I have had a lot of conversations lately with people who are at the start of their homeschooling journey and are wondering where to begin. I totally get this, I am an experienced teacher so know how to read a curriculum and break it down, and I am very competent at planning out lessons and resources. However I too struggled, there is simply so much choice out there when it comes to choosing your preferred style of home educating. With this in mind, I thought I would write a mid planning post or a Planning review post. I think it is important for me to point out here that I never, ever plan a full year ahead, I write my learning goals for that year for each child and then I plan a terms worth of lessons and resources. This is in order to keep flexible, it also means that you can buy materials over a longer period of time which conversely means less waste. When I first started home schooling I planned out the full year and bought all of the materials ahead of time, this did not work for us as a family. Nuh needs a change a pace every now and then and also needs to go off on rabbit trails, planning a full year ahead is a lot of work especially as it was not suited to our needs. As such I now plan termly then review.
After the Sept - Dec term has been completed I like to review our learning. What is working? What is not working? I then make the necessary changes to our curriculum and planning, after all your plan is working document, that means its a guide not a prescription. I think this concept of a more fluid plan is what most people struggle with when they first start homeschooling, I know I did. I had spent many an hour checking out homeschooling blogs in my chosen philosophy and others, where homeschooling life is tickety boo, or so it appears. Also unless you can afford to buy an off the shelf complete curriculum where everything is laid out for you, it can be really daunting trying to figure out where to begin and what order to follow. To that end I thought I would document my planning procedure, I use the same process as I do when I am planning out the year ahead I have broken it down into steps:
Write out your learning Goals for that year - I do this before September and it is this that I check our learning against and make revisions accordingly. You can grab a copy of my yearly goals sheet by clicking on the image below:
Step 1: Gather the books you will be using, or any curriculum's that you have bought and plan to use.
Step 2: Gather your planner or whatever you write your plan in( you will need something to record your plan in, I use a teacher planner and a table in word), paper, pens, pencils, post it notes, references tabs, paper clips.
Step 3: This is the longest part of the process and involves keeping your learning goals in mind whilst reading through your books and materials. I use post it notes in books and curriculum to write ideas on, or mark particular points of interest. I also use a pencil to underline, and referencing tabs. Notice how I even do this with bought curricular, this is because I like to tailor our learning to fit, also he probably knows some of the material that is covered in the curriculum. I then section off the part of the books I will be using with paper clips, this means I can then easily find that section when we need it. So for history I might section off 8 chapters, one for each week.
I type this up into a the table in Word, the tabular format allows me to see all subjects at a glance and what we are doing each week.
Step 4: This is where I start to write out our lessons, I do not use a full lesson plan as I feel confident without one, however I write an outline in my planner. The outline includes which book, page etc.. What I am reading, any questions I want to ask, any resources or activities I plan to use. I also leave one day free every fortnight for catchup. Simultaneously I will make a list of any resources I need to buy for the lessons, again I only do this for about 4 weeks worth of lessons.
Step 5: Plan any field trips that might be appropriate
Step 6: Organise your resources, I use a box file and a set of drawers on wheels. Obviously books go on book shelves.
Step 7: Relax and congratulate yourself you are done.
I would like to point out that I am not a naturally organised person, I had to learn these skills when I was a teacher and I have continued to use them now I am teaching my own two children. I cannot stress how important it is to be prepared, it will make all the difference between school time running smoothly or not. For instance say I have not gotten round to planning and its time for school to start, I can wing it but the teaching and learning will be hard work. The kids will start to bug each other whilst waiting for me to fish out a resource or introduce a new task to them, I will then end up getting cross as they are too hyped up or are now arguing. This is really stressful, so I choose to plan, it does not guarantee no arguing but it certainly minimises it. We are also twice a productive if I have everything ready than when I am hunting around for tasks, resources etc during school.
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