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Between last week's Independence Day celebrations and Ms. Spontaneity's first trip to an overnight camp (and oh, can I tell you how hard that has been for this mama!), we have had yet another extended break in our homeschooling.
I decided to make use of this week by myself to do some intensive planning - and I'm not sure which I am enjoying more...a week to myself or the intensive planning. :) And I decided to make use of the break in the weekly summary posts by working through a series on how I've been accomplishing said intensive planning.
Now, I don't claim to be any kind of expert in the area of homeschool planning. First time homeschooler, remember? So please don't think I'm sharing this as a statement of my expertise or wisdom. This is merely a document of how I've done things so far, and, if I'm honest, it's so I can remember how to go about things the next time I need to do homeschool planning. If it's not written down (and apparently shared with the world wide web), I won't remember!
So I started with the big picture. No, not the why and the goal setting kind of big picture. That is tremendously important and there are lots of great posts on that subject, but I'm not ready to add my two cents' on that topic just yet.
When I say big picture, I'm talking about an overview: a quick summary of the subjects I plan to tackle this year, the frequency I want to cover them each week, and the specific weeks I want to schedule for schoolwork through the course of the year.
For the summary of subjects and frequency, I referred to The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, modifying her suggestions to fit our needs and abilities. Since we are starting homeschooling in the fourth grade, we are in a tricky spot of supposedly working at the peak of the Grammar Stage, yet are totally new to all of the principles and concepts of this style of learning. While I largely ascribe to a Classical/Charlotte Mason approach (and I'll be honest, I still can't really tell you the difference between the two), I don't worry too much about fitting into a specific style and use it more as a reference point to guide me in a general direction.
Ok, enough philosophy, here's what I came up with:
Bible
daily, 30 minutes...incorporates prayer, Bible verse memorization, and lessons on Scripture passagesMath
daily, 30 minutes...incorporates fact memorization, new concepts, and reviewLanguage Arts
daily, 60 minutes...incorporates spelling, grammar, penmanship, reading, and poetry memorization
Next I took a look at the year as a whole and began scheduling schooling "blocks," again, loosely following the recommendations from The Well-Trained Mind. We do year-round schooling, so I began by highlighting the weeks I knew I wanted to take time off, for example, the week of Thanksgiving, three weeks for Christmas, etc. I then went back and filled in color-coded weeks for schooling in blocks of four to six weeks, depending on how things like holidays and family events affected our schedule. Finally, I went back and highlighted over certain days that were within a schooling block but realistically might conflict with a normal school day.
You can see a copy of my completed calendar here:
My first block of schooling is the four weeks beginning upon her return from camp and ending a week before September. On the 19th, we have a doctor's appointment; while in theory we should still be able to do some schooling around that, realistically I know that it will take the better part of the day since we live in the middle of nowhere and it takes almost an hour to get there and another hour to get back. Making a trip "into town" means that we'll probably try to squish some errands in as well, and you can see how the day can easily be pretty much gone by the time we get back.
I know this schedule is going to change, and in a few months I will likely redo it it give me a more accurate picture, but it is a rough map to keep me traveling in the right direction when it comes to planning.
Now, in looking at my calendar, I can figure out how many lessons I need to plan for each subject. We school four days a week, so in the first block, I'll need sixteen lessons for Bible, sixteen lessons for math, eight lessons for history, and so on.
Those lessons will get divided amongst the number of weeks in the cycle (in this case, four) and filed away in the designated week's folder so that I have everything I need for school that week in one central location.
In my next segment, I'll start discussing my planning strategy for each subject and give you a peak into my folders!
Curious about what other kinds of crazy I've been up to? Check out the most recent post on my other blog, Planned Spontaneity: A DIY Dog Bed for a Spoiled Pup
History
two times a week, 60 minutes...incorporates memorization, history lesson and experiments, and geographyScience
two times a week, 45 minutes...incorporates memorization, science lesson, and experimentsGerman
daily, 30 minutes...incorporates new lesson and reviewArt
two times a week, 30 minutes...incorporates lessons in art basics and art/artist studyMusic
once a week, 30 minutes...incorporates music/musician studyHandiwork
one project over the course of a schooling "block" (see more below)Habits/Character
one topic over the course of a schooling "block" (see more below)Next I took a look at the year as a whole and began scheduling schooling "blocks," again, loosely following the recommendations from The Well-Trained Mind. We do year-round schooling, so I began by highlighting the weeks I knew I wanted to take time off, for example, the week of Thanksgiving, three weeks for Christmas, etc. I then went back and filled in color-coded weeks for schooling in blocks of four to six weeks, depending on how things like holidays and family events affected our schedule. Finally, I went back and highlighted over certain days that were within a schooling block but realistically might conflict with a normal school day.
You can see a copy of my completed calendar here:
BTW, you can find your own copy of the calendar I used here at Paper Trail Design!
My first block of schooling is the four weeks beginning upon her return from camp and ending a week before September. On the 19th, we have a doctor's appointment; while in theory we should still be able to do some schooling around that, realistically I know that it will take the better part of the day since we live in the middle of nowhere and it takes almost an hour to get there and another hour to get back. Making a trip "into town" means that we'll probably try to squish some errands in as well, and you can see how the day can easily be pretty much gone by the time we get back.
I know this schedule is going to change, and in a few months I will likely redo it it give me a more accurate picture, but it is a rough map to keep me traveling in the right direction when it comes to planning.
Now, in looking at my calendar, I can figure out how many lessons I need to plan for each subject. We school four days a week, so in the first block, I'll need sixteen lessons for Bible, sixteen lessons for math, eight lessons for history, and so on.
Those lessons will get divided amongst the number of weeks in the cycle (in this case, four) and filed away in the designated week's folder so that I have everything I need for school that week in one central location.
In my next segment, I'll start discussing my planning strategy for each subject and give you a peak into my folders!
Curious about what other kinds of crazy I've been up to? Check out the most recent post on my other blog, Planned Spontaneity: A DIY Dog Bed for a Spoiled Pup
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