planning ahead

[hsingscrapper]

So how far ahead do you plan:

 

A) lessons

B) curriculum

 

What is your favorite planning tool?

[boscopup]

I plan lessons 1 week in advance (and even then, I sometimes go off that plan - skipping a lesson or taking longer for a lesson). I have the year's worth input into HST+, but NO dates are attached, and I pick and choose lessons from those lesson plans. If I want to skip a lesson, I just right click on it and mark "used", so it will disappear from my view but still be available if I need it for the next kid that uses that lesson plan.

 

I plan curriculum the year before. I do have an idea of what I want to do 2-3 years from now, but that is very much subject to change, so I don't buy anything that far ahead. Frankly, I never know where my child will be in 3 years! :D I wait until pretty close to the time we will use a curriculum before I buy it - usually 1-2 months before we start it. That gives me time to plan and also time to change my mind. ;)

 

As mentioned above, my tool of choice is HST+. Great program. It makes planning easy for me. I spend some time entering all of our curriculum into the lesson plans during a break, then each Sunday afternoon, I go click, click, click - submitting lessons from the lesson plan into our assignment grid. It knows which days I want to do things and which child is doing them. Easy peasy.

[dbmamaz]

It really depends on what it is.

 

Right now I just got about 6 weeks ahead on history lesson planning and i'm excited! I do about as much as I can stand - i think math i'm still a week ahead and chemistry about the same. world religions i need to work on, i only have 1 day's lesson written up. Some stuff is more open-and-go and do as much as we do and i dont plan it. Every day I copy the next lesson for each subject in to the Cozi checklist for the right kid (mostly only for the teen) and another list for the history lessons (which i do jointly with them). I check off the lesson as complete from yesterday on the spreadsheet.

 

for curriculum, i'm always thinking about the future and what I might use, but I dont write anything in stone until its time to buy it - kids change so much, you never know what will be a good fit too far in the future.

 

I dont like software or apps. I do my weekly subject planning on a spreadsheet, with a tab for each subject, a new spreadsheet each year.

 

For curriculum planning, some time around spring I'll start writing down possible ideas for each kid for next year, on a word document, and keep refining it until I buy in august.

 

I am also keeping notes for transcripts on a word document.

[momma2three]

I have a general bullet point list of what I want to do for the next few years, though obviously all that is liable to change... it's mainly notes for myself.

 

I plan out 12 weeks of lessons at a time, just using a plain old spreadsheet. Along the top I have the dates for each week. Then along the left I have each subject, curriculum, and three rows: goal, accomplished, notes. I write out the goals in each subject per week (might be "chapters 1-4" if the curriculum is a text, or something more vague such as "copywork as it comes up), and then as the week progresses I write what we actually accomplished and any notes about what we did or why we did it. I have a "miscellaneous" under each subject, too, so I can mention things that came out of nowhere for my own notes.

 

I like planning ahead like this so I can order any supplies or books I need. We rarely follow the schedule exactly... usually we're way ahead or way behind. It takes several hours to do each spreadsheet, since I'm looking for any supplies we might need, but it's worth it to then not need to worry about much for the next 3 months. I started doing this last spring, and did one for summer, and today was the last day of the 4th week for fall.

 

ETA to add: We're only doing kindergarten, and everything we did is pretty open and go. I don't really do any specific writing down of lengthy lesson plans. We're doing things like FLL and BFSU and MEP where I really just have to follow a script. If I was actually writing my own lessons, I would probably not plan as far ahead, because I would want to make sure that I knew where I was heading when I was writing, and that we actually did what I was putting my hard work into.

Edited September 30, 2012 by momma2three

[PeacefulChaos]

So how far ahead do you plan:

 

A) lessons

B) curriculum

 

What is your favorite planning tool?

 

Lessons - I have this year planned out.

Curriculum - I have next year planned out (basically). A little farther, actually, BUT not in stone or anything - just the basics.

 

Oh, and I do it all on my own. I really enjoy it so I don't use anything else. :)

[abba12]

I do a basic plan for each subject at the beginning of the year. So during my big planning week I'll either, for example, look at how many math lessons there are in the book or divide our math curriculum into the number of lessons I want, eg 180 days. This is then subject to change, if we run into a topic we already know we might do two or three lessons a day for that subject. If that means we finish the curriculum before the end of the year, I guess the rest of the year is a case by case basis. For a subject like science where we mostly look at unit studies as opposed to a formal curriculum right now, I would look at what I want to achieve this year, for example perhaps I hope to do, as a rough guide

 

2 books from the prairie primer at 4 weeks each,

4 combined subject unit studies (where the topic covers history AND science and other areas) at 2 weeks each

8 unit studies, each based around a selected magic school bus book and supplements, at 2 weeks each

1 special food science unit of 4 weeks

 

Total of 36 weeks. I would get together a basic plan, booklist, activity list, and general folder of 'stuff' for the unit for ALL of these units at the beginning of the year. I would specifically plan the unit itself into daily lessons a week or two before we plan to start it.

