For those who don't do a lesson plan

[MellowYellow]

How do you stay organized?

 

How do you stay on track on not get behind?

 

Do you have a weekly or monthly folder of things you would like to get done or do you just wing it?

 

What works best for you?

 

 

I am such a planner. I planned a daily lesson plan 10 weeks in advance and we are going on week 6. We have completed everything I have planned out, but I feel stressed about it. I don't like feeling pressured to finish stuff because I feel like it takes the joy out of homeschooling. At the same time I don't want to get to behind so I feel like I should have some sort of lesson plan. I know it may sound weird, but I feel like I need to have my son complete the work if it is planned. I hate having unfinished work. Sorry I am rambling. Any advice?

 

Oh and I know this sounds silly because my son is just in kindergarten. I am new at this and I just want to make sure he is at his age/grade level and not getting behind because I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing as his teacher.

[mrs.m]

I use mostly curriculum that is open and go and basically "do the next thing". I have a goal of completing 4-5 lessons per week in the 3R's and 2-3 lessons or activities in the other things. I made it throughlast year finishing by Mid-May this way. So we meet that goal regularly by being committed to doing schoolwork on the weekdays with the exception of our CC day.

[LAS in LA]

Writing daily lesson plans for a kindergartener would definitely stress me out. :D

 

I do like being organized, though, and knowing what's coming. Like the PP we also use some "open-and-go" curricula (FLL, WWE, MCP Spelling). For other subjects, I print out a weekly "schedule" that tells which SOTW chapter we're doing, which SOTW activity we're doing and what materials we need for it, which composer and artist we learning about, what to read for science, which experiment/materials, and most importantly which books to request from the library for the coming week or two. All this takes up half a sheet of 8.5x11 paper. I type them up during the summer or winter break.

 

Each child has a schedule of which subjects they need to do on a particular day. I reference these during schooltime to make sure I didn't forget a subject.

 

At night (when it's quiet) I look over what's coming up the next day, especially in math.

 

As far as not being able to check things off your daily list: if that's stressful to you, don't set it up that way. Or keep the list very small (1-2 subjects which take 15-20 minutes each). If we don't get to something one week, I either decide that it isn't vital to our children's education (like a project or a specific read-aloud) and move on, or decide that it is important and write it in for the following week.

 

Hope that's somewhat helpful! Also hope you get some good advice from more experienced folks on this board!

 

ETA: The only subject we even could "get behind" on is history. Because we try to read one SOTW book per year, I try to stay on schedule with them so we don't run out of time. The pace for everything else is based on whether the child understands the material and is learning.

Edited September 7, 2011 by LAS in LA
forgot something

[tammyw]

I guess I don't think of it as "getting behind" because we're doing our own thing and technically don't *have* to get a particular thing done. We were doing AAS Level 2 and I realized that dd8 knew all the spelling words, but we were only half-way through the book. I picked out several of the hardest words from each lesson and dictated them to her and had her spell them. She got 99% of them correct. So we scrapped the rest of the book and will be moving onto Level 3 this year.

 

I don't know. I see how much dd8 knows and I realize that we don't "have" to get something in particular done to feel like we're succeeding. I buy the curriculum because I want to make sure we cover everything. But we definitely don't do it all.

 

Plus I want to make sure I'm following her lead. I know for me, I learn best when I'm in control and learning what I *want* to learn. So I try to make that the main goal. The wonderful result is that dd is actually learning more than I ever thought possible, but a GREAT DEAL of it comes from her just reading the hundreds of books I constantly have out from the library - much more so than the curriculum we do. So we do the curriculum because I have the need, but in many cases, she personally doesn't need it.

[Farrar]

I use mostly curriculum that is open and go and basically "do the next thing". I have a goal of completing 4-5 lessons per week in the 3R's and 2-3 lessons or activities in the other things. I made it throughlast year finishing by Mid-May this way. So we meet that goal regularly by being committed to doing schoolwork on the weekdays with the exception of our CC day.

