Need inspiration: what sort of prep do you do on weekends?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I am curious how other people prepare their week on weekends.  I find that I can no longer just fly by the seat of my pants.  If things are not READY, they just don't get done.  I am making my to-do list for weekend prep, sot hat I don't get to Tuesday and realise I don't have a copywork passage for dd (or some such), don't have a photocopy done, etc.  Can you give me a few ideas so I can be sure my list is complete?  

 

 

[Farrar]

I don't do a ton, but most weeks I do a list of goals for the week. Finish this project, revise that, do this chapter lesson, etc. That generally clarifies for me if I need to read ahead in a curriculum or have something prepared. I don't always do it right then, but if I have those goals up, it's in my head to get that stuff done.

[Kristie in Florida]

I read ahead when I can. I also try to do my meal planning and grocery shopping, which counts as school planning in my book, because if we have to make a run to the store for milk first thing it'll ruin our entire day.

[Above The Rowan]

I rest. And I do something fun just for myself. Because then I feel more likely to have a positive attitude for the upcoming week. I make sure I've taken into consideration any of our appointments or hs group events coming up, and otherwise that's about it.

 

I know if I spent all week teaching and all weekend planning I would be a miserable cranky mom. Weekends are my days off.

[Holly]

I try to do most of my prep work by 12 week terms.  I don't like having to make photocopies on a weekly basis.  This year I've been keeping their printed pages in 3 prong folders (one for each subject).  They each have folders for copywork, dictation, geography, math (it's just filled with graph paper), science, and history.  I also have folders for some of my materials...a few public domain books and PDF curriculums that we use.  Currently, I have everything printed out for our first 12 weeks.  I also have a lesson planner mostly filled out for the year...I try to flesh out my plans a bit for the coming week, but it's mostly finished.  Some subjects, like nature studies and handicrafts, I plan at the last minute.

 

For weekly planning, I just glace through my planner and make sure I have materials on hand or need to get any books from the library.  It's also nice to take a look at what we'll be covering that week.  I probably only spend 5-10 minutes at the most since most of my work is done before each term starts. 

[Desert Strawberry]

None.

 

I do my meal planning, shopping, a little housework, and rest. 

 

I try not to worry about school during non school time. My brain needs a break from all of that.

 

I do my planning, such as it is, during the week, as we go.once we get into a routine, I know that Friday (soon to be Monday) is library day, that afternoon (or the next) I have to update the calendar. The day before, I will look through our books, decide what to return and what to look for, plan any other outings while we're in town. 

 

The rest is pretty much open and go. Just keep doing the next thing. If I need to make adjustments, I do it in the afternoon, after lunch dishes and before dinner prep.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Thanks for all the replies!  I find I am stressing on the weekend when I do nothing, but I think an hour of prep would help me feel relaxed going into the week!

[HomeAgain]

Saturdays are my library days.  I make my list during the week and grab them during that hour I get alone.  I also check to make sure we have all the science supplies we need.  We don't start new weeks on Mondays, though.  We do new material on Weds, so Mon/Tues I look through the books, pick out copywork, create a cohesive plan (we're working on time changes right now, so memory is days of the week poem, science is about seasons, music is Vivaldi, and art is drawing the same piece four different ways this time), and just make sure I'm ready with minimal disruption.

[knitmama]

I do 1-2 hours' worth of prep each weekend without fail.  If we're going to be out doing fun stuff (hiking, road trip, etc.) I get it done Friday night. 

 

My prep takes the form of a daily, ordered checkoff list that is VERY specific (i.e., for each subject on each day, I include lesson plans down to lecture topics, which pages to read in which books, and detailed instructions for activities and graded assessments).  This allows me to flesh out and track our progress toward the goals we're shooting for each year.

 

If I don't do detailed lesson plans weekly, it doesn't get done.  I work outside the home and only have early mornings, evenings, and weekends to work directly with my kiddo.  My husband takes over during the day while I'm at work (except for those things we've outsourced, such as jiu jitsu and fencing classes).  My husband isn't the most organized person on the planet, and having a list in front of him makes it possible for him to keep on track with the subjects he teaches and remind DD (or check work, when that's possible) on the subjects I teach.  That's crucial, because if she hasn't read something (for example), I lose the time I'd planned to discuss it and work with her on that topic, because she's not prepared--and that's a day gone.  Might not seem like a big deal, but those days add up.

