How Much Time Do You Prep For Year

[DianeW88]

This fall will be my 18th year homeschooling.

 

I plan for 30 minutes to one hour a week during the school year. Maybe I'll spent a day in the summer getting everything organized and ready to go. That's it. No need to kill yourself over it.

[melmichigan]

I spend part of my summer educating myself. I'm working through CW tutorials, practicing advanced diagramming, reading for literature, doing AoPS, rereading science books, etc. Luckily this is just keeping up with my oldest. I take really good notes with the hope that I won't have to do a lot of this again (like all the PR DVD's ;)). The better prepared I am the better our school year goes.

 

As far a school scheduling - I mark all my TOG materials and order what books I will need, I also put together the kids workbooks. Otherwise I just need to familiarize myself with everything for the coming year. Exact planning is done on a week to week basis. Broad strokes work best here. For some of my DC I can never plan with certain subject, I just have to record it after it's done for that day. In those cases I have an idea of what is coming next, but am just along for the ride. :)

Edited June 1, 2012 by melmichigan

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

I spend been spending about 5 hours a week planning for next year, on average. I was planning as I went all year, too, and I'm really hoping this method will really make it easy to get a good start next year. I'm sure by the holidays I'll be wanting to incorporate a bunch of other stuff, but I'm trying to think positive :)

[JudoMom]

I'm trying to imagine homeschooling with methods and materials that would require a whole summer to prepare for. :blink: Even when I did KONOS, there wasn't that much work involved in getting ready to teach...

 

It probably takes me way more time than it would take you, and you schooled your girls differently than I'm schooling my boys. I'm teaching 5 different grades. In the fall I'll be using Omnibus with 2 of them, Rainbow science with 2 of them, Magic School Bus kits with 3 of them, Narnia Lit guide for 2 of them, 5 levels of math (4 Saxon, 1 Rod & Staff), Writing with Ease (2 levels), Classical Writing (2 levels), 3 levels of grammar (Rod & Staff), 4 levels of spelling (Rod & Staff), Latin (Visual Latin/Lingua Latina), Elementary Greek, and literature for the three younger boys, penmanship for 2 of them, and a few little extras.

 

In addition, the boys do Judo, a 1 day a week enrichment program, and gymnastics.

 

So, while many of these are a do-the-next-lesson kind of thing, if I don't have daily assignments and a year long plan, it is so easy for me to forget about things. It's easy for boys to slip through the cracks. It's easy for me to think we're making more progress than we are. When I only had 2 or 3 in school, I still had to plan because the younger two boys were mind-suckers and I would forget things.

 

So, to answer the OP, it takes me a long time to plan in the summer, but it's better than spending an entire Sunday afternoon during the school year getting ready for the week. I don't know how much time, and I don't really want to think about that part :001_smile:.

[RootAnn]

I'd say it takes me all summer. But this is only because I do the planning at my leisure with lots of life thrown in there. I might do some work on it for an hour, then not touch it for a week, or I might work on it for several hours, then not touch it for two weeks. I am planning for three kids. I am eclectic and pull together varying resources. I do sometimes reinvent the wheel. :)

 

:iagree:

 

I don't know how much time exactly I spend in planning for the whole year, because I do it in 30-minute (or 10-minute ... or even 5-minute) chunks in the evenings.

 

:iagree: And, JudoMom, :blink: :eek: I'm SO not ready for teaching five yet...

 

This fall, I will have a three official students (6th, 4th, 1st/2nd), a five year old boy who is NOT ready for sit-down school, and a crazy-active three year old who likes to wander off & get into trouble on his own. :001_unsure: My life cannot handle plan-as-you-go. I must have the plan done before we start. But mine is by subject & contains "blocks" that I can cross out when we get them done, whatever day/week that is.

[Mrs Twain]

I have to laugh at the idea that if you have to tweak something so much, just look for something that is a better fit from the start. Well, until someone invents the perfect curriculum for us... Oh, wait! That's what I am doing with all this tweaking of my eclectic mish-mash of resources for my very different kiddos. :lol:

 

This is it exactly.

 

I like a lot of the curricula availble, but there is no one program that meets all of my goals. Besides, I enjoy the tweaking because I like to plan, and I can personalize my materials to make them become just what I want.

[happycc]

I start planning for the next year in January. THen I can submit my orders to our charter school before the school year ends. I may even get my next curriculum early in the spring to start prepping and preparing for the FALL.

 

I start to really plan once Star testing is over for us in mid April.

So this week begins my heavy planning and starting to tie up loose ends.

 

I start researching and writing my plans down for each kid. Get the shopping list going. Get a schedule down. Make all copies and such and bind them and find places for everything so I am not running around trying to find components to things.

Today is the Monday after Star testing for us and I feel like doing NOTHING.