 

:iagree: Ditto.

 

Except... this year, mostly to help my stressed out, slightly anxious kid de-stress, I made a big board with all the work on little strips for the whole week so he can take them off little by little and know how much he has left. You can see what it looks like here. We've only been doing it for a little while, but it's helping keep me on task for things that aren't so open and go, even if they're simple, like Spelling Plus, which we're using.

 

I prefer the just keep chugging along method and so does one of my sons, but I can see that this is what the other one needed and it's not hurting us so we're on board.

[Dolphin]

We just do the next thing. I know roughly how much I have to do, Like if I am going to get The Story of the World done in 36 weeks, I will have to double up and do 2 chapters for 6 weeks (there are 42 chapters) Other than that, we have 4, 9 week quarters. I check to make sure we have done about 25% of what we needed to do.

 

I used to be a planner, I have mild OCD and I start off planned to the hilt. We hit a huge wall in October (it was my first year). We took a couple of weeks off, and I tried the do the next thing method. Everything relaxed and went so much more smoothly. We also got more done. If he was having a great spelling day, we would keep going with that, bad grammar day, we will try again tomorrow. For us, mom getting rid of the lesson plans, really let us finally embrace the joy of homeschool.

 

I realize I might have to find a happy medium when we get to middle school, but for now, this unplanned thing is WONDERFUL!

Nicole

[blondeviolin]

We're also doing K, but I figure there's no getting behind because we're just starting! :) I guess I don't feel any pressure because she already knows what she should know at the end of K and we're just at the beginning. We just do a bit at a time and do it every day. The only thing I really plan for is FIAR, and that's just picking an activity per subject.

 

Maybe you should research some more do-the-next-thing type curriculum. :)

[lewelma]

Because I do not schedule tightly, my ds is even ahead sometimes! But seriously, not all students do a 1 year curriculum in 1 year. My son has taken 1 1/2 years for a 1 year spelling curriculum, and will need to do spelling through 7th grade. And he did 2 years of math in 1 year, for 3 years running. Now, with AoPS math he will take 2.5 years to do a 1 year curriculum. It just takes how long it takes. It depends on the child and the subject, and homeschooling allows you to go at your child's pace, which is not always obvious when you are planning for the year.

 

Also, I have a 1 hour daily time slot with my 11yo and have 5 curriculum that we are moving through (MCT vocab/poetry/writing, logic, and study skills). I just do the next thing, but also rotate around irregularly depending on my mood, how much we accomplished the past day or week, what he would like to do, etc. I know that I need to do 1 a week for some books, and 2 a week for others. If we get behind a bit, we might work on the weekend or I might call a "reading day" which means no math or writing and focus on these other books.

 

For my second grader, we have workboxes, but I don't fill them. Each box just holds one subject's books and papers, and I try to do 10 to 20 minutes in each box each day. Some days when a subject takes too long because we have had enthusiasm or a great conversation, I just kill the least important box (often history). I do not schedule ANYTHING to accomplish in a year because he is young and things take how long they take. (well, ok history is on a 4 year rotation, but I just skip stuff and more on if we don't have time)

 

For both children, the more complex curriculum that are not "open and go" I still do on the fly. I open the book, think for a minute, and teach.

 

It is very free flow here. And NO I do not always finish everything I wanted to, but I have a habit of over scheduling anyway. For reference, my 2nd grader does 2.5 hours and my 6th grader does 4.5 hours daily excluding reading time, history, documentaries, mandarin, and violin.

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited September 7, 2011 by lewelma

[SailorMom]

I "lesson plan", but only for a week at a time. We are a "do the next thing" type of people as well, but I use HST to make a list for the week to keep up moving. It makes a great checklist and something to write grades on until I enter them at the end of the week.

[MellowYellow]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I really appreciate it.

[dcjlkplus3]

I lesson plan only certain things, like science, history and math. Each week I make my "lesson plan" that lists out the "next page type things (like the next lesson of WWE, FLL, OPGTR). The only reason I plan math is so that I can coordinate TB and WB pages in Singapore.

