How fun to revisit this thread! I actually haven’t even started planning next year – I think that I mostly have it in my library, but also because I am still decluttering, spring cleaning, and simplifying. It has been great!
The poster has been helpful to remind me that we are okay. =)
Remind me again how the 12 yr plan works for a family if you will use independent things for certain subjects? For example, I have 2 different phonics programs going for 2 kiddos. Or if you will use a different Bible program for yr 3 but really like your yr 1 Bible choice does that mean you are teaching 2 different programs assuming you have those 2 age groups? I am overthinking this so unwrap my mind!
@Mrs.McCardell – I basically have 2 groups of school because of their ages, and though we combine as much as possible…I am finding this harder the older they get due to the learning challenges of one of my older dds and my available time constraints. We have to adapt a lot of materials for this child, so I am still needed to be available to her quite a bit, and I think that it has held the oldest down a bit. That is why I am sure that getting your kids to being independent learners as soon as possible is a good thing, plus it puts the burden of learning on your child, not you. I didn’t understand that too well at first because I was having fun learning with them, and I wish I had understood it a bit sooner. 😉
Now, that said –
Really, this plan is not so much an actual to do list each year so much as it is a way to visually see my general 12 year plan (as figured out in Planning Your CM Education) and to help me keep track of curriculum purchased and on my shelf. It shows me my basic scope and sequence over the years. The biggest help this has been for me is that IT KEEPS ME FROM RE-PURCHASING THE SAME CURRICULUM OVER AND OVER…language arts and history are BIG culprits for me. I don’t need the same curriculum (like Ancient Egypt) from 4 different publishers. ONE is sufficient! 😉 This doesn’t cut out research totally, but it helps with the planning and purchasing aspects. =)
The girls are in various levels no matter their year, so I use it to help me keep track of what they are working on and where they are going next. Some things have to be independent due to the nature of the subject – like math, etc. For Bible, history, geography, science, etc. my older girls will use a certain curriculum and stay together, but I will use a younger version for the younger girls. Subjects like Shakespeare, poetry, picture study, hymns, music, and literature read-alouds are still done as a family.
I type up a yearly plan for each girl based on her needs/levels and that is where we get our actual day to day work.
Makes sense to me. I keep a similar chart (not on a poster, but in my planning binder) for each of my kids. If I were to put it on a poster and use Post-It notes, it would look different for each of them, but would work the same way. Or, as soon as the oldest of the two finished a resource for the year, I could pull it off and put what I plan to use for the younger one in its place.
Either way, I think it would only be a permanent poster if you plan to have your children follow a certain plan no matter their needs/interests…similar to AO. Start here, go here, end here. I tailor more based on abilities/interests/gifts/goals. But, the poster/post-it note idea is a much bigger reminder than a page tucked into a binder out of sight.
It reminds me of the old curriculum guide, but customized to our family. There are still choices, but it gives me a big picture. I can be as specific or as general as I want to be on it. Perhaps certain skill based subjects could be made for each child at the bottom of the poster. I would do well having the big visual so I can get what is in my mind out and organized on paper. And I could see that I have many subjects and years planned already.