Can I just hire someone to put together curriculum...

[Nemom]

I have a really good idea of what resources I want to use next year but I'm just terrible at putting every together and making a formal plan.  I'm a visual personal and planner by nature but I just feel like I have no idea what I'm doing or what it should look like.  It stresses me out soo much.  I'm ready to just pay someone else to put it all together for me and then hand me a sheet with a schedule for the year.   :confused:

 

Twice yesterday I sat down and started a post asking for ideas on what others do and both times I closed the tab!!   :ohmy:  :cursing:

 

Anyone have any tips they can offer?  

Edited April 12, 2017 by Nemom

[almondbutterandjelly]

I think my best tip was for books.  If you have a textbook you're going to use the whole year, look at the total number of pages and divide by 180.  That will give you an idea for how many pages a day to shoot for.  (I'm not sure I actually do 180 days but anyway, it gives me a really good approximation.)

 

And I love lists.  I probably have ten different pieces of paper where I write down what curriculum I plan to use next year.  This changes as I change my mind, so new piece of paper!

 

What curriculum are you using?  Have you bought it already?  Maybe we could help you with scheduling...

 

[regentrude]

Don't schedule at all.

Get the resources you like. Have kid put in time on task (x hours per day, as you decide). Pick up next day where you left off.

 

Edited April 12, 2017 by regentrude

[foxbridgeacademy]

I think my best tip was for books.  If you have a textbook you're going to use the whole year, look at the total number of pages and divide by 180.  That will give you an idea for how many pages a day to shoot for.  (I'm not sure I actually do 180 days but anyway, it gives me a really good approximation.)

 

And I love lists.  I probably have ten different pieces of paper where I write down what curriculum I plan to use next year.  This changes as I change my mind, so new piece of paper!

 

What curriculum are you using?  Have you bought it already?  Maybe we could help you with scheduling...

This is what I do, I plan out the entire year (usually 1 quarter at a time).

 

Don't schedule at all.

Get the resources you like. Have kid put in time on task (x hours per day, as you decide). Pick up next day where you left off.

The reason I plan it all out is because while I would LOVE to do it the way regentrude suggests, my kids would waste 1/2 the time pidling around.  If they have a set assignment for the day they get it done quick.

 

What resources are you hoping to use? Someone may have already "invented" that wheel and all you need to do is tweak it a bit.

[MerryAtHope]

Is there a particular subject you are having trouble with?

 

Math: usually it works out to a lesson or test per day, but some years there were extra assignments. I cut some to make it fit our days for the year. 

 

Science: Figure out pages per day or average number of days/weeks per chapter. If you are doing Study Guides and tests, think through that time too (I usually did 2 days for a study guide, 1 day extra to study, 1 day for testing, and then also a day every chapter or so for labs). 

 

Lit: I look at print size/margins and number of pages. Sometimes I read a page or two to help me decide if the reading will go "fast" or "slow" for my kids. Then I figure out how much I think they can read in about a half our per day (we do lit & comp English credits, so I aim for 30-45 minutes reading, 30 minutes writing, and I don't keep track of our discussion time, but usually a couple of good discussions per week.) I then calculate how many chapters they can read in about half an hour, or I figure pages if the chapters are long. I always tell my kids to read 30-45 minutes, and I give them a minimum like 1 chapter, but that if they finish it quickly to read another chapter.

 

Writing--I just work through at our pace for 30 minutes a day. Some years we finish, some we don't, but we do writing daily.

 

History--divide out the chapters or page numbers, add in any time for papers or weekly summaries, projects, mapping etc...--whatever you want to do. Some years we just read and did a few papers, other years we had some kind of weekly assignment (either mapping or pursuing a topic more in depth online and writing something short or a weekly writing on a topic of interest etc...)

 

The biggest thing I try to do is make things easy to remember. "read 30 minutes or a chapter a day" is easy to remember. Making the schedule tied to specific page numbers or chapter numbers isn't. 

 

I do make a 1- year listing of resources in order (such as our lit. books) and approximately how many days/weeks I think we'll need for each one. Then I can see at a glance if we are ahead or behind what I anticipated.

 

I want just enough structure to make it open and go, but not so much that I have to make out assignment sheets for the kids to know what to do, LOL! (I write down what we do as we do it. It's pretty easy to tell if the kids are really working at things or not, and to make adjustments if they are not.)

[Nemom]

Don't schedule at all.

Get the resources you like. Have kid put in time on task (x hours per day, as you decide). Pick up next day where you left off.

