I am wondering where or how you all find the time to plan and organize your teaching materials and lesson plans etc when the kids are with you all the time? I just finished my first "trial" run at homeschooling (PreK) and am taking in a week off and then will begin the Kinder curriculum I have purchased. I am having trouble finding the time to sit down and plan out my year. I was just wondering when ya'll found the time without staying up too late into the night and dragging the next morning. Advice on how it works for you would be very beneficial to this beginner!
We do all of our planning in the evening after dinner when the boys go off to play on their own. In our house all day long the boys are busy doing something (school work, playing outside, arts/crafts, videos, computer games, etc) and then after dinner they go to their room and play until bath time and bed time. So we plan while they are playing and after they go to bed.
Some peple plan more than others. For me, I just follow along in the books. I really do very little "planning" (and thankfully I live in a state that doesn't require a lot of paperwork!!!) Probably the biggest block is going over endless booklists for history, and seeing what is availble at our library, and how to get the books I want that are not.
I can plan two times. During the day when my eldest is doing seatwork, I work on the computer next to her. OR after they all go to bed! LOL. Homeschooling is a full time job with no paid holidays. But then again, so is parenting, right??? LOL
I don't do alot of "planning" either, but when I need some time to organize and read through new materials, it's DADDY DATE DAY! He takes the girls out to breakfast or on some other outing for a few hours on a Saturday. He doesn't care much about the day to day lesson planning part, he oversees the "bigger picture". It's amazing how much you can accomplish in a quiet house!
I dont really plan either, just a day or 2 at a time...no more than a week as things change. As Im planning for such short periods, it takes just a few mins to read through texts (such as history), to see if I need anything in particular and thats it. I can do it whenever I have a spare 2 mins.
I just planned next year out and I did it on Sundays while my hubby watched sports and the kiddos played outside with friends.
I used to plan weekly. I would use one night a week to plan for the next week after the kids were in bed. There were times I even planned out daily while the kids were doing seatwork...I just planned for the next day while putting hte materials away. lol. This time I am planning out the year in advance. I am just about done...the only thing holding me up is that I have not ordered all my books so I can't fill in my detailed weekly and daily plan. However, all three terms are planned out in general for hte next year...I just have to fill in the details. I did this while the kids were playing by themselves, or watching a movie. I did it on the weekend a bit while dh was playing wtih the kids. I even brought it along with me while I was waiting at the doc's office. Didn't really take long. Even if you just take a 1/2 hour one night and 15 minutes during the day and don't stress out it will get done. I enjoy getting it all done at once...but sometimes life gets in the way.
We're off for summer now (well, except for standardized testing later this week), but I always planned by the week and did it on Sunday nights after the kids went to bed. It usually took a couple of hours...I do a chart for each kid that has the day of the week and each subject listed. Then I'd go through their books, online supplements, etc. and assign work for each day. They love having these charts to check off their work. I'm trying to figure out how I can do some pre-planning this summer to maybe shorten the time I have to spend on my weekly planning. I just find it hard to do too much in advance because things change.
I do a general plan before I order our books. Then another general plan of how to get it done during the year (like there are 140 lessons so 70 needs to be done by Christmas sort of plan). Then I generally do it weekly or even more often daily (night before). If I plan too far ahead, something always ruins it and that ANNOYS me more than not having a full plan :lol: I do it in the afternoon while the kids are playing or after they go to bed.
I let Calvert do all the planning for me! I used to try to do all my planning myself, but eventually it just became too much. Now I use Calvert curriculum, and there is only 1 lesson manual with everything in it. For example, lesson 20 will have everything you need to do and say for all your subjects for that day. I love it! Tara
Many curriculums (like Calvert, Saxon, Christian Liberty Academy) have word for word what to say, as was pointed out. I liked that my first year of homeschooling (when my oldest was in 2nd grade), though of course you don't have to follow everything exactly! For K I totally wouldn't stress about it! K is supposed to be a fun year! Just be a parent and let your child be a kid, there are plenty of years of school left for your child to have a set schedule to follow! If you're going to plan a lot for K, then hopefully you include LOTS of exploring, creating, hands-on stuff that is fun! Sit-down time should be minimal! That said, my dd LOVED school when she was young, so I had a box that had activities and worksheets in them. She'd pick something to do, and I'd do it with her. I schedule like some others said: *Figure out how many lessons, and approximately how long it'll take and how much to get done in a week to accomplish my yearly goal *Work at times my kids are playing or after they go to bed. *Do one week at a time. I agree also, with what Rhonda said about scheduling too far in advance. I would be so proud of my schedule that I'd worked so hard on, then someone would get sick, or a concept floored the child and we needed to spend extra time on it. Or they got something the first time, that I thought would take awhile......etc. Then the whol schedule would be messed up! By doing it one week at a time, I didn't feel sooo tied down to or overwhelmed by the schedule, and we could go off on tangents if something interested my child(ren)! Sometimes we ended up going a whole different direction than what I had planned! At K age, try to go as much as you can with the interests of the child and keep learning FUN! Best wishes! It can seem overwhelming at first, but in a couple of years you'll be thinking, "I don't know why I thought this was so hard!" :lol:
I would read things while Jeannie was in a class. Her 2 hour acting class was a blissful treat, because it was enough time to actually be able to see where I could overlap things, or pair things up. Now that all but one class is over, I'll use the days she's at camp or vbs.
okay, for planning, I would do mine on Monday morning for the most part. Since I had a time set schedule it made things easy we just had the generic amount of pages per day and then occasionally I would write out instructions instead of them having to wait for me to finish with one child/age/grade etc they could read the instructions and go on to work. That was the only way to get all of it in... And find time to clean and cook and all that norm stuff. As time has gone on I found that setting up that schedule and the daily lesson plans I wrote up were so important to the kids getting settled... thats why the begining of the year is so smooth! I am always ready a couple to three months ahead... maybe I need to set time on Thanks giving weekend to do the next three months and do increments liek that? Hey it could work!
This really catch my attention I will follow this thread to learn and get some tricks cos Im always having insufficient time daily for hs and cooking and baby (having separation anxiety) and laundry and cleaning (DC do help but I still do some) so, where in the world I can find time to schedule and plan. I started hs only this year and most of the time I rely very much from the Instruction guide. Yet, there's still hiccups here and there. At times I felt I didn't do a good job... should have planned. There are some pretty good suggestion which I'll try out. Charts and pre prepared instruction are great ideas. Praying hard my baby will learn to play on her own more.
This is the extent of my yearly planning: I think Catherine will do some Singapore and more of the Key To books as well as Wordsmith. Hopefully Harry will like MathUSee. That's about it.
Jumping in, to be funny, mostly cuz *I* need it. :lol: Thread title: "Time. Where do you find it?" I'd check in the seat of the Go Diego Go bike. Ds3 likes to hide stuff in there. Okay. Jumping back out again now. :lol:
Thanks for all your suggestions. I think I try to be too planned at times. I do like hands on activities but this year I felt I wasn't prepared enough with materials to complete all activities. I guess it is a learning process and a skill you have to experience to develop!
