Non-Planners Unite!

[mathnmusic]

I have found the past 2 years that we have done very few projects or extras from SOTW, I think that is lack of planning.

 

That is really the only subject that I think suffered over the last 2 years with the just do the next thing mentality.:001_smile:

 

 

:iagree: I haven't done much planning this year either, which worked out okay, but it sure would've been better for the kids if I had looked ahead to what see supplies we'd need for history, science and even math manipulatives - instead of just getting to the activity and having to skip it. Hope to do better with that sort of short-term planning this year.

[welovetoread]

I don't plan here really either. We have a daily schedule and try to stick to that. We use an open and go curriculum and other fun stuff. When they are older I might plan, because I do miss designing our own curriculum.

 

Chandi

[Alte Veste Academy]

I don't think it matters one hill of beans whether you plan or don't plan, so long as your children are steadily progressing toward achieving the goals you have set for their education.

 

Some people will plan and succeed. Some will plan and fail.

 

Some people won't plan and will succeed. Some won't plan and will fail.

 

Homeschooling is work, planning optional (and mostly personality dependent). :tongue_smilie:

[sagira]

I was starting to feel like a planning failure. I notice I work much better with lists, goals, ideas, with gratefully some "do the next thing".

Edited July 11, 2012 by sagira

[Kaleidoscope]

I hate having to be a planner. It's not my natural bent to plan things out so much. Unfortunately I fizzle if I don't plan.

[*Lulu*]

I don't think it matters one hill of beans whether you plan or don't plan, so long as your children are steadily progressing toward achieving the goals you have set for their education.

 

Some people will plan and succeed. Some will plan and fail.

 

Some people won't plan and will succeed. Some won't plan and will fail.

 

Homeschooling is work, planning optional (and mostly personality dependent). :tongue_smilie:

 

:iagree:

 

I am, by nature, a planner. I do not, however, use a planner. I use some printed out Donna Young pages, a legal pad, and a calander.

 

I am finding it interesting to see how many who proclaim themselves non-planners are using SL, which has a detailed IG. I am curious how many of the non-planners are able to fly by the seat of thier pants because of the structure of the curriculum they are using?

[Doodle]

Sometimes reading the threads here cause me to feel incredibly inadequate. I plan the year in that I look at each subject's text and figure out how much of it we need to do per week in order to finish it by the end of 36 weeks. I'm a "do the next thing" kind of gal. I don't schedule/plan supplemental books/videos. We do read/watch extra stuff, but not on a schedule. I record our weeks accomplishments after the fact. The recent threads about binders have me seriously perplexed. What am I missing? This will be our first "official" year now that Doodle is about to turn 8 and I will only be retaining enough paperwork to turn in with his end of the year portfolio.

[Jennay]

:iagree:

 

I am, by nature, a planner. I do not, however, use a planner. I use some printed out Donna Young pages, a legal pad, and a calander.

 

I am finding it interesting to see how many who proclaim themselves non-planners are using SL, which has a detailed IG. I am curious how many of the non-planners are able to fly by the seat of thier pants because of the structure of the curriculum they are using?

 

Yep, that's one of the reasons I settled with SL. It frees me up to supplement to my heart's content but gives me the structure to fall back on.

[Farrar]

I don't think it matters one hill of beans whether you plan or don't plan, so long as your children are steadily progressing toward achieving the goals you have set for their education.

 

Some people will plan and succeed. Some will plan and fail.

 

Some people won't plan and will succeed. Some won't plan and will fail.

 

Homeschooling is work, planning optional (and mostly personality dependent). :tongue_smilie:

 

Well said. :001_smile:

[TheAutumnOak]

I don't think it matters one hill of beans whether you plan or don't plan, so long as your children are steadily progressing toward achieving the goals you have set for their education.

 

Some people will plan and succeed. Some will plan and fail.

 

Some people won't plan and will succeed. Some won't plan and will fail.