 

I love this concept and have tried it in the past but it doesn't work for us.  She gets distracted too easily and 45 minutes of math ends up being 15 minutes of petting the cat, 5 minutes in the bathroom, 10 minutes of telling me some story, 10 minutes spacing off, and 5 minutes of actual math.  If she goes to her room to work on her own, it gets even worse.  She does much better when given an actual task to complete and then she can manage how and when it happens.

 

Edited to add:  she actually prefers if I just give her a checklist at the beginning of the day and then she can just complete everything in her own time.  I have no issues with this other than actually having a checklist ready for her.   :glare:

Edited April 12, 2017 by Nemom

[Nemom]

I think my best tip was for books.  If you have a textbook you're going to use the whole year, look at the total number of pages and divide by 180.  That will give you an idea for how many pages a day to shoot for.  (I'm not sure I actually do 180 days but anyway, it gives me a really good approximation.)

 

And I love lists.  I probably have ten different pieces of paper where I write down what curriculum I plan to use next year.  This changes as I change my mind, so new piece of paper!

 

What curriculum are you using?  Have you bought it already?  Maybe we could help you with scheduling...

 

We will not be using a lot of open and go curriculum.  In fact, at this point other than math-none.  

 

DD is a very visual learner.  We will be using Great Courses, HHMI BioInteractive, Udemy, and some other online sources.  Textbooks will be used as supplements rather than as main materials.  This is how she prefers to learn.  

 

Figuring out how to pull everything together and have it flow nicely is where I struggle.  

[theelfqueen]

Ok I build my own a lot ... if you start with your great courses and break the lectures into units ... figure out which supplemental videos fall into each one and where labs fit with them.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Chrysalis Academy]

My dd sounds similar, in that we aren't doing anything (except math) that is open-and-go, and she likes having a weekly checklist to help keep her on track. 

 

My planning methods have actually relaxed over the years, but I do have a structure that I use that works really well for me. No idea if any of this will resonate with you, but since our kids sounds like they want a similar kind of structure, I thought I'd share and you can see if anything sounds helpful for your situation.

 

Pre-planning phase - I start a Word doc for each class I think we might do next year, in a folder called "10th grade syllabi" and I throw ideas in there. Cool Great Courses, EdX classes, trade books, study guides, whatever. I check out the materials I'm thinking of using and winnow it down to a manageable list.

 

Syllabus planning phase - I take the materials we've chosen and create as much of an open-and-go/do-the-next thing study plan as I can at this point, knowing that things will change.  So, each lecture, the reading that's associated with it, or each EdX class topic by week and the associated reading. I just put it all in the order in which we want to cover it, in a relatively step by step way. I don't try and do it for the whole year, because I  know things will change, but I try and get a pretty solid do-the-next-thing plan for at least the first chunk of material, whatever that looks like.

 

Schedule planning phase - This is where the plan meets the reality.  I have a schedule in excel. The subjects she's studying are in the left column, the school days on the top row. I start fitting my plan into the days, for each subject. Here's where I see if I've planned a ridiculous amount to cover - the plan spills off the end of the school year - and also where I can plan pacing to be realistic.  We like GC lectures, but don't like to do more than 1 per day, usually, 2 tops. So if we're doing them in more than one class, I better stagger the days.  Again, the plan is more detailed & realistic for the upcoming few weeks, I know it will change in the future, but it helps me see what's coming up and whether we're on track. I also put any firm-schedule things, like BW classes, on this schedule so that I plan other things around them. Also planned time off, vacations, camps, other things that will create "non-school" days.

 

Weekly Schedule - every Monday morning, I copy the current week's plan onto another excel spreadsheet, add in any scheduled appointments, etc., and print it out. voila! It's a weekly checklist for dd with no extra work for me. She keeps it on a clipboard and checks things off as she completes them (and records time for topics we're doing by time) and I record the time on another spreadsheet page, daily or weekly, and it automatically keeps a running total for me, so I know where we're at in terms of hours to complete each subject.

 

This works really well for me, and other than the initial time to set up the Schedule in excel at the beginning of the year, it doesn't take much time at all. And it's completely flexible. She wants to read a different book for lit? We just plug that in and slide everything else forward in time. Decide to cut something? Delete, and update the schedule accordingly. 

 

So my syllabus/study plan guides my schedule, and my schedule creates dd's weekly checklist.  And during the course of the week I can see where dd is at, and offer gentle reminders if she is neglecting a topic for a few days in a row (this always seems to happen with spanish and science  :glare: ) and help her stay on track this way.  

