Looking inside my teacher binder, a video

Normally when I have a friend who is thinking about home schooling, I'll have her over for coffee, and we sit in my school room and look at books and talk. It is lovely and how these things really should be done, in my opinion anyway.

Since Covid makes all that less than ideal right now, grab a glass or mug of your favorite drink. I would love to share with you my teacher binder...

Planning part four: A daily plan

If you have 
* planned your school year calendar 
* goal set and bought curriculum and resources for morning time (maybe? maybe you still have some planning in that area?)
* organized the pace at which your kids will use those books 
...you might be thinking...so on our first day, what do we actually do?

You need a daily plan.  Planning part four focuses on how to approach each day of school knowing that you can't do this in an intentional way without having a big picture plan and well-chosen materials based on your goals first.
(If you want to just skip way ahead past my rambling/ thinking aloud, scroll to the end of this post to see pictures of our completed agenda with a few notes)



I have a few frequently asked questions that I need to respond to in a post, but one of the most common is "How long is your school day?/ How long will my school day be?" The short answer is "not very long!" It will almost certainly be shorter than traditional school.  You can find info graphics that give all kinds of little formulas, but generally, the younger the child, the shorter the day, and for preschool and Kindergarten, I would plan no more than two hours a day.  For preschool we only did school three or four days a week.  Even now, with preschool, third and 5th grade, we do a lighter day on Friday, and we get the majority of our school day done before lunch. 

It totally depends on the family, the curriculum you plan and your work and life schedule.  On average, home schooling is very efficient, and if you are planning your day or the days keep getting longer, please feel free to reach out to me.  Maybe I can help you streamline things.  

Please note that I am planning for multiple grades and a more structured academic plan because my oldest, Max, is fairly advanced and going into 5th grade.

When mapping out our daily plan/ agenda I think of planning in terms of:
1. what we will do together as a group

2.  what we will do one-on-one (teacher intensive content)

3.  then what each child will do on his own (what we call "OYO" short for "on your own")

A few other things to think about:
Where in your home will you store your materials?  Where will you use those materials?  Are you going to do school at the kitchen table and on the couch? in a school room? all over the place?
Do you want to do the same thing every day or do you want some days to be lighter days?  Is school "Monday to Friday"?  Are there other schedules (parents' work, co-ops, tutoring, etc.) that you will need to plan around?  

After you know where and when you are doing school, you want to make sure you think about the procedural stuff like where kids should put their completed work (each of our kids has a plastic "turn it in" drawer which I periodically sort through, but I actually check almost everything in real time), if you want a system for showing what they have done for the day(I shared my method for that in Part three), etc.

When I make our schedule, I do not base it on the clock, but rather make it a routine that starts whenever it starts (ball park time is maybe 9am?).

Even though we start the day with morning time, that is usually the last thing I finish planning. Instead, I begin with the main content, the academic heavy lifting of the school day.  

I write out a plan on paper because that is just how I think best.  I write "morning time and...." and I think about who is going to be the neediest first, and I know that little people need to feel very loved before we send them off to do their own thing.

What has worked well for us in the past is that an older child helps with the littlest one while I work with the other older child on math and anything else teacher intensive.  Then, we switch.  The trade-off that comes with slowing down the older kids a bit is that I can give less undivided attention to math lessons especially, and the older kids get a chance to bond with their siblings and grow in their ability to manage a fussy baby or toddler or preschooler.  

After our morning time, I think Thomas will want to do something with me and Peter will join us.  Then, I will pass Peter along to Max and work with Charlie while Thomas does his own thing, playing and maybe doing some work tray things, and then Charlie will take Peter and I will work with Max.  There is always a snack time somewhere in there, so I hash out a plan that approximates all that.  If we do this for a few weeks and it isn't work, then that is just an opportunity to try a different method.  Changing plans is not failing.  

