Jumping from curriculum choices to lesson planning

[SLT]

I have a while to go before I really have to worry about this. This year we are doing B4FIAR for my toddler, and I'd like to start doing a loose "lesson plan" for the different books, lessons and activities for the books. I would like to do this to start having a bit of structure (for myself, not for him) and learning how to structure our year with the lessons/curriculum that we have. It will help me remember different resource locations (blogs, etc) for activities so that I don't forget something cool I've read or seen somewhere.

 

I fully realize that is not necessary with a child this age or with the "curriculum" we are using, but I would like to know how you do it. 

How do you make the jump from "These are all of the curriculum choices we made this year... Science, math, history, reading, spelling, english, etc... to this is what we will do on which day throughout the school year?

 

It seems like so much to coordinate! How do YOU do it? Do you sit down before the school year, make tons of notes, write things out, etc. Or do you wing it and hope that you get to the end of a level before the end of the school year?

[homeschoolkitty]

I am in the same boat... someone told me to then look at my whole year...

 

1. chose your school year:

Meaning, see all the vacations that hubby has. Holidays. activities. and block the days you will not have school, Mark your semesters if you are doing semesters, or quarters if you are doing quarters. Note when scouts meet/co-ops, etc.

2. Chop your book:

Then look at your English book, and see how many chapters it has, and chop off the table of contents in a way it fits nicely in your yearly schedule.

OR

2.. Choose your week:

Do you want to do a 4 day week or a 6 day week or a 5 day week, when you choose that then you want to see what you want to do on MON, TUE, WEd, etc. like MON-TH Math, Mon, WEd, Fri, History, Tues, TH: Science, and FRI: art/music/etc

 

3. Then do the one you did not do above

4. Now add the pages of the book you are going to cover to each month/week. ( If you are really into it, write it for the day-I recomend to do this each SUnday instead)

5. Next for the coming month see the books that you will need and get them,  do this every month for the month to come. Buy the necessary things for the activities of the month/week.

 

6. CARRY OVER: I like the quote: the Sabath was made for man, not man for the Sabath.

So don't be a slave to your calendar, just do and check mark what you did finish. Most people write "week 1/ day 3" to their schedule just in case. a friend notes the date instead of a check when she is done with a topic.

 

Now, for me... I go do it.... I am in the same boat... still trying to tweak things... I just ought to plan it! and start it!

 

 

[Holly]

I have a daily schedule and try to figure out how often we need to schedule each subject/book/curriculum to finish by the end of the year.  I don't make very detailed plans ahead of time...mostly just enough to keep me on track.  We also have a daily checklist of all our subjects that I mark off each day.  

 

When I just had littles, we had a great schedule for BFIAR.  We had a "circle time" with poems, songs, weather chart, etc.  Then I had a "skills time" to work on letters, numbers, shapes, etc...we used some games, file folders, and/or workbooks for this.  After that we had BFIAR book and activity.  In between each "subject" she had free play while I worked on chores.  After lunch we had an outdoor activity (library or craft time in bad weather).   I wish I could go back to the simplicity of that!   :lol:  I now have to squeeze in preschool time in our already too busy schedule!  

[Carrie12345]

I do a combo.

Some of our subjects are easily "do the next thing/pages" without worry of an ending point on Day 180.

Some are easily divided into Chapters 1-180/90/what have you, or Lesson 1-180, etc.

Others, like our science and history, get the more detailed treatment.

 

If I had to start from scratch in every subject, I'd lose my mind.

You will never catch me writing out lesson plans for silent e or geometry formulas. That's what I buy set programs for. ;-)

[Mandy in TN]

I start planning by deciding when I want to stop for mid-term holiday. Then, I count back 90 weekdays skipping any days that we want to take off. This gives me a start date.

