Clipped PACE Planning

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.

Compulsive Thief of Ideas

My idea of a good time is to visit someone with kids similar in age to my children and steal ideas from them.  I don't steal any of their stuff but I love to look for new ideas.  Of course online stalking is now available for people like me.  However I find that seeing something worked out in someone else's home enables me to "steal" the idea, adopt it as my own and implement it well.  I can "weed out" pitfalls better when I see and experience in real time, and space.

Today's takeaway thievery was the phrase "house rules."  Heard it before.  Know the phrase.  But just had not thought to use it.  Yesterday one of our cardinal rules against throwing toys was broke to the pain of my little girl.  The offender was not disciplined so Abe figured that the rule had been rendered null and void.  I had to disappoint him.

Today in another person's home we learned their house rule is to eat, you sit.  The little girl of the house felt personally affronted by the blatant disobedience of her clueless friends.  Her mother calmly explained that it was a house rule for their family that pertained still to her but was not house rules for her friends.  It was clear.  She communicated with just the right words I needed for next time around at my house.  Idea stolen to be used soon!

So back to thievery.  Do it!  Go to people's houses and look how they organize, ask how they teach, watch how they parent and then copy something.  One teacher said that true learners learn three new things in every session of every class while in school.  I made it a goal in university to be that kind of learner and it paid off so when you are living a life that doesn't allow you to read a syllabus of books for your craft learn intentionally on the fly.

Thievery online is harder as I can't always judge if something just looks cute or is a winning ace in the hole for learning.  So as far as websites go I am going to write down two.  I know there are millions  but I know one of these bloggers personally and the other blog has a wealth of stuff in a palatable lay out.  Okay the truth, this lady gives me ideas that help me and not hinder me into feeling like I must teach Abe everything before he turns four while organizing my life into perfection.

One is a website of a past colleague who is teacher turned mom.  Top notch teaching defined her.  Her creativity, organization and energy is legendary.  Her ideas on her website help me think about areas I want to work on with Abe.  I know she implemented with an excellence I only dream about everything she blogs about.  I know she is real and therefore her ideas sing.  I am linking you HERE directly to her blogs on preschool homeschooling.  There is only about a dozen of them but they are worth the read except maybe the first which is a book review.  Her complete week of activities revolving around one piece of excellent children's literature inspired me immensely.   Please don't miss her write ups complete with amazing, simple, and reproducible ideas on books like Snowy Days and Mike Mulligan.  Personally I wish for more of her write ups from this talented lady.  The few books she wrote about I own so if you live here and want the book for a week let me know!

The second website I suggest is Confessions of a Homeschooler.  Okay so this lady pedals her wares on the internet but if you scroll down in her blogs to September 16th, 2013 you will find a wealth of ideas.  She focuses on ONE LETTER for an entire week but her ideas are SO easy to "steal" and use with different letters.  I loved the idea of poking out your letter with a thick needle.  Needless to say my boy will be doing that this week with one of the five letters we will cover.  Though she is selling curriculum ideas and worksheets she also has a lot of free printables and ideas that seem to work for multi-age families.

Please do you have any blogs you want to suggest or ideas you have "stolen."
Feel free to comment.
Don't worry I am almost off my home schooling kick it will be done in about a week.
As a past professional teacher who has taught in public, private and boarding schools this is a totally new experience and so far enjoyable.  I am overflowing with fun currently, we will see at the end of the year.

Cup Overflows

"The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil

for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff they comfort me.

You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, 

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Psalm 23

We purchased the Sonlight curriculum for Preschool 3 and 4.  It does not come with a laid out plan for the year but it does come with plenty of fun ideas and a barrel load of good literature.  I would highly recommend building a home library and found Sonlight aided that endeavor.  However if you live in the States with good libraries and librarians I would not suggest purchasing this package but being more selective with your book purchasing by "trying" out great literature with your child to assess their reading preferences.  Don't forget to access your local librarian for suggestions of great children literature.

Sonlight has a small blurb in the margins of the activities book quoting a woman who does Bible memory with her children.  Her ideas seemed reproducible so I spent ten minutes writing out the 23rd Psalm twice on a 8 by 11 piece of paper.  I cut it in half and taped one by our dining room table and one on the kid's door.  I then told my husband I was going to try to say the Psalm in its entirety to our children twice daily.  

I confess God used the Navigators to grow me in college but I never could hold a light to most of my peers when it came to Bible memory.  I stink at it folks.  Stink.  I felt very nervous moving forward with this idea.  Afraid of my own weakness.  I still read the passage sometimes after fifteen days of saying it twice a day and a lifetime of hearing the words of truth.  However now I have a little three year old voice that chimes in with me and helps me when I falter at "He leads me in paths of righteousness.."

