Well, I haven’t found it very hard in practice to know what is coming up immediately. Your basic weekly schedule should tell you what subject/book you are working on. And . . . do the next thing. So, one day when we read Chapter 5 of the book, I quickly glance at chapter 6. Do I need to do anything in advance? Do I need a supply for the next experiment? If I need to do something, I put a sticky on the book or on my calendar to remind me what to do. (I’m getting old. 🙂 If I were to be away for a few days, the kids would know—math, just keep working a little every day. When you finish chapter 7, start working on chapter 8. If you read this book every day, just read a chapter every day. If you miss a day, you just read the next thing. (A wise woman once told me that would be a great motto for ANYTHING, not just school–Do The Next Thing. You’d never be behind. You’d always be exactly where you ought to be. 🙂
Anyway, I take a quick few minutes on Friday afternoons to glance over my sticky note collection. I note if I need epsom salts for the science experiment, look up the vocab words in Plutarch (so Mom knows what they mean at least, lol) and make sure Boy #2 can really calculate the area of a circle before passing him on to the next chapter, because he is still missing a few problems. Then I just do what needs doing. It may be that I won’t get to those things after all, because Daddy may take us all geocaching some morning or someone might need me and we just don’t get it done. But that’s OK. I still know what is coming up NEXT, and that’s all I really need to know.
If I sound laid back about this, know it wasn’t so easy for me at first! It took some readjusting of my mindset. But now we are happy, relaxed, we know what’s going on, and if the flooding knocks out the water plant or the basement or whatever, we’re ready. We’ll just Do The Next Thing! 🙂
Michelle D