Productivity gurus' mantras often run along the lines of a moment of planning saves a mountain of time. They are right. Homeschooling, though more flexible, requires planning to run smoothly. I refuse to spend hours or even half of hours worth of planning weekly. However willy nilly my ideas may seem threads hold the ideas together and those threads weave together seamlessly only through spending a little bit of time planning.
When I taught professionally, Wednesday worked for me to plan the upcoming week. When you teach the same grade each year there are systems, books, paraphernalia, and ideas in place. Even for those teachers, constantly teaching the same curriculum, planning still happens because their classroom of students changes each year creating new and challenging realities that require modifications to annually used units. Planning enhances teaching.
Homeschooling requires planning as well. I plan for about fifteen minutes on Saturday afternoon during the kid's naptime. Though Saturday is our day of rest I find this activity restful and spend time even praying as I plan. It sounds all very passive and lovely but I enjoy thinking ahead and getting things ready for a successful week at school. This is my time to pretend at being a super homeschooling mom one of my favorite little fantasies.
I spent one to two hours planning out the fall (Sept-Nov.) one naptime in August so that I would have a goal for Abe's learning. It gave me a grip on our family's travel times and planning around hospitality responsibilities and out of town trips we have to take as a family, and my husband will be taking. I wrote down ideas and focuses for each month and then for each week. My planning reflects me as a teacher. The plans are loose with very few specifics as I know in my head where I am headed with a plan. However some people like to write everything down. Some plan around specific goals in five areas, others around loose ideas in one or two areas. Some people plan around a curriculum, some around their daily schedule. Planning is helpful if it plans for things you actually implement and if you spend less time planning than teaching! Don't get sucked into "planning" for hours while you shop, browse the internet, or cut up little bits and pieces that will pay out small dividends for learning.
Also I would add here hold your plans loosely. Stuff happens. Just try to do something academic each day and if you get sidetracked shrug it off and dance to some silly cd with your kids. That is a great academic activity!
Use what you already have to implement what you want to work on with your pre-schooler.
Be realistic. Be creative. Be simplistic and truly use your dishes to teach about math, your home library to teach about the alphabet, and anything else around the house for everything else.
Here is what a month's planning looks like for me. Again I have a Sonlight curriculum but all it has is books and then two or three play ideas (I forgot it also came with a memory game, color crayons that are dreamy, and a math spatial game non compatible with Zana). Since I want to utilize the Sonlight books in different units I numbered all the books so that on my month or unit planning I did not have to write out every title. I would just write the page number and book number of what book I wanted to use in a unit. The entire ideas package from Sonlight is about ten pages long but this system saves me time pulling books and looking through anthologies for stories I want to use in a unit.
Notice that the alphabet often creates our structure. We do a letter every day (sometimes together sometimes in work alone time) and then a unit of some kind as well. This week we are doing 1-5 with simple addition and subtraction questions like: "Uncle Matt went to a restaurant." interruption by Abe: "Did we go with him?" "No. He was alone. He ordered 5 hotdogs and ate four but got very very full so he could not eat the last one. How many were left?" We "eat' up four by putting our fingers over them and count the one." Pretty basic stuff.
Next week we will not do plants as planned but will finish off 6-10. The number idea came from a super mom who lives in our city (more on her idea later and on good thievery for teachers).
Notice my plans. No fancy binder, no neat chart just a printed out calendar and a stapler. Do what excites and works for you and plan but don't spend more time planning than implementing or teaching!
PACE planning:
P Personal: match your own personality to your planning. Do what works for YOU.
A Adjustable: Be Flexible. Be open to change. Adjust for your child and for yourself.
C Consistent: You don't always have to do what you planned but always do something. Plan a bare
minimal activity and work from there. (we always color, cut, make, or write a letter and read for
fifteen minutes, even if the house is burning up.)