I planned this academic fall in months and each month has a passage for memorization.   Chad says the passage at night with the kids when he is here and sometimes at the table.  I say it at lunch with the kids and at night.  Zana says key words and finishes the lines.  She particularly remembers the word evil.  Hmmm.

To include my husband in this adventure I asked him to pick the next month's passage.  Psalm One is in the docket awaiting memorization.  I felt that the long passage might be too substantial but in truth it helps with retention.

Beads are readily available here in India at reasonable prices so here is an finite motor activity I did with Abe to help with memorization.  I want to say that I saw this first on Jen B.'s wrist.  It can be made into a bracelet to wear, Abe made his into a long line of beads that he swings around David fighting Goliath style.  In the photo next to his rain chart Abe is swinging his beads with fervor!  They were fun to make and fun to play with.  I poked my head into his room yesterday and heard him saying the passage alone to himself.

 Step One:  Thread beads for each line of the Psalm.
Step Two:  Take a better picture than me and post it on Pinterest! 

White for Sheep because the Shepherd takes care of the Sheep.

Green for Pastures.

Blue for water.

Pretty bead for paths of righteousness.

Black for valley and evil.

Wood bead for rod and staff.

Gold bead for table and anointing.

Round unique bead for cup (or head).

Two Beautiful beads for last two lines.

I wish I had done a separate bead for "restores my soul"

and for anointing.  I think it would have helped Abe.

He first sorted all the beads not knowing what we were going to do.

We talked through the Psalm.  He thought he came up for green for pastures.

Then he got to chose a green bead of his choice from three or four.

You could talk ahead of time and then go shopping or you could just give the beads you want them to use or you could let your child decide as Abe did.

Close up on beads.

Here are the two postings of the entire Psalm at the Dinner Table and on the kid's door.

I changed the translation per my husband's request and want you to see the crossed out word and added other word.  My pre-school mantra is that perfection isn't going to happen without my family starving, no language learning happening and my sanity fleeing therefore do what you can, consistently, simply and creatively as you feel comfortable doing!

Charts

Here is one small preschool idea.  A three minute chart.  Charts are a great way to chart weather, growth, and other natural changes around us for scientific units.  Perhaps you look on Pinterest and fall apart with the reality that the ideas look overwhelming due to their unique cuteness factor.  Don't let fabulous model charts stop you from jumping in with both feet and doing something simple to start your preschooler's little scientist juices flowing.  I did not even use a ruler when I made this chart!  Horrors.  Zut Alor!

This simple chart jumped us off into evaporation, ice, condensation, solids and liquids.  Zana is an ace at recognizing and saying all but condensation and evaporation.

For those of you that live in our city you can see that this chart was not from last week since rain fall is charted.  The temps have soared with humidity increasing.  I am steadfast in my unwillingness to teach humidity, the reality we currently live.  

For solids and liquids I froze four plastic figurines all from Goldilocks and the Three Bears along with a little ball for good measure in a tupperware.  In the heat and bathtub it melted quickly changing from solid to liquid and releasing our toys from the ice.  Since the first time freeze I have repeated this activity almost half a dozen times due its popularity.  

Capsule Version, Synopsis

Teaching children to summarize or re-tell a story in their own words begins their journey of storytelling.  Gifted storytellers spin tales of truth or fiction around their listeners.  This precious gift of storytelling, and re-telling, also cultivates, for pre-schoolers, the academic rigor of listening and understanding a story.  It utilizes so many skills and is so simple to implement through questions and just listening.  Today we also wrote down Abe's re-telling.  It worked!

Pre-school around here is just the dry run for kindergarten....I'll try to make all my mistakes now so I have it all figured out  for kindergarten.  I am sorely concerned I am going to forget to teach something glaringly important to my boy.

Before beginning this trial period of home education I invested in a notebook.  Simple.  No lines, no fancy ring binder, not easily opened but still a notebook.   Today we read the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Can anyone guess what number we were focusing on today?

We also read a short tale about a greedy dog who lost his meat barking at his reflection.  Abe re-told the story using his own word of choice for the dog, selfish.  He is currently working on a dry erase page for the letter B after coloring in a Butterfly.  All I did today was cut out a three, haul out my "school basket" (more on that later) give Zana pages to color and stickers to stick and work with Abe for about 15 minutes reading, writing down his words and doing four subtraction equations.  I am thankful for a quality mom's idea about starting a school book that enables my child to become an author before he can actually write.  Two day ago Abe made up his own story that I wrote down.  Of all his work this one causes the most pride in his little heart.   It gave a glimpse into a little boy who loves to create already.  Not just lego creations, "houses" with the pillows, and car lines but also artistic expressions with his words.