 

My brain's typically fried after a 9-hour day in an office.  Without a detailed plan composed when I was alert and functioning, a whole lot of stuff would slide.  

 

BTW, I also build in a weekly "makeup" day so that if an activity takes longer than I've budgeted the time for, I can reassess and either have DD catch upon the weekend, or push the work out.

[SilverMoon]

I do a lot of what you're describing over the summer, so every subject is open and go. Instead of printing for one week in advance, I'd print out a 9 or 18 week block, or even the whole year at once. Then they'd be 3-hole punched and put in a binder for easy access as needed.

 

You might consider starting to keep a planner for yourself, one that you can put all your DC into, like Elan w-101. This does not have to be elaborately filled out, and only filled out a week at a time. Just write math on one subject block, and put DC#1's lesson number on the top two lines and DC #2's on the bottom. As you're filling out this plan put an asterisk beside the lessons that will require you to prep something. This will double as a checklist you and your DC can use during the week; draw a line through completed lessons. I managed to keep all my kids in a planner like this until the oldest was mid-logic stage. (Now each DC gets their own around 4th grade.)

 

Yes, I filled that planner out on the weekends. I ran the next 2-3 weeks of books through the library's website and other steps to prepare us too. This did not make me cranky or wear me out. It probably only took an hour or two. On the contrary it helped me be a better teacher during the week when I was already very familiar with exactly what we'd be doing.

 

Now I have highschoolers, middle schoolers, and little ones, and I do 90% of the planning in the summer for every subject for every kid. It is a lot of work during the summer, but it makes me very familiar with what they'll be working on, and makes pretty much every subject open and go. Then the big kids fill out their own planners a week in advance using the schedules/syllabi I gave them at the beginning of the year. The middle ones and I fill theirs out together on Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings, discussing expectations as we go. Little ones get a subject checklist and their work is open and go.

[MooCow]

I start for the next week on Fridays as we're finishing up that week. I have a weekly planner page I fill out and I makes notes as I go along for what I anticipate we will need. Labs, craft supplies, print outs etc. I usually start to gather any needed supplies right after school is done. I'm already in school-mode so I usually don't forget stuff. Then on Sundays I usually set it all up in our weekly folders, labeled for the days of the week. I write the new highlights of what we'll be covering on the whiteboard. That's it.

[Garga]

I keep ongoing to-do lists for each subject. Like this;

Science: two weeks ahead: purchase supplies. Day before: gather the supplies
Writing: create the story prompts, photocopy worksheets
Music: Create worksheet, print
Art: two week ahead: go to library to print artwork, day before: gather the supplies.

Etc.

The list never really changes. In fact, I'm just sitting down right now to look over the supplies, create a few worksheets, and gather stuff together for tomorrow.

This year, I chose to create art and music from scratch (WHY?) and so it takes me about 4-5 hours to prepare for the week. If I find I keep forgetting to do something, I add it to the list. Then come the weekend (or weeknights if I'm not too tired), I just go down the list and mindlessly do the tasks on it.  I would like to get this done a little at a time during the week, but it never seems to work out and I end up doing a lot of it on the weekend. 

[Sahamamama]

I've learned that we do best if I have all the planning and prep work done before the school year begins. For me, planning involves deciding what we will cover in a "year" (more or less), what materials to use, what methods, how to structure (or not structure) certain things -- the Big Picture. It also includes organizing the work into "weeks" that take about a week to complete (we use that term somewhat loosely here). For me, prepping involves ordering everything, making lists of books, processing what comes in (labeling books, cutting off bindings, printing out e-books, making all copies, etc.), clearing out the past year's work, organizing the homeschool room & materials, and basically having it all ready-to-go on the shelves. It also includes reading and studying what I need to know as the teacher in order to effectively lead my students. So it is a lot of work, I admit that, but I need to have it done.

 

If I try to incorporate this kind of planning and/or prep into our school year, we just bog down. I think it's because I am so slow.... Seriously, it takes me so long to figure out where I left off, and there are so many interruptions in a school year. My brain is just not what it used to be. It doesn't hold a thought very well now. My husband says that isn't it, though -- it's just that there are so many categories in there! LOL.

