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Planning for a Whole Year?
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Des asked in another thread if I plan for the whole year. I would love to hear everyone’s response because we are all so different!
My planning has gone through shifts over the years and the answer is yes and no. Some things I do plan for the year, while others are ‘do the next lesson’ (math), and then I even have areas I leave open (science).
For next year, for example, my 7th grader’s science is planned out because she’ll be doing Apologia’s General Science. It will be a full year of work for her. Her math is just do the next lesson. She will switch levels this April and we usually do math all summer so she’ll switch levels again sometime in 7th as she reaches the end of a book. History for her is different next year. It is only ‘half-planned’. We will be doing Early American History as a family (with family readings)and for the first 1/2 of the year I have assigned books she’ll read independently:
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Amos Fortune: Free Man
Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison
Johnny Tremain
Toliver’s Secret
Ben and Me
Sacagawea: The Girl of the Shining Mountains
The second half of the year I am opening history up and she can choose any persons and events in the time period to learn about, either ones that we didn’t cover (I’ll offer her a list) or ones she wants to go deeper into. The only requirement is reading daily.
My younger children’s history is actually a fully planned year. They will be 3rd, 2nd, K, two PreK, plus a toddler and newborn this fall. They have a list of books I’ll read to them all year, enough to fill both halves of the year.
My younger children’s science, however, is not planned AT All. We will follow interests as they arrive. All summer we have lots of science and nature study, especially with the gardening, and then the rest of the year we’ll just choose topics every other month or so and go at them. No stress, this is the age/stage where they’re learning about the world. All I have to do is offer things that go with their interests or surroundings.
Does that help any? I didn’t bother to go through every subject and list it all out for you, but those are highlights, especially where they differ for my age groups.
I do what you do. Somethings I have all figured out and some not so much. I keep notes of what I have each kid do each year and look back when the next one come up to that point. Nice plan Tristan looks good.
I do what you do too. 🙂 We also do school through the summer so it works better if we do our books plucking away at them lesson by lesson and filling in with what we have planned. We try not to stress it either. It will get done. 🙂
I am a planner. Ok, an over planner. I GREATLY prefer starting with a well thought out plan for the full year and changing or scrapping as we go to a plan as we go situation. This is actually the first year that I haven’t planned the full year in advance and its been our toughest. I feel like I’m in perpetual planning instead of being able to just focus on doing the next thing. I won’t make that mistake again. However, I like Tristan’s idea of offering the oldest a list of books to choose from.
I don’t usually plan out the whole year and maybe I should, there have a been a couple of years that were totally planned out and they were the best we’ve had. I had another question, but can’t remember it now, i’ll post again when I remember it,lol. Ok, I remembered the question, how do you do your history, literature, and read alouds, what I mean by that is do you do them all back to back or spread them throughout the day? For example, do you read aloud, do the history reading and then send them off to read more on their own or do you read aloud, do math or another subject and then have them do the history reading etc…? I suspect that trying to spread our readings throughout the day is why we end up skipping some most days.
I read something, have them do a narration, do something like picture study or something, then go right into the next reading. If we didn’t, we’d never get through it. I do not have the time or patience to make school take time in the morning, then in the afternoon, and into the evening (other than family scripture reading). My kids do their assigned reading later after I am done doing the family subjects.
Right now I usually do our literature reading in the evening because Daddy is listening in too (Swiss Family Robinson), but when he’s not we do it during lunch or the morning. Family history (our group book)is done during afternoon snack most days. (Can you tell I have lots of little ones who talk if they don’t have things to do with their mouths? LOL.) Individual history reads are done in the morning. The kids also have a literature book they’re doing independently (Makayla has Shiloh right now, my beginning readers have 15 minutes in a Magic Tree House book). Those are done in the morning.
My kids choose what order to do things each day because all their assignments are on a sheet to check off, the only ones they don’t get to decide are family readings. So some like to do all their reading things right in a row, but most spread them out between other subjects. They also have individual scripture reading to do. Then we do family scripture study in the evening with Daddy.
We do our family studies together in the morning before assigned work begins. This way we get it done. That allows for individual studies and any mom with each child time to happen without being rushed to get back to another together study. The only exception is when we have a movie to watch. I leave those for after we are finished with our family and individual studies, quite often waiting until the evening.
That said, we got way off track during the holidays and are still redeveloping diligence in the schedule following department. 🙁
What I do know is that following a schedule works much better for us. And, not doing every subject every day is the only way we can actually get the most done.
There are great samples of weekly/daily schedules that accommodate family and individual studies based on each family’s needs/interests. I’ve learned that some years we need more time for history, others for science.
Weekly examples: http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/weekly/
Daily samples: http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/daily/ (This has suggestions for doing family time in one block, or broken up throughout the day.)
I have so much “other than school” to do each day that I like getting our together time done early. That way, when no more supervision is needed for studies, I can get those things taken care of and rest better at night. 🙂
Blessings,
Becca<><
I have so much “other than school” to do each day that I like getting our together time done early. That way, when no more supervision is needed for studies, I can get those things taken care of and rest better at night. 🙂
We are just like Becca! That is exactly how I feel about it!
Oh, forgot to say that I plan for the year. This year has worked best after going through the planning suggestions that Sonya offers. I took the time to plan the years our 13yos has left and 1st-12th for our 6yod. Just subject headings with tentative curriculum/book notes. This has been a huge blessing! I did not do this with our older three children. Every year, sometimes monthly, I was reevaluating, changing, planning, and searching. Most likely, this was do to not having a plan for where they were headed. Stopping to take the time to do this for our younger two has meant much more mental time to devote to learning in the now instead of always worrying about what’s next and not necessarily what’s necessary at the moment.
You may wonder how I had the time to do this kind of planning. Well, I was worn out by years of endless planning and changing. So, I stopped everything in order to make the necessary final change in how I was doing things. I read samples of the Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education and watched all the SCM You Tube videos. I read suggestions on the CMO and the TOC paper version of it. Then, I sat down and started charting things out on paper. I knew what had worked with the older kids and what was a flop. Some flops actually made the cut because I could see how to utilize them more effectively. Other things that worked well, stayed, yet a few I ditched because they weren’t truly wonderful.
The nice part about setting down a 12 year path is that I just plug in a book list and run with it. No more searching for something else. It’s just not worth the stress. I like the simplicity. The only thing simpler is the Robinson Curriculum, but it wasn’t very conversational. I went back and forth between CM and RC for quote a few years. I took the self education from RC and combined it with the self education and family lifestyle of conversational community learning and we’re happy with it.
Becca<><
Meant to say
-combined it with the self education and family lifestyle of conversational community learning of CM methods-
Becca<><
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