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Having the year planned day by day on paper
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I know the scheduler on here is a great resource but I’m very old school and just prefer to have things laid out in my notebook to check off each day. So I’m trying, for the first time, to plan the year out over the summer. I am doing each page by week and day…for example: week 1 day 1. I figure if we miss a day of school for whatever reason, we will just pick up where we left off, meaning Monday’s might not always mean picture study, for example, but every five days of school we will be doing picture study. It is taking a good bit of time to get this going…I’m still working on the first week so far and I figure after the first week it will be pretty easy to fill in the rest of the weeks (because I’m having to go through all the materials and decide how to break it down, etc). I’m afraid though that I’m missing something very obvious and I’ll have put all this time into this only to have to throw it all out because I didn’t think it through clearly enough…. so…. just wondering if anyone has any advice or input?
I like to have things laid out for the week also. I thought once or twice about doing it for a month or two before we start, but thankfully I never did. I will just tell you my experience. (Ultimately you need to decide for yourself what works best for you and your family.) Every year I buy all of our material that we will be using for the year and make a schedule. This just means what we will do daily. It does not contain any specifics, but everyday we know what we are doing for the day. Then weekly I plan the next week. Usually on Sunday afternoons or Monday night, that way I can reserve books needed from the library and I have enough time for them to come in. (Our county has several libraries and will deliver books between the different branches so it can take a few days). It never seems to fail that we get a few weeks into the school year and I have to change things. The kids would rather do science every day instead of 3 times per week or we need to do math at a different time, or not one of us are enjoying this language book, we need to change. If I had planned too far into the future, I would be so upset about the enormous amount of time that I had put into a project like that only to discard it afterward. Pray about your choices before you. God led you to homeschool, He can guide you to what is ultimately best for you! Blessings, Angela
I have to agree. We did mostly AO this last year, so I had everything already laid out for me week by week. The things I changed before we started I also laid out week by week.
Well, early on, my son was having a problem with the math with a basic concept because he just wasn’t getting it – so we needed to take a break from the course and work on the concept for a couple of weeks on our own. So now we were doing Week 3 (say) of most things, but still in Week 1 (say) in Math. Well, then one of the books took longer to do readings in it than I had figured (it was an AO reading, I had it scheduled once a week as it was one story per week – but he couldn’t do the stories in a single sitting…) So now we were behind in that book, even though I upped the number of times we did it per week. So in week 6 in many things, weak 4 or so in math, week 3 in something else…
Now, I did have a visual chart (not just a list) of each item, and with that printed out I could go through each subject and check off where we are – but wow, the pressure I felt to try to get all caught up, and the stress! I would do some rescheduling to try to get it all.
I have to say, the CM organizer on here did relieve the stress a LOT! The first thing I needed to do was accept that we weren’t going to finish the Year 1 of our Math program during the school year…. but that it is ok because he has a great concept of math and is getting a strong foundation. My hope is to continue math on a more relaxed basis during the summer – which means we won’t get rusty too. Once I “let go” on that, I spent time evaluating what we were doing. There was a couple of AO books that I reduced what we were doing, and there was a couple of things I added in. I took the Planning book (which I had used), and did a mini-planning session to figure out how much to do things (many things are everyday…) and I put it all in the organizer and we started (well to the kids – we continued). WHAT a RELIEF! After about 4 to 5 weeks in, I looked at where we were compared to where I figured we should be (from the number of pages or whatever) and made a couple of adjustments (reduced the number of days we did one subject, to add a bit to another) – and we continued. As we are nearing the end of the year, we have completed a couple of subjects, and I add in a day or more of a subject that we don’t do every day, so that it will be completed sooner. Soon we will be done the year.
My plan for next year? We are mostly using Milestones Academy (similar to AO, but a bit friendlier), with some modifications (I always have to take out some US history and add in some Canadian history – plus we use a different math program, etc…) Figure out the plan for the year using the planner (some is basically done for me on the Milestones Academy weely list), plan out which day we will do each resource, and get it all in the Organizer. Then we will take it as it comes. I figure I will evaluate how things are going every 6 weeks to make any minor adjustments to the daily schedule. If any resource just isn’t working for us, it will be SO easy to change it. I figure the every 6 week evaluation will help make sure we finish what I want done, without it being a stressful “we are behind” feeling.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, and my experience. hth!