 

I also have my lesson plans (both kinds on the computer - xcel). I just color in a box for each thing completed. So there are actually some weeks when we are technically working from several weeks at once on my master plan, but we are always current on my weekly/daily one. I find that *I* function better with having a plan

[lorrainejmc]

I have never been a lesson planner or written anything more than a basic schedule of what day and what order we do each subject. To make life easier for me, I try to use open and go as much as possible. I will print/copy student pages and store in plastic pockets by the lesson as far ahead as I can, so there can be no excuses for skipping something. I will look at the activities in SOTW AG a few weeks ahead to see what I might need to get, but that's as much planning as I do.

 

I think it's hard to create a detailed schedule with the 3 r's. You just can't predict how long it will take each child to learn to certain skills and concepts.

[momto2Cs]

We just do the next thing. I know roughly how much I have to do, Like if I am going to get The Story of the World done in 36 weeks, I will have to double up and do 2 chapters for 6 weeks (there are 42 chapters) Other than that, we have 4, 9 week quarters. I check to make sure we have done about 25% of what we needed to do.

 

I used to be a planner, I have mild OCD and I start off planned to the hilt. We hit a huge wall in October (it was my first year). We took a couple of weeks off, and I tried the do the next thing method. Everything relaxed and went so much more smoothly. We also got more done. If he was having a great spelling day, we would keep going with that, bad grammar day, we will try again tomorrow. For us, mom getting rid of the lesson plans, really let us finally embrace the joy of homeschool.

 

I realize I might have to find a happy medium when we get to middle school, but for now, this unplanned thing is WONDERFUL!

Nicole

 

I used to write out elaborate plans, and then berate myself when we couldn't keep up with them - life has such a tendency to get in the way! :glare:

 

This year, we've moved to just doing the next thing. I do know approximately how much time I want to set aside for things, like finishing Egypt up by Christmas, but how many chapters I read a week, etc. varies. In math, I know if we do 4 lessons a week, we'll get through TT in our school year. I also came up with a rough number of writing lessons I'd like to get done per week - sometimes we are right on target, sometimes ahead, and sometimes we do less.

 

I find too that we are getting a lot more done this way! I fill out my "assignment" sheets at the end of the day as a log of what we have done instead of the other way around.

[Poke Salad Annie]

I guess I don't think of it as "getting behind" because we're doing our own thing and technically don't *have* to get a particular thing done.

 

 

This.

 

We work very hard and spend most of our time on skill subjects, then the afternoons are spent on the others. We do the "next thing", and so far it has worked out quite well. I don't use a boxed program, so that helps with my freedom to work with things as I see best.

[regentrude]

We know what materials to use. We begin from the beginning, and resume the next day where we have left off.

I break down the material in rough chunks of months so I can have an idea how far we have to get in a certain month as in: x chapters in the history book, y chapters in the math book).

If we spend a lot of time on one subject and neglect another, we will just spend more time to catch up the neglected subject the next week or month.

I know how much work I can reasonably expect my kids to put in. If the spend x amount of time on school, we'll just get where we'll get. I do not believe in rushing through material to meet some arbitrary deadline - we teach for mastery.

 

How do you stay organized?

 

How do you stay on track on not get behind?

 

Do you have a weekly or monthly folder of things you would like to get done or do you just wing it?

 

What works best for you?

 

 

[Ellie]

Other than KONOS, most things I used didn't require any planning, only that I look ahead to see what was happening next. Even Spalding doesn't require lesson planning.

 

Maybe if I'd lived in a state that had accountability I'd have been more concerned about how many days and whatnot, but I didn't, so I wasn't. It didn't matter to me how many days it took us to finish, or whether we finished everything at the same time or not. We just worked on things until we finished or until we were bored, lol, then we moved on to the next thing.

