What Would You Try to Tackle...

[rutamattatt]

...as far as planning for next homeschool year if you have five days all to yourself at home?

I will, of course, do plenty of relaxing and little house projects here and there in the peace and quiet, but I really want to get serious headway made on next year's planning.  I will have a junior and an 8th/9th grader (he's doing some high school and some middle school).  I am trying to plan my planning time so I don't end up staring for five days at planners and books.  

What would you MOST want to tackle as far as planning?  In what order would you tackle it? 

I always get inspired by seeing how others do long term planning, and I'm needing some inspiration before I waste five days!  

[Jean in Newcastle]

Did someone say tackle?  ?

I tend to go by subject. Math first. English or Lit next. Then science. Then history. Electives after that. Why?  No reason other than math is easiest for me to plan so I start with that so that I start out feeling good. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I would gather all of my materials together first. Oftentimes that visual check uncovers an issue (too many or too few readers, etc). Next I would check science supply lists if needed (I know I need to make a chemistry order for my jr next year). Then I do a flip through books and rough sketch pacing. That process usually takes up one day. From there I would spend a day on each kid planning. My last two days would be spent with a mix of planning college tours, updating transcripts, reading inspiring stuff, blocking down time on the schedule, etc. Those things are hard to do with little bits of time.

Your kids are both old enough to work off a syllabus. I would allow them to develop that skill rather than doing day by day planning. 

[Holly]

This is what I'm doing now, minus the five days to myself.  lol

I like to read all the introductions and flip through the books to get a feel for each program.  I also like to figure out how to pace it.  I know we'll make adjustments, but it's nice to have an idea of how many days and how much to aim for each week.  I always seem to find more books or supplies that I didn't realize we needed to buy, so I make note of that and get them purchased.

I've been working on a memory box and flashcards for my kids, but your kid is likely beyond all that!  On those lines for the older ones, I'm figuring out lists of poems to memorize, primary source documents and speeches for them to read, and finalizing history & literature reading lists.

I'd also spend some time each day re-organizing our school room, bookshelves, and supplies.  Maybe some deep cleaning of the school room or updating posters/pictures on the walls. 

[MamaHill]

Oh you very fortunate soul!!  5 days alone would be glorious!

In past years when I didn't have a nursing baby, my husband would haul all of our kids to the inlaws for 3-4 days for me to plan school in peace and quiet. This hasn't happened in 2 years now, and I can tell an enormous difference in how I homeschool year ran. Hint: it hasn't been good.

After years of squandering time due to ignorance, this is how I plan our homeschool year in that big chunk of time:

1) I spend hours and hours in the evening researching and pondering curricula in the months and weeks BEFORE my actual planning time. Then I go ahead and order everything so it's right here and ready for me to read through and plan.

2) During the actual planning time, I first pray over each of my children and our homeschool and determine our individual and collective goals for the school year.  I evaluate whether this needs to be "a year of ___". For example, this year there needed to be a heavy focus on writing with my two older children.  This coming year, I'm probably going to have to do a heavy year of science because it was waaaaay light this year.

3) I make a loose schedule/routine of what our days and weeks will look like.  I pencil in online classes, outside classes, violin lessons, etc. Everything goes on a grid so I can see where the "holes" are.  We are not schedule people at all as in 8:00-8:30 we will do math.  But with a bunch of children, I need to see how much actual teaching/school time I have to work with.

This part always takes me a long time, but is crucial for my mental sanity. Ha.

4) I start to plan the subjects we will do together.  History always takes the longest since I have to choose books, determine writing assignments, maybe craft projects, etc.  Since it's always the biggest headache, I try to knock it out first.

5) Then I start with the oldest child and work my way through her subjects, starting with the hardest to plan (usually one without an available guide and I have to start from scratch.)

6) Rinse, repeat with other kiddos.

I usually get up pretty early on these days - 6ish - and work crazy hard the whole day.  My parents live 5 minutes away and my daddy supplies me with ample Americanos to sustain me throughout the day.  I call it quits around 7 in the evenings. Then I eat ice cream and binge watch something fun. ?

I never finish all of the planning for the whole year, but I can put a good dent in it using this format.  Best wishes in your time off! ? 

 

[2_girls_mommy]

I would start like Margaret in Co with getting my transcripts and records in order. I have a few things left to work out from our previous year. Next I would clean out notebooks and our current school year shelves from this year's books and notebooks to make room for next year. 

Then I would order the couple of things I have left to order. Then I would start with math dates too.  I have the exact same grades coming up that you do, 11th and 9th (and a preschooler.) so I would be doing much the same as you. 

The getting house in order and decluttering spaces I have marked for this year would be high on my list. I would divide up my time: 20 minutes for morning routine: bed, bathroom, laundry, get dressed every morning. Then 15 min. of decluttering, then maybe a break. Then as long as well fed and coffee-ed up and ready to go, an hour at a time on school stuffs. Then breaks, meals, and whatever needs done in afternoons (bills, grocery shopping, cleaning, or cooking, etc.) If it is just you and you have more time on your own, then after a renewal time of tea and reading, I would get back to it, a bit in the afternoons too! Enjoy. I have never had the luxury of that much planning time to myself. But I know the more prepared I am and the more decluttered and cleaned out our space is the better we do, so I just do little 15 minutes here and there throughout the school year. 

I will have one in camp for two weeks. That will be my time. I will have no babysitting kids or camps or VBS to take anyone to those two weeks. So I will let the kids have more video time than usual to get some of mine done, plus have them help where they can. 

[EKT]

Enjoy your peace and quiet! 

My husband usually does something similar--takes the kids to my MIL's house for several days so I can do the bulk of my planning. Typically, I first tackle whatever tasks require actual brain power and focus. I do a modified file-folder planning system each summer, and for certain subjects (say, math), all that requires of me is tearing the pages out of the workbooks and filing them into folders. I don't necessarily need peace and quiet to do that; it's more like busy work for me, and I know I can work on it little by little over time. But for other subjects that I mostly DIY (that is, that I don't use a simple, single curriculum for)--the subjects that require me to stop and really think about projects I'd like to include, changes I want to make, books I want to read, etc. do require concentration, so I focus on those first. Additionally, any serious homeschool reading I might want to do (like re-reading sections of TWTM, etc.), are something I prioritize. Finally, I also like to muck out the homeschool room and shelves, etc., when no one is there to immediately mess them back up, lol.

 

[Aurelia]

On 6/13/2018 at 10:58 PM, Margaret in CO said:

The first thing I would do is to bring my transcript and course descriptions up-to-date. If I hadn't written a school profile and a counselor letter, I'd get rough drafts of those done. For my junior, I'd look at where I think he'd end up school-wise and request information from the various colleges (in his name). I'd make a rough timeline for the following summer and note deadlines. 4 out of my 5 have applied to military academies, and those deadlines begin December 1st of the junior (yes, junior) year for summer seminars. I'd look at DE--will that fit in this year? I'd look at ACT/SAT/SATIIs and deadlines this year. I always wrote my own planner, so one of the first things was to print it out, write down basically what we'll be using, and then start putting in dates. I'd jot in the usual dates for various things such as 4-H and sports meets. I know far in advance when university concerts are, so those go in there. I'd make sure dentist and eye appointments are scheduled, and if they are, get them in the planner! And THEN I'd start figuring out what we'll do when. 

 

Is there a particular site or source(s) that you recommend to learn to do this? Or somewhere that has templates for a newbie (me)?