School planning: 102

For the previous post, School planning: 101, click HERE.

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Now that you've prayed, evaluated your previous school year, and figured out with a calendar when you're starting (and ending school), you're ready to get down to the nitty-gritty of what you'll be actually DOING during those school hours!

Some of these steps obviously overlap.  (I keep praying throughout the whole planning process school year.)

This next step is something I start at the end of our current school year and keep on going until all the pieces are in place for the new school year.
 

4.  Make a TO-DO list.

My current "Homeschool Planning TO DO list"

I keep a clipboard with blank pieces of paper handy, and as I evaluate our previous year, or read a book (several of my first notations came from my reading of this book at the end of May), or if I remember an idea or think of a book or see something that still needs to be done--- it all goes on this list.  I'll list some items* you don't see in the above photo, just to give you an idea of the variety:

• choose read-alouds
• schedule- make
• new chore assignments
• make chore charts
• choose memory work
• math lesson plan
• what are we doing for science this year?
• what can be independent work?
• purchase blank index cards

*to name just a few

This list is simply a running list of all my school-related thoughts.  There are obviously things on the list that must be accomplished: history lesson plans and math lesson plans, for instance.  And there are other items that never get checked off- because they were ideas that were meant to be just that, an idea.  And that's okay.

When I'm making my to-do list, I keep our general schedule in mind at all times.  I know we start the day with Bible time, narrations and memory work at the breakfast table.  So then, on my list are things like:

• Bible time (ie: I need to figure out what we'll be reading from or what my goal is for that time) 
• choose memory work

and so on.  I know the things we need to update or refresh for the school year, so I operate from that general knowledge.

The stage I'm at right now is that I'm consulting that list every day and researching items or working on them to get ready for our school year.  I have determined the new chore assignments (with Mark's  help), but have yet to make a new chore chart [if you click on each of those 3 links you'll see our three previous chore charts], so that's still something "to do".  I know that the kids are doing copywork, but I don't know yet what they'll be copying.  That sort of thing.

It's all coming together, and I'm excited about some of the things we already have planned, so I'll share them as I go.

School Planning 101

I should remind you that I'm a paper and pen kind of a girl.  I know there are whole planning worksheets/guides/printables/programs available for school planning.  I can't link you to them, though, because I don't plan like that.  I need to write it all down and see it.  I need to physically cross things out and add to my lists, whittle them down and then make a fresh (cleaner, shorter) list, add more to that list and then start a whole other list on another page.

I can tell you how I plan.  I've been doing this for seven years now and I definitely have a system.  Here are the first three things I do each year as I plan for the following school year:

1.  Pray.

I can't emphasize this enough.  These are God's kids; this school year belongs to Him, as does every single other one.  He knows what our children need.  Ask Him for wisdom, for clarity about your schedule and curriculum choices, for inspiration, motivation and discipline.  Ask Him to help you with whatever conundrum you're facing as you look ahead to this next school year.

2.  Evaluate your previous school year.

This sounds like a lot of work, I know.  But it doesn't have to be.  Simply think through what worked and what did not work (and why it didn't).  This can be anything from a quickly jotted down list (or a conversation with your husband) to a more complete analysis of each subject.

I like to do this at the end of the year while my thoughts are still fresh.  The way I do this is that I look at our schedule from the previous year and just break it down: what worked (strengths) and what did not work (weaknesses).  When I evaluated our year my list looked like this:

WHAT WORKED? Bible time, narrations, science, dictation, Shakespeare, piano practice, (most) chore assignments, math, school with the little girls, copywork.

WHAT DID NOT WORK? Picture study, geography, poetry, consistently waking up on time.  And sadly: read-aloud (I chose boring titles this year.  It was painful.)

I have some undecided subjects, too.  For devotions we started strong but sort of faltered.   Same for our story time (picture books).  Written narrations were great when we were faithful but we were not consistent.

Even if this is your very first year of homeschooling, you can still do this!  You may not have school subjects to evaluate but you can still examine what is working in your routine.

Note:  I find that the easiest way to add something into our schedule is to tag it on to a routine that is solid in our home.  For us it was as simple as breakfast.  We always ate breakfast together at the start of our day, and we were all in one place.  So I added Bible time after breakfast, then memory work, then we tucked in narrations after the Bible story.  Then after breakfast we decided to do "after-breakfast-chores", etc.  We just built our schedule brick by brick, so to speak.

3.  Print out a calendar.  

You've got to look at your year as a whole.  (You can go here (donnayoung.org) to view a variety of free, printable calendars.) 

We school for 36 weeks, so I need to look at the calendar to see where we can come up with 36 weeks, first crossing off birthdays and Mark's days off and the entire month of December.  I simply pick a start date and then tally up weeks on the right-hand side of the calendar months until we get to 36 - and, voila!- we have a finish date!

And now I know we only have a couple more weeks to plan for our Sept. 1st start date.  Yikes.