 

Homeschooling is work, planning optional (and mostly personality dependent). :tongue_smilie:

 

Now that's the best thing I've read all day :001_smile:

[CyndiLJ]

I never even knew I was SUPPOSED to plan out every single hour/day/week/month like so many do. I guess my ignorance helped me gain confidence, because by the time I knew that a large number of homeschooling moms do exactly that, I knew it would never work for me.

 

I have always viewed it this way. If you are using a curriculum designed to be completed over an average school year, and if you are actually not wasting time and are getting in a fair number of hours each day, you'll finish it. No big deal, no need to count and assign pages, no need to break it all down.

 

Three years into it and we have always finished everything every year, with most of it being completed early. I wonder how much LONGER it might have taken us if I had limited the kids based upon my own daily page assignments! Haha! Inevitably they always do more than I would have assigned, if left to schedule their own week as they wish. :001_smile:

 

Cindy

[acablue]

Today, Nathan wrote me a list of everything he wants to learn in 2nd grade. It was a page long and ended with "do school all day". I should probably start planning. :tongue_smilie:

[Fiddler]

I have to say I have never taken our curricula, divided it up by the number of weeks we'll be homeschooling (like I should know this, exactly?), and planned it all out. But I will say that the best year of homeschooling (in my eyes, anyway--but I think the kids would agree) is the year I had a Sonlight IG that told me what to do each day for literature, history, and geography. I'm going to attempt to emulate that type of plan for my 6th grader and 2nd grader this year, using SOTW and great literature. Wish me luck!

[NASDAQ]

I would probably love planning. I'd make a great large plan full of lessons and ideas and every little detail entered. It would be great fun.

 

Then I'd spend months feeling guilty because I didn't use the plan.

 

To thine own self (failings?) be true? I follow a daily schedule and do the next thing. I roughly put things into Gmail Calendar to hold myself accountable and avoid missing appointments and so on.

[sunnylady303]

I am a planning addict. :lol: However my life doesn't work that way. I read about these moms who plan everything out and think they must have charmed lives or less developed guilt complexes or be better able to school in the midst of chaos. But I can't do it.

 

So I sooth my planning addiction by focussing on goals for 6 weeks at a time and making sure I have supplies. Then I really plan on Sundays for the next week. We almost never get to it like I plan, but I can handle that small amount of failure. :)

[CyndiLJ]

After posting about how I don't plan by the hour/day/week I found myself laughing out loud as I realized I actually have stuff all over the house for four years of high school history for planning purposes!

 

I'll say it, you don't have to...I am a total liar!

 

I guess it would be more appropriate to say I am not a "scheduler" but I am a planner and I love putting together our eclectic studies and planning for them for months.

 

Maybe planning comes out in different ways for different moms!

 

Cindy

[happycc]

but I can;t follow it to the tee. Plus I get overwhelmed with the process. ANd get disappointed with myself.

 

So I use "do the next thing" curriculum.

 

For those of you who design and carry out their own studies/curriculum.. My hats off to you..

 

Anyways---several things came to mind while reading the threads....

 

1)I might give a planner to each child who can write and THEY can record what THEY did that day for each subject/book they read/elective. That way I know what on earth they are covering or at least what THEY think they covered. Sometimes at the end of a month or even year I ask myself " what on earth did we do all year?!" So maybe this might work better than me writing out the plans that won;'t be really followed anyways. Do you think this might help the kids take more control of their learning?

 

2)I think I might show the kids the activity guides like to Story of the World and ask them what activities might interest them and then they can come up with the materials with their dad and do the activities rather than me assigning stuff and having them do it.

 

3)I might do a few surprise activities like the egyptian tomb hunt and just make a copy for dad to plan out and do with the kids because I do not have the wherewithall to deal with that right now.

[Momma Rabbit]

I have found my people. My husband, all my best friends are crazy super planners! Opposites attract, right. So glad to know I'm not alone, or crazy!

[Griffmom]

I have found my people too!! My homeschool friends all have these extensive lesson plans and I just open the book and do what it tells me to do, have my son complete the next math lesson and so forth.

 

I do plan for field trips and place books on hold at the library for up-coming lessons but that is about the extent of it.

