behind."

 

Example -- I have science only MWF so that the T/Th messes don't put us behind in science. I have vocab daily, but grammar only 2x/week. Vocab is broken into small enough chunks that a missed day can easily be doubled up the following day. And grammar's 2 days can float to whatever day of the week we need them. If some odd thing gets scheduled on a day that's normally a grammar day, I can move it around (back or front) to accommodate.

 

I also schedule "floater" days -- so, if the boys hit a math test on a Thursday, they get Friday off. Or if they hit the end of a book, either history or reading or read-aloud, on a Weds or Thurs, they get the rest of the week off (they use the ending day to write a mini-report over the book, so I assign it that ending day and they are free to do it that day, or Thurs, or Friday). These cushion days give us just that -- cushion. So that if life interrupts, as it always does, I know we've got cushion days later on that will let us just keep shifting each thing down a day and we'll right ourselves by the end of the quarter. I also plan a cushion of about a week at the end of each quarter just in case (so, a week with very little scheduled, on purpose, to use as catch-up).

 

If the boys read ahead in their history or reader, I choose to either let them have free days then or I take it later, depending on our life at that point. If I know I've got busy days coming, I'll have them keep going and take the free days later on.

 

The biggest one is math, because it really does have to be an every day thing and there's only so much math they can do. What I do when we need to catch up is to shorten their assignments and then double up. So, say we miss a day of math and I don't want to wait for the next cushion day to roll around. Then what I do is walk through the lecture with each one of them, work the practice problems with each one (as needed), and assign just the 5 problems that "match" the practice (we use Teaching Textbooks, so you'd need to adapt to whatever curricula you use for math...), BUT we do 2 lessons on the make-up day to get back on track. You could adapt this and assign just the odds of 2 lessons vs. the odds & evens of one lesson. In this manner, you get 2 days of lessons done in one day.

 

If I hit a point when they need extra review in math, we do stall out and work on that and then I just sigh and accept the fact we might not finish that book that year. Or I will go through and eliminate various exercises, lessons, etc. later on. I try very hard to keep us on track in math, but it is also the one area where I remind myself that mastery is more important than speed of progress, so "getting behind" is just slowing down to that child's needed pace.

 

As I tell the boys --- if the book is moving too fast, it is speeding. YOU set the speed limit for math, not the textbook being used. If the book goes faster than you are okay with, the book needs to slow down, you do not need to speed up. You set the speed limit, and we will make the book fit that pace. As such, we don't always finish one grade level of math per school year, but so far it's wound up evening out more or less. I once took nearly a full quarter of the year to work with my oldest on multiplication/division facts. He knew how to do it, but could not memorize the facts. We stopped and drilled and drilled and drilled until he got it. He then caught back up to grade level quickly despite that slow down. Doesn't always happen, but so far they've evened out. I remind myself of that and we go with it. Each year the new material has enough review in the beginning that if we didn't get to the end of the book the year before, we can still move forward and just treat that review as new material. It works out in the end.

[OnTheBrink]

I plan out 12 weeks at a time. Each week only lists what has to happen that week; the day-by-day assignments are done in pencil on an assignment sheet. I can then switch things around to allow for any doctor's appointments or whatever, and we still stay on track.

[redsquirrel]

Well, many things I do are 'do the next thing' so that helps a great deal. I use Singapore math and we just do one exercise per day until we finish both books. It has always worked so far.

 

Most of our subjects are done 4 days a week but we do school 5 days a week. That gives us one 'light' day or a flex day to play catch up.

 

If someone gets sick then we just pick up where we left off.

 

I don't do things like go on a trip to DC with my husband (who does such things for work) because that would mess with school. Or, I would plan it out as a vacation week. I wouldn't interrupt my school plan to study DC. I would just have it as a trip. Well, I would do some educational stuff while we were there but I wouldn't let it change the focus of my school year.

 

I only plan things like history activities and science. I make sure I have all our materials on hand before the year starts. I have to be hardcore about that. If I don't have the pipe cleaners and ping pong balls before we start the year, science ain't gonna happen.

