Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Home School Planning

It seems like I cannot get out of the home school mode, so what better time then to start planning for the upcoming school year. I shared some of curriculum choices already, so now I will share how I plan the lessons.

~ Pick curriculum (pretty much done)
~ Look over curriculum to decide what to teach, how much to teach, and how long it will take to go through the book. (working on this) I normally use a couple of tools for this step. One is a three ring binder and another is a lesson plan book that I buy at Staples. In the three ring binder I keep all important papers, calendar, list of curriculum's that we have used and are using, a list of web-sites, and a section for each child detailing the goals for the year. I check these goals in the middle and end of the year. I also keep recipes and other household things, but that's another post all together.
~ Get out a calendar and plan what the school year looks like. I printed a 2009 and 2010 calendar off and marked the days that I already knew we would not be doing school. I also marked starting dates as well as graduation. :o)
~ Once the above is in place, I go through the books again but this time I look for reports and projects. I set up a time for those on the calendar. This has really helped keep me focused as I teach and it helps the kids know what is expected and when.

I don't actually write out things in the assignment book till a week before. I do long term planning, set up goals, and then the short term is actually writing things out. The reason I don't fill the assignment book too early is because, life happens. Some times we don't finish a book or it takes longer then expected, it's okay.

How about you? How do you plan for the school year? I would love to read your comments and ideas.

2 comments:

Headmistress, zookeeper said...

I had started a comment explaining what we do, and then my computer suddenly shut down for updates. Grrr.
I don't do dates, because our lives are too erratic.

I have a 3 ring binder and subject dividers. I list each book we are doing on a separate piece of paper, and then I simply write down how many page numbers I want to complete in a single lesson in a column, and we cross them off as we complete them.
So a page might say:
Physics Lab in a Science Store
pages 1-3
4-5
6-7
experiment on page 8
9,10
etc.

And another page will say:
Poetry:
Christina Rosetti
and then I will have numbers 1-40 because I will print out forty of her poems, number them, and put them in a peechee folder.

And another page will say Literature, Westward Ho, and I might have pages or chapter numbers for that.

It's easy to pick up where we left off, even if we were interrupted for a couple of weeks.

rural momma said...

That is a great idea!! :o) Thanks for stopping by and sharing. :o)