 

As for curriculums, I have a very flexible, only half filled in 'scope' right through to graduation, a firmer idea of what I want to do for the next 2 or 3 years, and the final decisions are made when I begin properly curriculum shopping at the end of the year for the next.

[alisoncooks]

So how far ahead do you plan:

 

A) lessons

B) curriculum

 

What is your favorite planning tool?

 

For my ready-to-go curricula (Singapore, R&S Phonics), I "plan" a week at a time, on Post-Its that I stick in the teacher's guide.

 

For other things that I've put together, I have a rough 36 week outline (our Little House on the Prairie is roughly sketched out for the year; mainly just what activities I want to do with each book, but not nailed down to day/week.)

 

I also do long-term planning (all the way through HS graduation), on a spreadsheet on my computer. I have a basic idea of the progression I want to follow (especially for history, science, art). I change out the curricula every now and then, as I stumble across new things. :p

[srs]

I lesson plan weekly, and have a general idea for where I want to be at the end of the school year. But it's only K and I haven't felt the need to plan beyond it yet.

[KAM]

I do pretty much no lesson planning. I start thinking about what we will use for the following year the January before. Over the summer I sit down and think about how much time we will spend each week doing each subject/piece of curriculum and come up with some sort of routine which I print out each week and check off. After that, it's pretty much just do the next thing.

[RootAnn]

For Lesson Plans (for subjects that aren't open&go), I try to plan out the whole year in advance, so I know how much I need to get done each week. When that isn't possible, I try to plan out at least a semester (15-18 weeks) so I know where to start.

 

My favorite tools for lesson planning are a pencil & a sheet of paper with a big grid (4x4 landscape orientation or 4x9 portrait orientation) on it. Sometimes I'll type them up. Othertimes, they will stay in pencil/pen and I'll throw them into my lesson plan book. When we get that day (or item) done, I throw the date in that square.

 

For currriculum planning (a couple of years out), I like an Excel (or Excel-like) spreadsheet with tabs for the years.

 

I'm not good at fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants planning. Too much happens & I forget to print stuff out or pick books up or whatever.

Edited October 3, 2012 by RootAnn

[Mandy in TN]

I have lessons for first semester complete. I will do second semester over winter break. Some year I have planned the whole year in advance and last year I didn't plan at all. I never attempt to lesson plan math. I learned many, many years ago that there is no point.

 

I plan all subjects for many years down the road and change my mind all the time!

 

I usually keep all my plans in excel, but this year I put together lesson plans in word.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Jpoy85]

So how far ahead do you plan:

 

A) lessons

B) curriculum

 

What is your favorite planning tool?

 

A) I dont plan. I have tried and tried and it never works. Workboxes did work but i dont have room for them in our apartment.

2) I dont plan this either. I have a general idea what KIND i want but I dont pick anything til the Convention.

 

My favorite tool is here. :lol:

[thebacabunch]

I plan history a year in advance. I pick curriculum over the summer and plan most a week in advance.

[SorrelZG]

Lessons, one day to one week ahead. Curriculum, one day to twelve years ahead. Favorite planning tool/s: pencil and paper.

[Element]

I plan lessons one week in advance, although I do plan some general units the summer before (nothing specific.) I have lesson plan pages laminated on construction paper (one for each child) and those pages are tacked up every week. The kids have learned how to decode my plans (HIG 72/ CP 54, etc.) so they can just look at the board and see what they have left to do that day.

 

I have a junky picture on my blog here.

 

For curriculum planning, I use a lot of OneNote, Google Docs, and plain old composition notebooks. (Okay, I lied. It's not plain. I decorated it so it's very pretty. ;)) I try to plan a year or more ahead, but my plans often change thanks to my 2e having a gifted surge and flying through things or coming to a "struggling standstill" and moving seemingly backwards for a time.

