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Report or Export Scheduled Resources?
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I don’t worry too much about counting days, but then my state only requires 148 for some reason. I plan 36 weeks, but don’t stress too much if we miss a day here or there.
I looked up the attendance policy in this school district. Students have to attend 90% of the class days, meaning they only have to attend 162 days/school year. Plus, any medical absence approved by parent or doctor does not count towards those 18 absences, so technically a student doesn’t really have to attend all 162 days, either! Basically what that tells me is that I shouldn’t really care how many days we school each year since:
- There is no way we would exceed this policy of 162 minus all “excused” sickness days
- I just looked up the latest laws in my state and it turns out there is NO REQUIREMENT for number of days of instruction anymore!! Ha, so all of this worry for nothing! LOL! (Our laws changed about 2 years ago – for the better!)
So the only thing causing me stress about the number of school weeks of the year is that I am using a core curriculum (very CM-friendly – Trail Guide to Learning by Geography Matters) for our literature/history/language arts/some science core and it is planned out in 36 weeks of lessons. So I will definitely need to spend some more time picking-and-choosing what’s important and letting go of the rest. We usually read ALL of the books, but don’t always do all of the other activities anyway.
I am hoping that maybe by the end of this school year, or maybe the year after that, I won’t need the “crutch” of this kind of program while working full time. I know that I could design our own program completely from scratch using the SCM Planner, and I see how that would be done because of the planner, but working full-time I am not quite ready to jump ship to do that yet. The Trail Guides program isn’t cheap. Of course, a lot of that is the books that you are buying, but still, the parent text for use with the program is $160 by itself. I know that I could save a lot of money by ditching the program and using the library and buying books we read, but right now I am trading money for my time and energy.
Whew! One less thing to worry about!
I have most of my stuff for August already done–yay!
A question just occurred to me – do you mean that you have the entire year’s plans entered, ready to begin in August? Or do you only enter about a term at a time? Do you follow the 12-week terms like in the planner?
There are things I am finding that I don’t know if I can plan that far ahead (beyond 12 weeks) other than knowing that I will use a resource for it. How do you put something in the schedule that you know you will be using later in the year, but not necessarily right after another resource? Do you just pick a date in that “term” to place it and then adjust later as you get a better feel for when you will be ready to start it?
Yes, I mean I have my basic year’s plan in now I occasionally “tweak” a little. Yes, I use 12-week terms.
I divide my resources into “term chunks” Then I divide them up among days and weeks. I just use the feature that allows for entering in the resources to use after the previous one for that course. Many things we just read slowly all year, so they are easy–we just put the resource in and it is done. I like to plan ahead. 🙂 But the Organizer really works for me because if we do get behind, I really don’t have to do anything. We just “do the next thing” I know what books we’ll be reading for history, so I just enter them all sequentially, for example, one to use right after the other. It doesn’t really matter how long an individual one takes–we always have a few loose ends at the end of the year. But then we usually have things we finished ahead of schedule too. So it works out. If they are done with their science books but still have an essay for English and a biography to read, then they just spend their time on that.
So I really only use dates for the first items we are using–and I just pick a date at random for that–it doesn’t matter. For example, this year I entered everything for Aug. 1. We will likely not start that week–we’ll probably start later in the month. Doesn’t matter. Everything will be sitting there waiting for me when we do start. Nice!
but still have an essay for English and a biography to read
From what I remember of the SCM Planner, you are mostly planning resources, not necessarily specifics about things like writing assignments. Do you already know all of the essays that you will require for this year for your teens?
I guess I wish I could see what your Term 1 Overview looks like for, say, the 10-yo and compare it to the 14-yo (since we are smack in the middle of them!) I think it would give me a better feel for how others who are doing it “all on their own” use the system.
Hmm. I wonder if there is a way to do that short of handing out my password and everything? I’m not clever enough to figure out how to send you copies of my paper electronically, although my dh could probably figure it out next week.
Anyway, about the essays. I worked outside the home for a while until about a year ago, and I started uisng Total Language Plus for English. Each unit has an essay. All we have to do is choose which topic to write about. It almost feels like cheating for a CM’er, but it saved me so much time coming up with stuff for each literature book that I’m still using them with a few CM tweaks. 🙂 So the essays are still there in the units, and, imagine this, my boys always leave the essay until the very end and do it last. While sighing soulfully a lot in their attempt to communicate their pain and anguish at not being allowed to skip it. LOL
While sighing soulfully a lot in their attempt to communicate their pain and anguish at not being allowed to skip it. LOL
That is funny, but sound quite typical from what I know about teenage boys!
Are you using TLP with your 10 yo also, or limiting his writing to written narrations at this point? About how many written narrations/week will you require from him, and are they only a paragraph long or longer?
Do you like TLP for literature and essays? Does TLP have its own literature units at different levels? Do you like the literature that they use versus picking your own literature for the year?
I would never ask you to give me your password for anything! No worries! As for the paper plans, you would need to scan them to the computer, save as an image file type (like JPEG) and then attach them to an email to send to me unless there is somewhere else to post them on the net for download. If you didn’t mind sharing with all of this group, it looks like you could insert them into a post – there is an Insert/Edit Image button just to the left of the insert smiley button. Or, wait until dh is home.
Yes, I use TLP with my 10yo, but I only use the spelling and grammar portions with him. There isn’t much writing in the guides for his age, and the spelling can be silly, so we just use dictation from the book he’s using and add in a little written narration. He’s really just started. He’s doing really easy things like starting his narration orally and then writing 2 sentences. My boys have all been a bit slow to get INTO written narration, but I feel it pays off to take one’s time.
For the upper grades, I feel the course is excellent. We don’t do all the worksheets. We do dictation from the book using the spelling/vocab words. I have them look up the origin of words they don’t already know (mostly Greek, they both have strong Latin backgrounds and some French.) And we use the critical thinking/writing/essay portions HEAVILY.
I sometimes wish they had a few different selections. David Copperfield, for instance. (I keep writing her and telling her I think she needs to do it but she keeps telling me she already has a Dickens! LOL) There are enough choices that I’ll not even end up doing them all. We still read other literature as well. We just don’t do the “intensive treatment” to those.
I’ll probably have to wait until dh is home. My 16yo could probably handle it too, but he’s away for the weekend at a church event. Sigh. All my techies are away. 🙂
Just an fyi… you’ll need to upload an image to a host site to have the url to paste the image here. http://WWW.box.net is free and easy to upload to and share from.
Michelle, I’d venture that there are many of us who’d love to see your fleshed out plans.
Blessings,
Christie
He’s doing really easy things like starting his narration orally and then writing 2 sentences. My boys have all been a bit slow to get INTO written narration, but I feel it pays off to take one’s time.
I have wondered about this. The boys know what I mean when I ask them to orally narrate to me. But turn those instructions into “write your narration” and boy – you’d think I was speaking Greek! LOL! So I need to find a way to ease them into doing full written narrations. Usually, they try to write as little as possible, even if I specify it has to “be at LEAST 5 sentences” or some such thing (which I hate to say to them anyway.) And they are typing these narrations – not handwriting!
I am going to have them do lots of oral narrations via their webcam and have it record the video right into the OneNote Notebook. Then somehow, I have to get them to turn those narrations into writing. Maybe have them transcribe one of those each week themselves from their video narration? Have them do the video narrations all week and then tell them to transcribe one of them into a written narration at the end of the week? I’d have to play around with who gets to choose which one to transcribe. They would always choose the shortest, but if I choose, they will start doing all short video narrations worried that they will have to transcribe that one! LOL! Still searching for ideas on that one!
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