If you have babies or little ones who are not school-aged, they will probably be with you for most of the day.  Include them! Put them in the exersaucer or bouncy seat, get a cheap notepad and some fat crayons and let them "do their work" next to you.  Charlie taught himself to read watching me teach Max! Really, they are little sponges and you are not doing little people a disservice by plopping them down with you as you teach an older child.
If they are being loud, offer a little snack or take a break.  If you are nursing, you will probably learn to nurse and teach! I will write a post about little ones "helping" with school, but in the mean time, know that it can be done AND that your attitude toward the littlest people rubs off on your older kids, so try to see any of their needs as part of the day, not "messing up" the day.


SO.  I think about the "teacher intensive" and "OYO" subjects, and once I have plan in place, then I think about morning time and BINGO, our enrichment content.


Planning Morning Time:
For morning time, you can look back at "planning part two" and see the options for planning by day, by loop, or by "deep dive" and since we are going to do the "deep dive" method this year, I will share how I am thinking about that plan.

Morning time or a morning meeting can be whatever you want it to be.  For younger kids, it can be about the weather and the days of the week, a read aloud story, a prayer, whatever.  
There is an EXCELLENT website and podcast called Your Morning Basket written by the fabulous Pam Barnhill that explores this whole idea in depth.  
I highly  recommend looking at the "Start Here" section on the blog and going into the archives and listening to the first few episodes. Your Morning Basket

As our morning time has evolved, we have done all sorts of things, but mainly we start with a prayer, quickly talk about the date and I include the day of the week and month and ask Thomas to list either the days of the week or months of the year.  We talk about our monthly calendar at Sunday dinner usually, so I don't spend much time on this during school.  We often sing something (it really is a huge range from sacred hymns to folk songs to Song School Latin to songs from movies we like). Then we do our memory work which is usually a scripture verse related to our Virtue and Saint Study.  It is free and available online: Virtues in Practice  and poetry memorization using the IEW poetry program.
After we do "pray, date, sing, and memory work" we do one other thing.

I have been asked several times by kind readers of this blog and I know, I really do need to write about why we use the things we use, but I will try to keep it brief(brief-ish...brevity is not my strength!) right now. 

One consistent favorite for morning time is using Five in a Row, which uses repeated reading of literature and extension activities to connect books to the world in all different subject areas. We have really taken our time with Five in a Row, using it all different ways in our morning time, and we have found it very joyful and academically fruitful.  Now, though, we are coming to an end, and a beginning.  Thomas is about to start Before Five in a Row, and we have four FIAR books left.  (See how it really isn't a big deal if you don't finish something you planned from the year before?)

We have used Story of Civilization for two years now, but less formally, and the boys really like it.  I can see how it uses history as the starting point in the way that Five in a Row uses literature.  

My plan is to use those last four books (two weeks per book) and Story of Civilization chapters (one week per chapter) as the "one other thing" for morning time, which will take us all the way through to our break for Christmas.
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A few of you have asked what we do during Advent and Christmas, and I am putting together a post on it. There are lots of ways to do it, of course, and I tend to slow down a bit for Advent and then take a good long Christmas break.
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Between the academic "core" of the day and morning time, I have most of the content areas covered, but this year, since I am opting to just do a little less during morning time, I know there are still other things I would like include.  

If you think about it, there are different goals when we present content to our kids: we can learn about something for mastery (usually I think of math concepts in this area), we can learn for pure fun (visiting a science museum for the afternoon), and we can learn for exposure but not mastery (reading historical fiction about the Civil War).  Sometimes we want them to practice the process of learning instead of doing something product based.  I have had to overcome the idea that in order for learning to "count" it has to be measurable or the kids should produce some kind of product.  

In a perfect world, we would do a morning time art study and music study and bask in the glories of all the beauty of nature with walk each day where we document the changing trees and the water ph.  Realistically, as I type this, the baby is playing with Tupperware lids, Thomas is not wearing pants, and I am running on coffee to fill in the gaps of sleep that come from being up with a forever-teething baby.