[StartingOver]

I gave up on planning, we just do the next thing. The kids make leaps that mess up all my carefully planned plans. LOL

[stm4him]

I plan out how many lessons or pages or chapters per week we need to cover and generally what a week outline will look like (day 1-day 5) and for most things we just do the next lesson each day and I tear out pages a week in advance in curricula that come in a bound form (like Saxon or LOE where the pages are like newsprint). For our CC history and science lessons that correspond to our memory work I have a plan on which things we will do each day planned out about 6 weeks in advance. So short term planning doesn't need to be completely written out or kept up with as long as I know we're going along at the appropriate speed to finish when I'd prefer to finish. Of course this year with a son with leukemia and a baby due at Easter and possible bed rest on the horizon if my placenta doesn't cooperate and move I am holding ALL things loosely!

 

As for curricula, I do plan this out from preschool-12th grade. But I know some things will change according to new things that come out and according to what we decide is too much when we get there, etc. For example, in my dream world I'd love my kids to do CC Challenge and Omnibus and some people say that's insane and others say most of the students at their campus do that so I will have to wait and see when we get there. I am always tweaking this master plan so it doesn't look exactly the same each year, but I like that there is a plan and a road map ahead. That way I don't get them to the end of 6th grade and feel that I've left big holes in skill sets or knowledge before launching them into the next phase of their education. Also, having a set plan of curricula for our family saves money in the long run so I'm not jumping around so much and can just replace the workbooks as needed instead of the teacher's manuals and everything.....

[txmommyofboys]

So how far ahead do you plan:

 

A) lessons the night before

B) curriculum a month or so before school starts back up

 

What is your favorite planning tool?

 

 

:D

[Holly]

I our curriculum for the year planned out...although I may change a few read alouds here and there. I also have a pretty good idea of next year's curriculum, but am still working out the details. I'll probably start planning and ordering a few months before we start.

 

For our actual lessons, I plan a month at a time. This year we are doing 15 days of school each month, so it's basically 3 weeks at a time. I did organize my materials a bit over the summer, so it's mostly a matter of writing down the exact pages to cover...I pretty much know what books we'll cover for each term (we have 3 terms). I planned October's lessons this evening and it took about 20 minutes. For the math and LA lessons, I record what we've covered instead of planning ahead...it's much easier this way and not a big deal if we need to spend an extra day on math or if the copywork takes longer than I planned. Since we pretty much continue with the next lesson in the book, it seems silly to plan ahead anyway.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Holly

[amyrobynne]

I decided to pull the boys out of their school in June and had to be as ready as possible before September. Hopefully I'll be more on top of things in future years, but knowing my tendency towards procrastination, it seems doubtful.

 

I had curriculum chosen pretty much for the year by the end of July. After starting in September, I changed my mind about handwriting and science. I potentially know what curricula I'll be using next year assuming that the continuations of what we're doing now continues alright.

 

As for lesson plans, math and spelling are open and go but I figured out in August whether there was time for days off. I wrote a 6 page list of possible literature titles and came up with the first 30 I'd choose to request but now I need to make a new list of 30. I made a month of history plans and last night (one day in advance!) planned out the unit that will last us until December. I come up with copywork and IEW source plans on Sunday to use the upcoming week. I have a list of poems but I choose one at a time. I printed out a couple months of math stuff and all the history stuff before school started. I end up having about 3 hrs of planning on Sundays. But I'm new to this. I use Donnayoung forms and after-the-fact I put everything we do in a bound lesson plan book. I like having the flexibility of the daily and unit forms so I don't HAVE to do everything on the day I originally scheduled.

[mommy5]

I planned out our curriculum for the whole year ... placing it in folders for each quarter. I have a binder for each child for each quarter where each week is planned out (as far as worksheets...). I also have a weekly notebook for each child where I keep their work and some thin workbooks in. I also have a teacher's planner ... for planning each week out (read alouds, what we are going to discuss, worksheets, other plans ...) So I have a general overview for the whole year but it gets more and more specific ... the week before I teach it I write it out in the planner.

[hsingscrapper]

Thank you all for sharing! I am thinking of buying a planner from Rainbow Resource that is actually meant for a homeschooler instead of the ones in the stores meant for classroom teachers.

 

Notebooks have proven to be, as my boys are fond of saying, an "epic fail" for me. I have tried a spreadsheet but that doesn't seem to fit as I get carried away.

 

What I do know is that if I don't write it down, it may not get done. We are currently hobbling along with just math, grammar, and reading. That needs to change. I feel like a horrible mom for not doing more.

[Ruthie in MS]

I only plan lessons a week or two in advance. Anything more and my plans always get trashed.

 

As far as curriculum..... we'll I usually have a good idea of what I want to cover for the next year but don't make any solidifying plans until April or May. We're becoming more and more interest-led and I know to keep my options open. I have one of those plan in advance pages and write in what I would like to cover for that month. If I want to plan a special unit study I can wait and buy it when it goes on sale before I've planned for it.