E Expeditious: Don't get sucked into doing planning tasks that take you away from teaching,
reading aloud to your kids, and those things that you love that give you life. Don't spend more
time planning than teaching or having school! As a professional I learned that not every great
plan equaled a great lesson sometimes it is difficult to bail on a lesson you took TOO long to plan.
When I taught professionally, Wednesday worked for me to plan the upcoming week. When you teach the same grade each year there are systems, books, paraphernalia, and ideas in place. Even for those teachers, constantly teaching the same curriculum, planning still happens because their classroom of students changes each year creating new and challenging realities that require modifications to annually used units. Planning enhances teaching.
Homeschooling requires planning as well. I plan for about fifteen minutes on Saturday afternoon during the kid's naptime. Though Saturday is our day of rest I find this activity restful and spend time even praying as I plan. It sounds all very passive and lovely but I enjoy thinking ahead and getting things ready for a successful week at school. This is my time to pretend at being a super homeschooling mom one of my favorite little fantasies.
I spent one to two hours planning out the fall (Sept-Nov.) one naptime in August so that I would have a goal for Abe's learning. It gave me a grip on our family's travel times and planning around hospitality responsibilities and out of town trips we have to take as a family, and my husband will be taking. I wrote down ideas and focuses for each month and then for each week. My planning reflects me as a teacher. The plans are loose with very few specifics as I know in my head where I am headed with a plan. However some people like to write everything down. Some plan around specific goals in five areas, others around loose ideas in one or two areas. Some people plan around a curriculum, some around their daily schedule. Planning is helpful if it plans for things you actually implement and if you spend less time planning than teaching! Don't get sucked into "planning" for hours while you shop, browse the internet, or cut up little bits and pieces that will pay out small dividends for learning.
Also I would add here hold your plans loosely. Stuff happens. Just try to do something academic each day and if you get sidetracked shrug it off and dance to some silly cd with your kids. That is a great academic activity!
Use what you already have to implement what you want to work on with your pre-schooler.
Be realistic. Be creative. Be simplistic and truly use your dishes to teach about math, your home library to teach about the alphabet, and anything else around the house for everything else.
Here is what a month's planning looks like for me. Again I have a Sonlight curriculum but all it has is books and then two or three play ideas (I forgot it also came with a memory game, color crayons that are dreamy, and a math spatial game non compatible with Zana). Since I want to utilize the Sonlight books in different units I numbered all the books so that on my month or unit planning I did not have to write out every title. I would just write the page number and book number of what book I wanted to use in a unit. The entire ideas package from Sonlight is about ten pages long but this system saves me time pulling books and looking through anthologies for stories I want to use in a unit.
Notice that the alphabet often creates our structure. We do a letter every day (sometimes together sometimes in work alone time) and then a unit of some kind as well. This week we are doing 1-5 with simple addition and subtraction questions like: "Uncle Matt went to a restaurant." interruption by Abe: "Did we go with him?" "No. He was alone. He ordered 5 hotdogs and ate four but got very very full so he could not eat the last one. How many were left?" We "eat' up four by putting our fingers over them and count the one." Pretty basic stuff.
Next week we will not do plants as planned but will finish off 6-10. The number idea came from a super mom who lives in our city (more on her idea later and on good thievery for teachers).
Notice my plans. No fancy binder, no neat chart just a printed out calendar and a stapler. Do what excites and works for you and plan but don't spend more time planning than implementing or teaching!
PACE planning:
P Personal: match your own personality to your planning. Do what works for YOU.
A Adjustable: Be Flexible. Be open to change. Adjust for your child and for yourself.
C Consistent: You don't always have to do what you planned but always do something. Plan a bare
minimal activity and work from there. (we always color, cut, make, or write a letter and read for
fifteen minutes, even if the house is burning up.)
E Expeditious: Don't get sucked into doing planning tasks that take you away from teaching,
reading aloud to your kids, and those things that you love that give you life. Don't spend more
time planning than teaching or having school! As a professional I learned that not every great
plan equaled a great lesson sometimes it is difficult to bail on a lesson you took TOO long to plan.
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