 

DH laughs because I plan everything else in our life but not homeschooling. I remind him that one of the reasons we homeschool is for flexibility and freedom!!

 

AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!:grouphug:

Edited August 8, 2012 by Griffmom

[besroma]

I have found my people too!! My homeschool friends all have these extensive lesson plans and I just open the book and do what it tells me to do, have my son complete the next math lesson and so forth.

 

I do plan for field trips and place books on hold at the library for up-coming lessons but that is about the extent of it.

 

 

Same here. I didn't even know they had homeschool planners until I saw threads about them here. I still have not looked at them.

[Ravin]

We keep a weekly plan on a dry erase board. We don't plan beyond that, and pretty much just "do the next thing", but it gives DD a sense of what she's accomplished through the week and what's expected of her each day.

[sewingmama]

I'm a backward planner :tongue_smilie: I keep a big, black diary on my desk and as my kids actually do something I write it in the planner :lol: That way at the end of the day I'm not looking at a huge list of things that I pre-planned and didn't get done.

 

It works well for days like today when DD woke up very sick and is spending the day lying on the couch watching tv - none of my plans have been thrown out :D (well she was supposed to go to Art class today but sick happens)

 

I've tried planning -it never works out for me because I homeschool for flexibility and freedom. If my kids want to learn about something else that day then why not - it's all education.

 

My kids also have a lot of days where they refuse to do a cetairn subject and then the next day decide they want to do 10 pages of it all at once KWIM -

 

It seems to be working ok - so far we have finished up all our curriculums very early.

[LMD]

I looked at some of those free planners and it just seemed like double handling to me... I just scratch a loose plan in the back of my yearly diary, take notes when I need to, sometimes write down what I'd like to do/what we did. I agree with PP, the hive is a much more fun way to waste time!

[Farrar]

I'm a backward planner :tongue_smilie:

 

This is actually me too. I'll make a loose outline of what we're going to do for history or science, for example, and then we do it and then I write it up, at least for science, where I do a detailed blog post sometimes.

 

This is the philosophy behind Reggio Emila, by the way. The kids dream up the topics, you go along with it, do the unit and then write it up after the fact.

[hsmom2011]

Ever time I plan, something comes along to mess it up:lol:

 

:iagree: No more attempts at planning going on around here. We just do it all until it's all done. ;)

[Stellalarella]

I try to plan but I never follow through, so now I just make a checklist of what needs to be done. I wish I was the planner type because sometimes I feel so unorganized but this is working for now.

 

I have a checklist form that I print out. It's just a silly thing I made up on my computer. I fill in what needs to be done when I do my planning time. With the older kids, I now hand them the checklist and I sit down with them on Monday morning and I instruct them to write down their assignments. :001_smile: Sometimes then, I run out to the notary and have it stamped so that we all understand that I really did tell them to do this work.

 

Just kidding.

 

But ya know, homeschooling teenagers sometimes makes a mom feel like she needs a legal team. Yes, I said do Chapter 11. No, mom, I don't think you said that... Yes, uh, I did.....and so on. :001_smile::001_smile::001_smile:

[shanvan]

I do plan for my older kids, but I also do not use open and go curriculum b/c I design the vast majority of the studies we do. I also have to have a plan b/c mentally outnumbered by who needs to do what. ;) I also don't write out yr long plans. I generate basic goals/lists for the yr, but daily plans are restricted to 6-7 weeks at a time.

 

That said, I do NOT plan for my younger kids. I don't start formally planning until 3rd or 4th grade. Until then, I just go w/their flow.

 

Yes, it's when I'm putting together my own courses or using bits and pieces of several books that I plan. Or, if I am trying to coordinate Ds & Dd's science so they can do certain labs together, then I have to be sure they are reading the same topics leading up to the labs. I've been working on that this week and it has been time consuming. Also, TOG works better for us if I pick out the books ahead of time and see if the library has them, make sure the worksheets & maps are printed. So that is planning, in a sense.

