Meaning of writing out lesson plans...DESPERATE FOR ANSWER

[sheryl]

What does it mean to "write out lesson plans"? Can someone be very specific.

 

This is only my 5th year homeschooling, but I use mostly Abeka (not all though) and they have already worked out lesson plans in their curriculum guides and/or teacher editions? They are numbered and a lesson can be completed in each subject in a day.

 

What am I missing on this? :confused:

 

PLEASE HELP! THANKS. Sheryl

[Julie in Austin]

If you use a curriculum that includes lesson plans, then there's no need to write them out. For those of us who put our own things together, it is useful (but not necessary) to have a lesson plan to organize them. Here's what mine looks like:

 

□ Math

□ Greek 6.5

□ Spelling

□ Memory Work

□ Discuss Reading

 

 

□ Math

□ Greek

□ Spelling

 

□ Piano

 

□ H of S 1

□ HS Timeline

□ Discuss H of S

 

□ Handwriting

□ Piano

 

□ Math

 

□ FLL 103

□ Memory Work

□ Writing

 

□

□ ____________

□ ____________

□ Looking at Paintings

 

 

 

 

□ ES 25

 

 

 

There's no column headings there, so you can't tell, but this covers more than one child. Blanks are to write book titles in.

[Alana in Canada]

A lesson plan for science we began this weekend looks like this:

 

1. Read Fifth Creatures of the Fifth Day, Ch. 10, 1st half.

2. Write out the three kinds of Metamorphosis in notebook.

3. Do "activity" sheet (which I made up myself)

4. Draw the lifecycles of the Butterfly, Dragonfly and Preying Mantis in notebook.

5. Read a book on one of the above. Do a summary of the book.

 

That all gets divided up into different days on my daily planning sheet.

 

For History, for example, On Day 1, I had

 

25 (a)

Narration

Do mapwork and colouring page

 

Day 2:

25 (b)

Narration and chapter test.

Make plague wheel

 

Reading: (both) The Acrobat and the Angel, Three Sacks of Truth, Little Johnny Buttermilk.

 

For the Fifth Grader only: CHOW, ch. 60, Baldwin: Whittington and his Cat.

 

hth.

[rafiki]

.

[mommylawyer]

Since I don't use one curriculum for every subject, I like to plan out what I'm going to do. I created my own form for use with each of my children - I write, in pencil, the plan for each week. (I do my planning on Monday nights for school the following week; our week begins on Friday.)

 

I also have a year plan - it helps me focus on our goals for the year.

 

Check out the plans I use - see my blog and look in the right column for "My Documents."

[Peela]

I dont often write out lesson plans. Mostly everything is "do the next thing", and if a book is broken down into parts to read all term, I put a bookmark in it telling me how much we need to cover each week.

You dont have to complicate what already works for you!

[sagira]

I've been wondering this too. It would be a LOT of work to do all the lesson plans a la Sonlight, or WinterPromise. I have a planner I pencil in the basics for each year, like Math pages, some chapters and such, but I try to keep it flexible, and like Peela, I like to have many resources that are "the next thing" to make it easier.

 

Great question, great thread :)

[Alana in Canada]

Wait--there are obviously two entirely different things meant by a lesson plan.

 

1) A plan for all the lessons (or subjects) you want to do in a day and

 

2) A plan for the material you want to cover in a particular lesson on a given topic within a given subject.

 

Which do you mean?

[midwestbelle]

I used to write out what we were going to do, but I used up too many erasers!

 

I use SL for history and that kind of stuff, so I just write down what week we are working on in SL and then write down which math, Latin and grammar lessons were completed, what additional books we read and any thing else I want to keep up with like field trips, music lessons or special classes. I can also make notes of other things I need to work on like our new address. I say "new address", but we've been here a year today. See why I need to write that down!

 

I've also started jotting down grades from math and grammar because the girls thought it would be fun to keep track of their grades. It also makes DH feel better that I am keeping track of what we have done in case anyone ever come snooping. He's gotten kinda paranoid lately :001_smile:

[Janice in NJ]

A Beka has a lesson plan for each subject for each day. It includes info/a-line-up for teacher prep, student-n-teacher face time, and student on-their-own time. Review is integrated, new material is introduced in step-by-step fashion, the books are scheduled to be completed in one school year. Voila! Pick up and go lesson plans. :001_smile:

 

Not all programs are that way. So many of us have to generate a lesson plan. Why do we do it? Because we see advantages to using those programs that outweigh the work required to generate lesson plans. And it CAN be a ton of work. (It doesn't always have to be, but it can be. It depends.... Everything comes down to goals; sometimes the goal demands it; sometimes we mommas just make life hard. Experience helps a gal tell the difference. :001_smile:)

 

A Beka has handled that process for you though; they have established goals and developed a plan to meet those goals in 170 "lessons." Done. Textbooks are terrific at doing that. But if you don't want to use a textbook program, you have to deal with the tradeoff; you have to develop a plan - or at least flesh one out. That's where programs like Sonlight, Winter Promise, My Father's World, Tapestry of Grace, etc. come in. They are "plans," but some of them are looser that others, and I haven't found ANY of them that are as tightly planned as A Beka.

 

Maybe that's why you're confused. :D If you are using the A Beka hs teacher's guides than you are using very detailed lesson plans. They tell you exactly what to do and when to do it. All you have to do is do it. Day 27 - DONE! You can ignore all of the lesson-planning posts. THAT part of your homeschool is completely handled. :001_smile:

 

Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

[Closeacademy]

Our lesson plans look like this:

 

Phonics: sh sound, She sells sea shells poem and copywork, sh worksheet and sh matching game.

 

Math: Singapore EB 2a p. 24-25 measuring

 

Lapbook: Wild Horses of Sweet Briar, family words and health or not mini-books.

 

This is for first grade. I keep things simple and to the point but I also include things like we can play this game or do that project when we are working on this topic/skill.:001_smile:

[Jenny in Florida]

. . . with samples of my plans from last year.

 

http://tweakedacademy.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-do-you-write-your-lesson-plans.html

 

The format worked so well that I'm using it again this year.

[angela in ohio]

Wait--there are obviously two entirely different things meant by a lesson plan.

 

1) A plan for all the lessons (or subjects) you want to do in a day and

 

2) A plan for the material you want to cover in a particular lesson on a given topic within a given subject.

 

Which do you mean?

 

A lesson plan is technically the plan for one class, in detail (what the lesson will be.) A list of all the subjects to cover, to me, would be called a schdedule.