[Tarreymere]

I use Homeschool Tracker. I don't do lesson plans, I just enter in the subjects that I want to do each day. For each subject I enter it once, check off what days a week I want to schedule it and for how long (two weeks works well for me, I usually tinker around with things every two weeks) and enter the starting lesson or page number. The program does the rest. That takes care of most things.

 

The other things I enter by hand one at time or else I enter the subject once but I don't specify a lesson or page number. Then when I decide what I what to do (like for art or music) I can go and edit each individual entry with what I want. I don't do anything too detailed, I just enter enough informations so that I can remember what I wanted to do. For example, today we did a craft that I got the lesson plan for from the Dick Blick website. I just put a link to the website in the notes section of that lesson instead of retyping it all. For SOTW I just put the title of the chapter in the lesson/page number section.

 

Even if I make up my own lesson plan for an entry I usually just add an outline of what I am going to do in the notes section rather than an entire lesson plan. The NEA would hate me :D

 

Homeschool Tracker has a lot of different reports that I can print out. I print out a week's worth of assignments for each child, then when they are completed I can check them off. I can check them as completed with a date in the program also, which is neat for record-keeping.

Edited September 7, 2011 by Rainefox

[Runningmom80]

I'm not doing lesson plans, just getting through as much as we have time for in a day.

 

 

Although, it does make sense to do it for subjects like Science & History, so you can plan library books, experiments and field trips. I think I may be up late tonight....

[Donna]

I know what I want to get done over the course of a "school year." We do school mostly 4 days a week at least, sometimes 5, and do some on rainy weekend days. Math is roughly a lesson a day unless one lesson happens to be really short and we end up doing 2. For other subjects, I have a rough idea of how much to do each week.

 

Since we homeschool, there isn't ever a "behind." We just go until we get it done. I like to do something different in science and history each September, though, so I do try to stick to my general plan. We usually end up finishing up about 1.5 years of what PS would do with every homeschool year.

[ScoutTN]

Similar to pp on this thread, we use mostly open and go curriculum.

Usually on Thursdays, I make a weekly checklist for the coming week, look through the lessons to make sure there are no surprises and reserve library books for two weeks ahead.

 

We do 3Rs early in the day and then the others on a rotating basis, usually two each day.

[JadeOrchidSong]

I am so glad that I am not the only one that doesn't write a lesson plan. I have a generic daily/weekly schedule for each of my two boys. I put them in plastic page protectors and they check off each subject with a dry or wet erase marker when they are done.

I never write what pages for what days in the schedule. It is a schedule that works any week of the year. Simple and no stress. We do the next thing. When we finish a level, we celebrate somehow (ice cream, or eat out), and then we go to the next level the next day.

[MissKNG]

How do you stay organized?

 

I put all of our current curricula in an upright metal caddy. When I decide on what we are going to work on for the day, I just pull out the books and materials and leave them in a pile in front of the metal caddy.

 

How do you stay on track on not get behind?

 

Noeo and Sonlight are scheduled for me (which I loosely follow). My big girl is such an aggressive learner that I fortunately don't have to worry about falling behind.

 

Do you have a weekly or monthly folder of things you would like to get done or do you just wing it?

 

Just wing it.

 

What works best for you?

 

Not planning anything! I tried that once for math and had to keep changing my lesson plan because she would complete material so quickly and it got too annoying re-writing the plans.

 

.

 

I answered above!

[MellowYellow]

Thanks!!!

[QuirkyKapers]

I have a schedule of what I want to do everyday on a whiteboard. For example:

chores

instrument practice

 

Individual work:

Explode the Code

reading

 

Work with mom:

Math

Spelling

 

 

Everyone together:

history read aloud

Outdoor Adventure

 

 

(This isn't my whole school day, just giving sketchy examples.....:))

I find that if I just have that down, I get it done. If I make too detailed lesson plans, well, I just don't seem to stick to them number one. Number two, locking in times never works either.

 

I think it is my ADHD coming out.....or maybe I just lack discipline.....;)