 

If I want to be sure on Dc finishes a certain course of study or text then I map out some rough goals for a date when I'd like to see them finish halfway. If that doesn't happen, b/c it is taking them longer to master, then I adjust. It helps to have a rough idea of when we'd like to finish, but detailed daily plans never seem to be followed here.

 

ETA: I like 'planning' by printing out a table of contents and using pencil to write in dates at specific points.

[Elfknitter.#]

I like others' schedules. We use CHOLL for ancients, grammar stage which utilizes SOTW and adds in extra lit. I also gleam from Mosaic Bringing up Language Learners as well as HO 1 Ancients (purchased).

[fraidycat]

:lol::lol::lol: !!

 

Well, I am glad that I am not the only one! I am still fairly new to homeschooling, but I found it just as easy to "to the next lesson." The only thing I "plan" is to look ahead to see what books I need to order from the library.

 

This is why I need to plan. If I don't, then I won't have the books or even know that I'm supposed to have the books until the day of, then we'll get behind, then we'll not do it at all. I'm planning now, so "do the next thing" is actually DOing the next thing, instead of doing nothing. :lol: The planning for me is for content subjects...science, history, art, etc. The ones that we'll need activity supplies and supplemental books for.

 

Core subjects like Math and Language: Do the next thing. Easy.

 

ETA: I will even look ahead at Math and LOE a bit this year, or we won't do the games and manipulatives because I didn't plan for them and have to dig to get out the supplies...at which time, the kids will decide they need to use the bathroom, get a drink, bug the cats, have a snack...anything but schoolwork. They'll sense my weak area and attack, like the little wild animals they are. :)

Edited August 9, 2012 by fraidycat

[mom2scouts]

EEEEEEEk! What's wrong with you people?:tongue_smilie: Planning is fun! Planning is important! You need to spend your entire summer planning your year!:001_smile: OK, I admit I'm a little obsessive about planning, but I'm easily distracted and I won't do anything if I don't have the goal for each week in front of me on one piece of paper for each student. I can't "do the next thing" unless I know exactly what the next thing is *and* I have all the supplies to do it. I even put all my Sonlight lessons into HST+, put any extra things I want to do (lapbooks, crafts, field trips) into the directions, and get all the copies and supplies ready. All of my other subjects are in HST+ too. I buy all my art supplies and science experiment supplies and have them ready to go or I'll get to the experiment or art project and have to skip it. I even read all the readers this summer so I can have a discussion about the books. I have a system for rescheduling if we don't get to something on the plan and I end up with a record of EVERYTHING we did for school. My homeschool assessor loves me.:lol: Somebody stop me!

[kb44]

Not really a planner, here. That's why I picked Saxon texts that were scripted. Where do people find the time!

[shanvan]

ETA: I will even look ahead at Math and LOE a bit this year, or we won't do the games and manipulatives because I didn't plan for them and have to dig to get out the supplies...at which time, the kids will decide they need to use the bathroom, get a drink, bug the cats, have a snack...anything but schoolwork. They'll sense my weak area and attack, like the little wild animals they are. :)

 

I definitely look ahead at math often so I can get an idea of when the more difficult lessons might be happening and adjust our day, or other subjects accordingly if I need to.

[Oakblossoms]

Why do planners need to comment on this thread:tongue_smilie:

[mom2scouts]

Why do planners need to comment on this thread:tongue_smilie:

 

:lol: Oops, sorry Heather. Maybe I'm trying to convince myself that all that time I spend planning is useful.

[kristinannie]

I had to laugh because I use HST+, but I only use it to record what we did AFTER we did it. :lol::lol::lol:

[sewingmama]

This is the philosophy behind Reggio Emila, by the way. The kids dream up the topics, you go along with it, do the unit and then write it up after the fact.

 

:001_huh: Guess I need to borrow some books and do some reading - who knew I had a philosophy :lol:

 

But that about sums up how we homeschool.

 

The real reason I write it up is because it is required by my State to show proof of learning otherwise I wouldn't even bother to keep a record at all;)