Simple stuff but fun.  So synopsis of today's ideas.

Try recording you pre-schooler's creative stories enabling them to be an author.

When reading a book practice different skills, today we talked about summarization and re-telling.  (this fosters all sorts of skills)

On a side note.  I need help with creating a calendar routine.  Any ideas?  Remember no pinterest ideas I can't reproduce in five minutes in my home with my supplies (does not include a laminator or a copy machine).

Picture Pending for today.

chuffed to learn....

After asking how much my husband makes and how much we pay for rent the next most common question from relative strangers sounds something like this,

"Do your children go to school?"

"No." I reply.

"Why not?  How old is he?"

"Well he just turned three in July so he is still very young.  It is my job to watch over him."

"Where will they go to school?"

"We will see."  I always say with a little head bob to match the sentiment of not knowing the future.  That seldom satisfies.  Hot on the heels of the questions come suggestions.  A friend who also has children around my kid's ages does not meet with this scrutiny.  Why?  Abe's height and weight match my Indian friend's five year old grandson (the one at whose circumcision I was the designated photographer).  Zana is often mistaken for her brother's twin.  They are both large.  So in a nation where three year olds attend school shuffling along with their humungous backpack weighing them down from behind and their water bottle counter balancing the weight to the front, the expectation that our children attend school is understandable.

We'll see about school.  Many different schools have been suggested to us.  All private.  All expensive.  All English Medium.  All at long distances away (sometimes hours) to be traveled in a little tin can school bus with no air, little room, and children of all ages.  Needless to say we are not ready for this leap.

So when my itchy teaching feet started to hurt I planned my fall of school and on September first we started our year of school.  At home.  There is no, may I add no, frame of reference for homeschooling. Education depends on schools and tutors.  So the fact that in our home school began is my dirty little secret.

I do not have homeschooling figured out by any means but I have to say I love it.  It is simply fun.  Abe just turned three a few months ago and Zana will turn two in about a month and a half.  Pre-school for now looks like controlled chaos for about 90 minutes five times a week.

So for a few weeks I am going to share "our school doings" for two reasons.  I know who reads my blog and it includes some of my favorite teachers.  Two of whom are currently not in the classroom but never fail to teach everyone around them.  They are merciful and joyful in their teaching styles and both immensely creative and Christ centered in their outlooks.  There are at least three more teachers who follow so  I crave feedback people.  Give me ideas.  Please.

Secondly, in our city there are currently six families with pre-school age kids.  That deserves some sharing of ideas.  Some honesty about the mistakes, the simplicity, and the reality of what happens at home so everyone can grow.  Every time I enter these homes I learn and get ideas from these moms.  Not all of them can physically visit me so here is a tour of our home and homeschooling.

Kids returning home after school Thursday last.

Don't miss the man in the back with his wares on his head.

Country Mouse and Johnny

The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse possesses B. Potter's usual whimsicalness endearing it to children plus the subtler humor bent towards the adult reading the tale aloud.  During our reading hour each day Zana tends to turn her own pages but Abe stays hooked the entire time.

Today however the rural paintings coupled with the story full of fun animals kept them both engaged.  In the midst of the story Potter's own horse is featured pulling the cart with the fateful basket holding Timmy Willie inside.  Zana clear as a bell, while pointing, called out, "Tonga."  It of course is not a tonga but rather a horse drawn carriage so common to the early 20th Century country side. What a rich plethora of realities my children are learning.  I love that a book published in England the year WWI drew to a close features illustrations of modes of transport my one year old can recognize because she has seen it in our neighborhood.  What a rich life.

On a side note this was Ms. Potter's last book with illustrations published due to her failing eyesight.  Chalk a block full of beautiful pictures and funny side comments it is pure gold.  I love it as a read aloud and it remains one of Abe's favorite stories.  Even though we live in the city Abe is a Timmy Willie at heart.

circles, squares and triangles

We are still working on colors.  We are still working on letters.  But Abe can count to ten in two languages (no thanks to me....I do work with him but that math brain is ALL from his daddy) and loves his shapes.  He loves to cut with scissors and glue with glue sticks.  He also would paint everyday if I let him but paint is not the can of worms I want opened on a regular basis.  I try to keep it messy around here but paint takes a lot out of me even on a cool day!

So here is a project I saw online and thought rocked.  Gluing shapes on a picture already made of those shapes.  Even Zana got involved.  Abe's little friend who visited who is over a year older could do much more difficult patterns but even she enjoyed the fun of gluing.  It is a great project for those little pre-school years!