 

This year we are using weekly folders. In the past I have used spread sheets. Either way, at this point divide your work. Some years I have had very specific spreadsheets that listed the book title and exact page numbers. Some years I just listed a book and about where we should be in the book. (ex., wk12 Science Blah Blah Blah finish about 1/4 of book). This year most of the things we are using were paperback. I had the spines cut off. I bought regular folders with brads, hole-punched the pages, and slipped them into folders.

 

We typically go year round but light and less traditionally school-ish in the summer. Usually, I schedule the 36 week/ 180 days that I am required to report. OTOH- I have had years that were really full with 200+ days planned daily by necessity of whatever we were wanting to accomplish. This year for first semester I did 16 folders by subject with each folder intended for 5 days work. This gives us 10 built in days for field trips or sick days. We plan to go to the symphony 2x, the art museum 2x, the zoo 1x, the science museum 1x, the children's theater 1x, and ds is signed up for an all day pond ecology field trip. So, we can still report 2 sick days and finish everything on the schedule for first semester, or we can participate in two more field trips. :) When I have not allowed for field trip days, I have turned down real life educational experiences in order to finish everything I planned. So, point being, be sure to allow extra days for field trips.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[LazyDazy]

I plan using a grid system but, instead of assigning a week and/or day to each block I number them 1-180. This allows me freedom throughout the year to get ahead or behind without the lesson plan screaming at me that I'm off schedule. For those subjects that don't need to be done daily I place them in the grid at intervals such as every third day or every other day, what ever completes the lessons at or near the end of 180 days. Notations on the grid tell me if I had any extra resources I planned to use for certain lessons. 

 

I do plan out the entire year ahead of time but only print out one page of the grid at a time that way if I need to adjust I'm not having to reprint several pages. I cross off the line items as we do them. It is quite possible for us to be working on line items from a day or two ahead or behind if we worked faster or slower in one subject area. If we get too far in either direction we take a day and make it a catchup day only working on subjects that are behind. Honestly, that rarely happens but I am comforted to know that I have plan in place for when it does. 

 

In past years I did plan out dates and I found that not once in those years did we follow the dates because something would come up or vacations would change or we would need a break when I hadn't planned one. It was frustrating to me so I changed the way I plan.

 

As far as printed resources, I print those ahead of time and put them in my master 3 ring binder, divided by subject and pull them from there as I need them.

[StaceyE]

Last year (our 1st homeschooling year) I used the wing it method. I can.not. do that again - I always felt like I was scrambling to put together our week's work on the weekend. I want to start the year off feeling well-prepared, so that I can relax and enjoy the learning.

 

This year, I figured out our number of weeks (we're following older D's high school schedule), days off, vaca time, etc. and popped it all into Homeschool Tracker Online. Then I created simple tables of each subject with the week number and divided up the units and chapters to be sure we covered what I wanted to cover. This is our American History outline.

 

Then I took the course outline and input it into a set of tables I made in a two page spreads format for each week. I added as much detail as possible to make the year move along smoothly, including dates, links to online resources, library call numbers, chapters, page numbers, etc. I still have to add in Bible studies and health, but I'm just about done. I'll print these out and comb-bind them so I have a hard copy to look at. From here, I can easily make my lesson plans in homeschool tracker and create a weekly task list for DD as we move along the year. The planning spreads look like this:

 

 

I know that I won't get to all of the books, activities, projects and such that I have planned, but I feel better knowing that there are lots of options for each week. I'm not going to feel bad if we decide not to read out of the text because we found a better book at the library or we changed a project, worksheet, and the likes. And since my DD's task lists come out of homeschool tracker online, I can adjust as we go along. I do need to stay on schedule for the weekly topics, though I have several catch-up weeks if I absolutely need them. I don't have anything planned for Fridays because dd is taking a couple of afternoon classes at a coop, which leaves the morning open for work we didn't get to. Some subjects I limited to 3 days per week to account for my tendency to think I can fit in far more work then is actually possible. I'm that girl scout leader that has 3 hours worth of activities planned for an hour meeting - I just can't help it.  :D