 

I think mostly I just have school at the forefront of our lives while we are in session. it isn't the only way to do homeschool, it is not the best way, it is just the way it works for us. My DH works for a university so our lives already follow the academic calendar. That makes it very easy to divide the year into "school only" and "not school". So, when it is school we only do school.

 

Some people value more flexibility. If we weren't already ruled by the school calendar I would prob be more like that. But, that isn't my life. So, instead of forcing yourself into a square hole, maybe you need to think about why you homeschool and what your priorities are. Maybe you need more flexibility and that is perfectly fine.

[*Lulu*]

I am in between in planning styles. We school year round with two week breaks after every six weeks of instruction.

 

I have an overview planned for the entire year, but only schedule in detail 6 weeks at a time. I also buil some wiggle room into the schedule. (i.e. DS#1 has only 5 weeks of Latin scheduled for a six week period. If we can do more, great, but if we don't I haven't "wrecked" my plans. Which has the added bonus of letting me not feel guilty about it. :) )

 

I also schedule all posible appointments on one of our two light days; this also keeps us from getting behind.

[Gailmegan]

I plan the whole year in excruciating detail. I had a spreadsheet of my own that I would revise if necessary, but this year I decided to try Skedtracker (it's free and online, so I can access from any computer). From what I understand if you skip a day it automatically bumps the assignment to the next day that particular subject is scheduled and all the subsequent lessons get bumped as well. I also schedule time on Fridays for review or for work that wasn't completed, so I have some built-in wiggle room too.

[edelweiss]

I plan, in pencil, two weeks in advance, and a catch up day at least once a month. I've gone through our teacher's guides and penciled in next to certain lessons where I hope to be at the end of the month/semester/year so I can see if we're staying close to a good pace as I make out the weekly lessons.

 

 

This is very similar to what I do. :001_smile:

[Ellie]

Pencils are your friend. :D

 

OTOH, so many things don't require much in the way of planning or scheduling, as in you can just do the next thing on the next day you're going to be home. Of course, you have to guard your time at home (going on a field trip to Washington, D.C., with the dh would be worth throwing everything else out the window).

 

The only thing we ever did that required *scheduling* was KONOS. Otherwise, we always just did the next thing. Of course, I paid attention to what was happening next in each book or whatever so I wouldn't be surprised. :D

[Garga]

At the beginning of the year I figure out how many days a week each subject needs to be done in order to complete everything at the end of the year. (Science-3 days/week. Math-5 days/week. Etc.)

 

Then, I use an excel sheet and plan ahead about 1-2 weeks with the details of specific lessons.

 

I change it CONSTANTLY. That's why I use excel. For example, if we need to do science 3 days a week, that might mean M-W-F this week, or MTW. Or I might have a day where we do almost nothing that day, but double up the next (if it'll be busy).

 

And with MUS, some of the pages take forever (like multiplying 3 digit numbers by 3 digit numbers,) but others are easier. So, sometimes we do 1 page a day, but other days we'll do 3 (maybe not in the same sitting, but by the end of the day.)

[Shellydon]

I make sure a week gets finished in a week. If MUS needs to be a chapter a week, then we might have to do 4 pages on Saturday to finish, but we get it done.

[Caitilin]

I have modified my plan for the year (thank-you, Patty Joanna!!!), so that we have five weeks of planned school days, one week to play catch up, and one week off. I divided my books up into six chunks, and then each of those chunks I divided into five. (I use sticky tabs to mark it). Then each Sunday evening, I sit down and plan out my kids' work for the week. That way, I have a goal/plan for the whole year, but it is not divvied up day by day so far in advance that it scares me. :tongue_smilie:

 

Also, like PP, if we were miraculously taking a trip to DC, it would not derail our other studies--it would be like a long field trip. I have a built in slush week in each chunk to allow for sick days, unexpected guests, etc. So far so good!

[elegantlion]

I plan each subject out by the week. It's not in great detail, some is do lesson x. Some classes I put together, like history, are in greater detail. However each class is planned separately.

 

Then I do the combined weekly schedule no more than two weeks at a time. That way if we are ahead or behind the adjustments are easier. For instance we could be on week 10 of the school year, but week 7 of math, week 11 of literature, etc.

 

This works for me because I know where I need to be each week and I don't feel overwhelmed if we get behind.

