Long Range Planning Questions – "Course Development"

Christie – I don’t have any practical wisdom – just a vote of confiedence!

I don’t think you’re overanalyzing at all. I think it’s a good idea to have a flexible long range plan, as Nanci said. And as you mentioned already, the modules are a long range plan and in Planning Your CM Education a person creates the framework for a long range plan anyway. Seems to me you’re just looking to flesh it out a bit and save yourself some time later on when the younger kids cover material your older ones are doing now. It makes perfect sense have a way to record book titles in each subject area for future reference. I wholeheartly agree with Nanci that anything down on paper saves all that brain power that can be used for something else . Couldn’t you make a long range plan, and just coustomize it for each child as the enter that grade (adding or deleting a book for example) Then you wouldn’t be reinventing the plan for each child completely – would that save more time than planning each child’s year indivdually? (I have no clue as I haven’t done it yet, but it seems it could work)

I’m just starting out myself so I’ll be following your thread – thank you for posting this question, I had been wondering myself how to keep track of the long term things, I often come across a book for science or history that would work in a few years, but haven’t organized a way to write down the titles. And I know this is off topic, but briefly how is your Mommy Planning Book set up? 

Christie,

Thanks explaining your Mommy Planning Book, I will round up a binder and start something similar for myself!

About the family read-alouds/literature list organization, I have a question and observation from looking over the curriculum guide, maybe they will help you find a solution. As I mentioned before, I am just starting out, so I’m really on the outside looking in, but maybe a question from a newbie will help you sort it out for yourself. (I’ve done early years/preschool, planned a light kindergarten year for my oldest which I haven’t started yet, and printed grade 1 from the curriculum guide so I know what to watch for at garage sales. And asked a lot of questions on the forum.) So if I’m completely off base here, please forgive me!

Here goes with the observation/question: While the SCM curriculum guide literature list is under combined family subjects in 12 modules, the books are grouped by grade level. Depending on the ages of the children involved I can see how it would be easy to duplicate or miss books. For example if my family is in module 3 of history/bible/geo and I choose to do the Narnia books (grade 3/module 3 literature book from the list) for a family read-aloud, I don’t know that my younger child would be ready for it as a first grader, oldest yes, but I doubt the younger would. While I understand the point of a family read-aloud would be to choose something in the middle range for everyone, I’d likely end up repeating a book my oldest had already read. So what are the other things that make a book a good family aloud? Could you either mark these as such on you master book list or make a separate list of family read-alouds? I don’t know which idea would be more practical. From my limited expeiernce reading to my kids, I would find in very difficult to predict exactly which book would be the best for a family read-aloud for a specific year ahead of time (too many unkown factors such as interest, maturity level, life in general, etc.). But, I could choose a book from a list to fit where we are currently easily enough.

So where I’m going with this thought is, I’d consider breaking your literature lists into TWO basic groups. Family read-alouds and individual literature based on grade level, using the SCM literature list as the backbone for the latter. I’d do the long range planning for whatever books I felt I really wanted to make sure each child had an opprounity to read (without counting on hitting them as family read-alouds) I’d put these on the indivdual grade level literature lists. These books don’t seem to me that they really need to match up with the history modules anyway. The books you read-aloud to the younger children I would not count on the family read-aloud list, as they’re really age specific and you’re only reading aloud because the children either can’t read at all or are just learning too. So the younger kiddos have their literature books read to them that’s all.

This would allow the freedom to choose a family read-aloud based on current interests, or even the history modules. Even so, I’d still find some way to list the family read-alouds either by just marking them on the master book list or having an additonal list to choose from. (or even writing down which titles we finish each year as family read-alouds, with the grade levels of children listed, that way I’d just keep a running list of what we’ve done together. I haven’t a clue as to which one makes the most sense yet!) I know it’s duplicating book lists, but I can see myself madly flipping through lists or coming up completely blank as to what book to read to everyone. So, I’d personally need some starting point or method to choose, until I got comfortable picking out the family read-alouds. I suppose eventually a person may not need a family read aloud list, and maybe you wouldn’t yourself.

While I don’t think my idea would eliminate duplicating every book as I may end up reading aloud Black Beauty or Stuart Little when my oldest would have already read it – but it may relieve some concern about skipping books. At least I’d know that we’d be reading the ones I don’t want to miss, like Treasure Island indivdually. Being a book fan myself and having mini bookworms, it doesn’t seem awful to repeat something as a family read-aloud. Heck, I still read the Little House books myself for fun. My extended family finds this hilarious! After I said “bother!” (Winnie the Pooh) as an adult one day out of frustration, my mother pointed out that I’ve been saying for years – since I was a child apparently. I guess my point is, good literature is good literature, some of it really is timeless and does fit all ages. So, repeats can’t be all that bad right? As a side note, if your family is a bunch of avid readers, you may end up getting through more books both indviualy or even together anyway.  So in that regard at least, it’s nice there are so many good ones out there! I hope something here either helps you or aids in you finding the solution that best fits your family. And again, if I’ve completely missed something obvious, please disregard!