 

But, truly, I don't do well with having to "plan and prep" extensively on weekends. There are just too many things that could sabotage getting it all done, and I don't even remember all that needs to be done. The printer will either be out of ink or out of paper. Or both. We like to have family outings on the weekends (Saturdays) and we always go to church (Sundays). There's just not enough time to prep then, except for a few basic things. So it's all done by summer's end, and then we begin.

 

Still, there are preparations to do each weekend. The main thing I do is check-in with my husband, to see what he has on his agenda. He works from home sometimes, travels sometimes, and I just never know where he'll be. After all these years of being married to me, you would think he would write things down on the calendar... but no. So I check with him, and block out our week in chunks of available time, then try to figure out where to put all that has to fit into those blocks. You can't squeeze in more than what actually fits, KWIM?

 

I like to use the weekends to:

 

1. Figure out the following week's Big Picture -- the details can wait, and we like to be flexible. What are the Main Things we are aiming at? What kind of week will it be? A focus-on-practical-things week? A focus-on-health week? A focus-on-relationships week? A focus-on-academics week? A blending? I try to imagine how the week could "flow" if we aimed at this, this, and (maybe) that, along with our regular outside commitments. Does it feel (as I imagine the week) as though it will "work" or does it feel too empty or too full? Adjust, plot it out, discuss all relevant things with my husband and children. I do write down what I've worked out, because if I don't, the thoughts will evaporate.

 

2. Get caught up on housework that would take too much of a time chunk -- cleaning out the refrigerator, going grocery shopping (unless hubby is available to do this), bigger/grubbier cleaning jobs, cleaning out the rabbit housing, major organizing, clothing switch-outs, yard work, and so on. Little household jobs and daily things (laundry, meals), these we can fit around our school work during the week. But I do not like to feel side-tracked on Monday morning by having to clean out the bunny cages, when we could otherwise get a solid and early start. Grrrr. So we use weekends to tackle this work.

 

3. Exercise -- because it doesn't always fit in during the week, though I do try. This applies to the girls, also, not only to me. Go play, go be active, go outside! Included in this is also down-time or free-time.

 

Once I've figured out what we're aiming at for school, I do tend to skim over those lessons (History, Science, and Latin in particular), just in case I missed something during the summer Big Prep. By Sunday evening, I am ready for Monday morning! ;) HTH.

[MEmama]

None. I'm too busy shuttling DS around New England to various races to think much about the week ahead. I do most of my big planning in the spring for the year ahead, and daily/weekly/monthly planning as we go. We've been doing this long enough that it works for us.

[RootAnn]

My planning is mostly done in the summer like some of the other posters.

If I don't have all the supplies already on hand & in a box for science, I do that on the weekend. (I've learned to do that in the summer as long as fresh whatever (worms, dirt, liquids, etc) isn't needed.) 

 

I do my correcting from Friday & any previous day I didn't get to. I check assignments for the next week to make sure I am ready for any projects I put in the plans. That usually just involves glancing at the 'next thing' in my planner book for each subject (flipping pages).

 

Invariably, I miss something - usually a book that I forgot to put on hold or pick up from the library. (I've been trying to remember to check far enough in advance if a book has somehow gone missing from the library. Just had that happen, but I checked three weeks before I needed it, so now I had to order it. The book that was at the library this summer & available for checkout is now missing from their stacks. :banghead:  Happened too many times to me!)

[SkateLeft]

I don't do much planning the summer, except for high school, where I put together syllabi in July or August.

 

I also don't have much planning to do over the weekend anymore. My 4th grader has a weekly schedule with checkboxes showing how many times each subject needs to be done each week. For example, the first line lists "Math" with 5 checkboxes next to it. He'll do a math lesson and then cross off one box each day. Spelling has 5 checkboxes, while history and science both have 2, because we do those twice a week. (An easy way to do this is to use Timberdoodle's custom schedule creator.)

 

My high school senior does her own planning and scheduling. I'm out of the loop for her now.

 

My 9th grader is still learning how to manage his workload, so I sit down on Sunday and space out the weekly assignments from my syllabi into a rough daily grid for him. Eventually, he'll be able to do that himself without my help.

 

On the weekend, I print out a new weekly checklist sheet for my youngest and put it on his bulletin board. It doesn't change, so I can just open the file and print it. Then I cut and paste from my 9th graders course syllabi into a 5 day grid. He crosses off each thing as he's done it, and at the end of the week, anything that didn't get done gets cut and paste into the next week's grid.

