Lesson Planning

[AnneGG]

 I like taking what is being taught in the curriculum and teaching it in a way that I think my first grader will find meaningful. I may completely skip over a lesson as written. I cover the same info, but with different sources. Or maybe I’ll add in things to a fill a gap. Do other people plan like this? How do you do it? Am I just overdoing it? When I try to find lesson planning help it tends to be about pacing or literal planners. 

It doesn’t seem to matter what curriculum I try. I just don’t like the way every single lesson is written, even if I like the curriculum overall. I spend at least 2-3 hours a week planning for the upcoming week. Is this normal? It just seems like I cannot get ahead. If I plan too far in advance I have to regroup because he’s already passed that level or needs extra practice. I feel like I need a workshop in lesson planning. 
 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by AnneGG

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

That sounds pretty typical to me. It may be that you’d do better with something a bit less pre-planned, more of a framework.

I’m this way for certain subjects: open-&-go is great for spelling, but for composition I like to weave resources together. I like our science curriculum because it’s just enough on its own that if I’m tapped out / he’s not interested, it’s “enough” - but it’s not so much that I don’t have room to add in additional resources. 

[bensonduck]

Seems normal to me. I find I do best with a framework for the year (for example, this year I want to polish my 4th graders writing. He should be responsible for 2 writing assignments per week) and then fill in stuff as I go (next week I’d like him to write a few paragraphs about the Egyptian pyramids and also a story with some dialogue. No school Monday, so we will work on the Egyptians on Tuesday and Wednesday and the story on Thursday and Friday.)

I have 3 kids schooling now (7th, 4th and 1st) and since I have that framework in my mind, I find I can get my week to week plans for all of them done in 60-90 minutes on the weekend (depending on interruptions, haha). 

[purpleowl]

I'm not sure whether there's any curriculum I've used exactly as the publishers intended. I adapt everything to make it work for my particular kids and my particular teaching style. (And sometimes I can't find something that's close enough to what I envision, so I develop my own.)

And yes, it takes time. 

[AnneGG]

Perhaps I just don’t have enough experience yet to plan with ease. Maybe if I front load vetting resources that relate to the general topic and familiarize myself with them, it will be easier and faster to work them into the puzzle when the need arises. That might be harder to do with books though. 
 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

25 minutes ago, AnneGG said:

Perhaps I just don’t have enough experience yet to plan with ease.

I think there’s a lot of misrepresentation out there of what it takes to homeschool & to do it well, which may be part of what’s nagging at you.

Curating or fully customizing a curriculum is not a simple task. Very few homeschoolers, barring those thrown into things over the past 18mo (& understandably scrambling to “make do”) use curricula as written. The real work is done in bringing those pieces together, constantly adjusting pace, adding or deleting content, etc. The books, projects, videos, games… they are only tools. You are the craftsman. 

25 minutes ago, AnneGG said:

Maybe if I front load vetting resources that relate to the general topic and familiarize myself with them, it will be easier and faster to work them into the puzzle when the need arises.

This may help, if you can manage not to get too hung up on things happening on a specific schedule. 

I typically begin planning for the following academic year in January. I look over our progress, project where we’ll be by year’s end, evaluate strengths / weaknesses, & set goals for the year ahead. Once I have those, I look for resources to fill our needs.

Typically I’m ready to purchase core items from March-May. As those trickle in I look through them & begin playing with how they might be worked into our days.

Over summer I watch for interesting tidbits that could be added in; it a certain resource would best fit in alongside a particular unit in another, I make note of that. I plan the first month or two down to the day & leave the rest of the year as a general sketch. All of my planning is done digitally, so that it’s particularly easy to change & there is no sign of it ever having been any different 😉

Then we begin & more tweaking happens. I get better each year at predicting how long various resources will take, but you can never be certain until you’re doing it. Each week I plan another week, trying to keep several weeks ahead of wherever we currently are.

Over the winter holiday I reassess our pace & tweak as needed before beginning to prepare, once again, for the following year. 

Everyone has their own process - please don’t think that I am saying this is the “right way” to do things. It is simply the way I’ve found works for me! 

[HomeAgain]

Sounds about right.

There used to be a saying around here about filling your toolbox.  Give yourself the ability to adapt and change lessons around by giving yourself more tools to do so.  The more you do this, the easier it is to change lessons on the fly and begin to look at the goals of your curriculum (both individual and big picture) as the objectives to meet, not touchpoints to hit accidentally as you focus on exactly doing the lesson as written.

 

The more you do it, the easier it is.  I wrote out our lesson plans this summer and our objectives.  Some of those goals have changed slightly, but the lesson plans can be edited with next to no work during the week now.  My usual is about 1/2 an hour going over the new week, then about an hour for any prep I may have left off from this summer or needed changing.