Okay, input from the nerdy planning lover! I too love to write my stuff out. I use a very generic teacher’s plan book from a supply store that already includes the dates but doesn’t have subjects or times listed. Instead of going day by day to start, I choose one subject, I usually just go down the scm curr. guide. So I start with Math, divide the number of school days by the number of lessons and figure out how many days per week I need to do it. Then I pick which days of the week it will work based on days we have lessons or Bible study so things don’t get too full. I write in the page numbers or a brief description. I finish math for the year and then move on to the nuxt subject till they are all done. Once all subjects are on the dates, I go back subject by subject and list needed resources at the beginning of the week and note if they are in the house or need to be purchased or borrowed. Then the whole year is planned. Sunday nights I pull together all the things we need for the week in a box in our school area so I only have to look for stuff and make copies once per week. If something comes up and we miss a math lesson, I just add it to the next day or skip it altogether if that feels okay. I could never plan day by day or week by week, for me that is too much stress. But some people can’t stand the thought of being tied to a schedule if they want to make a change. Really you want to choose whatever causes the smoothest days for you.
This past year that is how I did things too…where over the weekend I would plan out the next week’s things. Next school year I’ll have a newborn so I was hoping to make things easier on myself by having it planned out. Maybe I’ll just do the first 12 week term at a time…then it won’t be so hard to adjust if I need to. Maybe it won’t be as challenging to homeschool with a newborn as I think it will be!
After having a VERY challenging year last year (husband’s lay off, baby being diagnosed with brain cancer and hydrocephaly and needing many appointments/surgeries), I realized that I can’t know exactly what God has for me and therefore need to remain flexible while still having a plan for where we’re going. I’ve found that’s it’s easiest for me to plan things so they continue to plan themselves. I write things on a “chart” of sorts (usually just a grid/graph paper with bigger spaces). Then I just go down the grid as we progress thru the year and write the assignments/books in the planner book I use as we do them or just before we do them.
I do go thru and figure out how far I want to be in everything at certain points of the year so I know if I need to speed up or slow down as the year goes on.
So, for example, I have a list of history books I want to read for the year. They are in order chronologically. We just progress from one to the other as we finish them. I don’t write them on certain days/weeks until I’m certain (or pretty certain) that they will actually happen on those days/weeks. That way when we miss a day/week it’s not a big deal. We just move on when we have our next day.
I hope that is clear : ) as it really helped me to have a fairly smooth homeschooling year despite everything else going on.
HTH, Rebecca
Rebecca, that makes sense and is a good idea. What I decided to do is just plan for the first term. I should be all finished in a couple days. I am hoping that by the time we near the end of the first term I’ll be ready to sit down and plan out the second term (and make any changes/adjustments that are needed).
It sounds like you had a very busy year this past year. I’m sorry to hear about your baby being diagnosed with brain cancer. Do you all go to St Jude hospital for the surgeries, by chance?
No, we go to our “local” Children’s Hospital in Denver, CO. It’s still an hour and a half away. We had a very good Neuro-oncologist and set of Neuro-surgeons there.
Jude is doing fairly well now. He is done with chemo. Although they will do continued MRI’s until he’s 6 1/2 or so (he’s 15 months now-was diagnosed at 2 months). Now we’re just working on feeding issues and gross motor issues. We’re just so glad we have our sweet Jude!
When’s your sweet baby due? How many will that make and how many in school next year?
I’m very glad to hear that little Jude is doing well!
This baby is due July 27th. He will be our fourth child and we do hope that God will give us more. Our other three are older and so next school year I will have a 7th grader, a 4th grader, and a 2nd grader. I’ve been homeschooling for a year and a half now. I love it. 🙂
You must have 7 children? That’s wonderful! I love to hear of large families…
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