 

We almost never stick perfectly to the schedule. Things come up. Some things take longer, some take shorter. Some days I'm working so can't do our together work and it gets bumped. Or she gets a flash of inspiration and spends 4 hours working on her novel and doesn't do anything else (except math - daily math is a must).  No worries, the schedule easily shifts. Super flexible. Guide rails to the bobsled ride of high school.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Chrysalis Academy

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

:lurk5:

[RootAnn]

 I check out the materials I'm thinking of using and winnow it down to a manageable list.

:smilielol5:

 

Sorry, just had to do that.  :rofl:  

 

I love the planning phase. My summer is full of books strewn all over, notepads with scribbles, and finally a beautiful eXcel spreadsheet with weekly lists. I have one that can't manage to follow such things and two who complete an entire year's worth of work in a semester because they are very determined to have more free time later. My biggest problem is usually wanting to cram too much into a year - more subjects than the kid can actually do. 

 

I'm assuming people would help you with your planning, but you might not want to actually use what they put together unless they spent a lot of time getting to know you & your kid(s), how they best learn, and how much work is going to get done every day realistically.

[Chrysalis Academy]

:smilielol5:

 

Sorry, just had to do that.  :rofl:  

 

I love the planning phase. My summer is full of books strewn all over, notepads with scribbles, and finally a beautiful eXcel spreadsheet with weekly lists. I have one that can't manage to follow such things and two who complete an entire year's worth of work in a semester because they are very determined to have more free time later. My biggest problem is usually wanting to cram too much into a year - more subjects than the kid can actually do. 

 

I'm assuming people would help you with your planning, but you might not want to actually use what they put together unless they spent a lot of time getting to know you & your kid(s), how they best learn, and how much work is going to get done every day realistically.

 

Right, I may have failed to disclose that this winnowing process usually requires several iterations . . .  :001_rolleyes:  ;)  :D

Edited April 13, 2017 by Chrysalis Academy

[The Governess]

What I do is make a list of all assignments for each subject for a whole year. So, I have a separate word document (or sometimes just lined paper) with a list of a year's worth of assignments for each subject. Then on Fridays I take those lists and use them to create an overall daily checklist for each day of the next week. Once an assignment is put on the checklist I cross it off my main assignment list.

[Nemom]

I have to head out for a track meet so I will be back later with more thoughts later.

 

Rose-I know you are reading a lot of the books for the GC lit course ahead of time.  How much do you "work" through the other materials (science, etc...) beforehand?  

 

 

[Penelope]

If I don't schedule it, not enough gets done.

 

If we follow my original schedule to a T, academics take all day and all night. ;) I have been known to unreasonably overestimate what can be done.

 

So the schedule gets adjusted along the way to some mostly-happy medium.

[ondreeuh]

I found a fillable PDF that had 9 rows of 5 boxes, which is perfect for scheduling a quarter's worth of work. I used a spreadsheet to coordinate textbook lessons, videos, labs, etc. and figured out what each would be done each day. I figure 40 days of work per quarter (gives us a little wiggle room), and sometimes that means I cut out chapters or lessons. Like our psychology book could fill a full year, so I selected the chapters I wanted to cover and made sure we weren't over-scheduled. I then filled the boxes with the daily assignments, leaving a few gaps here and there for make-up days. I only schedule one subject per sheet.

 

So the kid can see the assignments for the whole quarter at a glance, can cross off the day's work when it's done, can see if they are on schedule or behind, and nothing needs to be moved around if you get behind or work ahead.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I have to head out for a track meet so I will be back later with more thoughts later.

 

Rose-I know you are reading a lot of the books for the GC lit course ahead of time.  How much do you "work" through the other materials (science, etc...) beforehand?  

 

Most of it. Honestly, that's what takes all the time - not the planning, but the reading and evaluating of the materials we might use. I spend a ton of time doing that. Sometimes I create study guides as I'm pre-reading something she'll work through independently. And then sometimes we end up not using it after all! Sometimes I'll start something, then decide early on that we'll work through it together, in which case I don't always pre-read the whole thing.  But I can say for sure that the vast majority of my homeschooling preparation time is spent previewing materials, more than the actual planning time, by far.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Chrysalis Academy

[birchbark]

I give my highschooler a list of curricula/goals for the year and a student planner. He is the one to break things down, plan them out, and fill out his planner one week at a time. DH or I check the planner weekly to make sure the plans are appropriate and complete, and also that the work is actually getting done.  ;)   If a full schoolyear is too overwhelming, you can break the work down into rough semesters or trimesters before giving it to her to plan out.