 

I also make sure to have a couple of easy weeks in our schedule to allow for life interruptions.

[Jenny in Florida]

Well, I'm one of the ones who plan out the whole year. It's just something I need to do for myself to see exactly where I'm heading and exactly what I should expect to do each day.

 

However, I'm perfectly willing to completely change my plans.

 

Me, too.

 

I do plan out the whole year ahead of time. I have to, or I never know whether we're getting anything done or getting enough done or moving so fast that we'll run out of materials and need to add things for the last three weeks, etc.

 

However, I plan in weekly chunks. So, for example, this week my son has the following on his list for math:

 

Art of Problem Solving: Intro to Counting and Probability, 7 pages

The Code Book, 12 pages

Crypto, 12 pages

Cryptology puzzle books, 6 pages

Lesson on Binary Codes

Additional reading, 28 pages

 

He sat down this morning and made a plan of attack, listing what he wants to get done each day.

 

If he gets hung up on something on Monday, we try to catch up on Tuesday. If he gets really bogged down or gets sick or life intervenes in some way, we try to spread out whatever didn't get done so that we catch up in the next week or so.

 

If all else fails, I have three half weeks built into the year (before holidays, etc.) that we can use to get back on track. If we're not behind when we hit those weeks, he will use them for extra projects or maybe just take them off entirely. If there are things that need to be finished, we'll use that time to finish them.

 

Occasionally, life throws us such a curve that my original schedule or plan is just not going to happen. He gets a great opportunity to go out of town for a show, or one of us gets sick for a whole week, or we find out we hate one of the resources I had planned to use, or we add something I hadn't planned. When we reach that point, I use the next break to make adjustments to see us through the rest of that year.

[Beach Mom]

HST all the way- I create lesson plans for the entire years, and I assign them 2 weeks at a time. :) So very very awesome - I am the latest cheerleader for them, LOL

 

:iagree:This is what I do, and hopefully will finish all the lesson plans today. I take two weeks in the summer and plan and enter all of our lessons. I have done this the last three years and I have been much less stressed as the year goes along because I am not trying to plan and find books and figure out what we are doing each week or month. I start the year with everything entered and knowing how many days of each subject we have to complete each piece of curriculum. Then I schedule as we go, checking every quarter or so to make sure we are on track to finish the year.

 

If we take a week off, I just don't move anything from the lesson plans to the schedule that week. If we plan a week and then decide to take off I just move the scheduled lesssons to the next week. Everyone gets a daily checklist on Monday morning so expectations are clear, check boxes can be checked as we go, and no one can claim "I don't know what to do!".

[~Tara~]

For MUS I plan it for 4 days a week. I use HST (not +, just basic) and schedule in "MUS Worksheet" on those days. Then as I go in later to put in the grades for each assignment I put in the actual lesson done. Thus eliminating the need for shuffling exact assignments. If the child needs more review, I just put "review" in the lesson box. And, again, no need for rescheduling and moving things around.

 

Growing with Grammar is scheduled the same way.

 

Handwriting, phonics, stuff like that as well.

 

History, I schedule a week at a time...3 weeks if I'm really on top of things. I use TOG and rely on the library heavily, so I just plan according to what I have checked out and for how long I can have it. :)

 

Basically (as the children are getting louder around me thus shortening my train of thought AND time...) I don't schedule in great detail. I do very basic planning, filling in the finer details later.

[bettyandbob]

I used to plan out the year in advance.

 

I'd do quarters like the schools do and have a note where I wanted to be on X date. Then I'd plan the subjects they'd finish 3-5 days ahead of X date. That way with illness and extra review and a special field trip we usually made X is every class. Sometimes we finish some classes early and we'd do extra on another to catch up. Then we'd be ready for the new quarter. Planning quarterly points that I wanted to meet made it easier to see if we were going to "finish" or at least be where I expected at the end of our academic year. If we weren't meeting the schedule at all first quarter, I knew I had to reassess the pace and subjects to fit my dc better.

 

Some subjects never last the whole year for use, those would finish early and give us breathing room for another class.

 

I was also pretty intense on our pacing at the beginning of the year and we relaxed in the spring a bit.