 

That's it. It takes me about 20 minutes.

 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

My basic plan was created over the summer, too, but I do spend time prepping for the following week each weekend.  I make my 8th grader a weekly schedule now, with everything she needs to do independently and that we will do together listed by day. I don't assign much on Friday, so that is a catch up day if the weekly items don't get finished. She's free to do her independent things when she wants to, but she basically follows the list and does each day on its scheduled day. I print out anything I need to and put it on her clipboard. I also look ahead to the following week or two and put anything on hold at the library that we'll need.  I also make any adjustments to the big-picture schedule based on what happened in real life (i.e. she finished a book sooner or later than I thought, needs more or less time for essay revisions, etc.)

 

For my younger it's similar, though I don't print out a weekly list for her, I write a daily to-do list each morning. But I make sure I have everything printed, handy, etc.   It does make the week run more smoothly.

[MinivanMom]

I've always found that an hour on the weekend (or on Friday if we're going to be busy or out-of-town over the weekend) is sufficient to make everything go smoothly. I do just a few things:

-Gather up all the papers from the previous week and sort them into the kids' hanging files.

-Print out a spreadsheet with our schedule for the coming week. A few blocks are written in already (like which art lesson I'm planning to do), but most are blank so I can pencil in how many pages we cover as we go along.

-Look ahead to see if I need to make any copies or get any supplies gathered.

-Gather up those copies, supplies, and anything else (like a new book we're starting). It helps to just have everything gathered and ready for Monday morning.

 

I now make checklists for my oldest two so it takes me a little longer to get those ready, but our week runs so smoothly if I have those checklists (and their assigned literature book for the week) set out on the kitchen table on Monday morning.

[Miss Mousie]

Let's see...  Saturday I did my weekly tally of hours from DS's daily logs.  I looked at the guidebook for the TTC Western Civ. lectures I want him to hear before he starts the next chapter of Spielvogel.  I checked the syllabus for AP Human Geography to make sure he had completed all of the week's assignments, and the syllabus for Biology to see what's coming in the next two weeks (yay, no labs! :) )  I checked his logic and biology work from Friday.

 

Sunday I wrote my general plan for the week - the odds & ends subjects I want to hit, and the out-of-the-house times.  I also wrote the assignments for Monday and copied them to DS's list.

 

I think that's all, so maybe 30 minutes total.

 

[Jackie]

I keep a Word document open on my computer with the week's goals for Math, English, History, and Science. Those are the subjects we currently cover that may need some attention and aren't fully "open up and do the next page". On the weekend, I delete the past week's goals and fill in the new week's goals/plans. As I fill in the goals, I'm reminded of any other prep to fulfill the goals - are we finishing a topic in history and I need to reserve books for the next topic? Do I need to read a section of BFSU? Which math supplements make sense for the week? Which piece of Michael Clay Thompson am I pulling out this week? Do we have a poetry tea I need to get a snack for?

[Mrs Twain]

i organize during the summer so that every subject is open and go. This includes doing all the copying and printing ahead of time. That way I have little or nothing to do on the weekends.

 

My kids sharpen their own pencils. :)

 

Once we are established in the school year and the schedule is worked out, I print out weekly checklists for each child. Each day they get their own books out and work on the assignments with me (as needed) or independently. I grade everything each day, and we put all the books away at the end of the day.

 

The only homeschool work I do outside of school is reading some of the kids' books (history or literature) to stay ahead of where the kids are or researching curriculum for next year.

[Love My Life x4]

I do all my planning, printing, filing, organizing and buying in the summer. Weekends I deep clean my house and make sure all bedding is washed, laundry is done, clean out my car (lol).  I am very picky about what we eat (I run marathons and ultras and am training for my first 140.6 ironman.  Nutrition is a crucial part to my training) and do all of our meal prep over the weekends.  I run/bike/swim/strength train from 3/3:30-7 every morning before school starts and by the time our school day is finished and picked up we are out the door for late afternoon/evening activities. I just don't have the time for cooking, cleaning and making sure laundry baskets stay empty throughout the week so that is really important to me to get done over the weekend.  Planning for the upcoming week of school takes me maybe an hour or two on Sundays (while watching football, lol) but that time is usually spent putting together some centers/hands on type stuff.