Clearly, for now, less will have to be more.  Thankfully, independent learning/ enrichment allows kids to explore and learn on their own. We call this BINGO because we started with Bingo cards and then it got complicated, and as it turns out, everyone really didn't care about getting BINGO and really just wanted a piece of candy.  

After they complete one task in all five categories, they get a piece of candy, an extra 20 minutes on their screens (Kindles and Nintendo DS) or to stay up past bedtime to play a game with just mom or dad.

The goals for BINGO content are exposure to useful content and, hopefully, to continue to inspire a joyful love of learning and knowing.

The choices for BINGO will rotate throughout the year, but it is helpful to start with the same five options for at least a few weeks to get everyone into the routine of doing them correctly and following the procedure.  I plan to keep most of our categories going for most of the year this year to keep it simple for me.

Just like in a classroom, the first few weeks of school should focus on explaining and re-explaining how you want things to be done, reminding everyone very cheerfully how to date their pages or where to put their completed work.  Having clear procedures in place will save SO many headaches later.  When they complete a BINGO category this year, I am going to have them write it in their planner in the "notes" section for the week and then I will initial it.  They love the formality of having me sign off on something.  I don't know why, but it is pretty cute!


BINGO for 2020-21 will start with:
1. Third Grade Art: a picture study book from Mother of Divine Grace: For this they will read the page and answer the questions to themselves and then I will have them write and short journal entry.  Every entry starts with a date and then they could just write a list of the works and artists and answer one question from the list of questions at the beginning of the book. 

I stuck this reminder inside the cover.  They will use this as a starting point. As the year goes on, I will expect them to write more for #2.

My goal is exposure, not mastery.  I want them to write and think about art a little bit, and I want it to be pleasant. They may not become art historians, but some day when someone mentions Monet, I hope they don't look clueless, you know?  Wouldn't it be better if they could remember some little detail: Oh yes, didn't he also....blah blah..impressionism..? 


2. MAPS book:  Seton sells MAPS workbooks which are geography work books.  Some kids love them and others don't.  My kids happen to love them.  I ask them to complete one lesson per week in their MAPS book. They date it and complete it, and when they turn in their BINGO, I check that page and go over an errors with them.

A sample page from Maps Book D

These are all the levels of Maps Books.  A is appropriate for most first graders.

3.  Creative and Critical Thinking: a workbook of fun brain teaser kind of activities that they started this summer. We buy something for them to do over the summer so their brains don't turn to mush.  As it turns out, these books are really fun, although lighter on the math content than I had wanted, but they encourage critical thinking and problem solving, some math and some logic and creativity.  

4.  I want to use the Story of Civilization materials in both morning time and BINGO because, again, this year morning time needs to be short and sweet.  For each chapter there are many sections, most of which are more academic. 

There are also crafts or recipes or experiments which I will do on Fridays, and there are puzzles like cross words, word searches, etc. which they will do for BINGO to reinforce topics.  

and these parts for Bingo.

We can use these parts in morning time...

5. Proper Manners and Health Habits:  Here is another example of a book we bought and didn't finish.  I don't know if we will this time either.  It is super old school, but it reviews safety rules which I want the older boys to review as they are slowly preparing to babysit and since they already help a lot with their littler siblings. It also reviews life skill things like how to set the table and eating a balanced diet.  This is not going to be their favorite thing.  Health class wasn't mine either. Oh well.  They will do it so they get their prize.  It builds character for some things to be boring, right?

So...Do you want to see our beautiful "take one" of an agenda?

I will "zoom in" on a few parts just to make a couple of last comments on this EXTREMELY long post.

This is their list of morning time plans.  I have a tab in my "teacher binder" that has a page with a bit more detail, like the list of songs and poems that we're using, and it that holds all the memory work that is printed and ready to go for the year.  As we get to new content, I give them their pages to put in their binders.

Also, you can see that for the 3rd and 4th quarters, I do not have a strict plan in place.  If we like what we're doing, I will plan for similar things, but since there is a lot of life between now and then, I am leaving it open.

This is the tentative plan for working with each child.  I am going to try doing spelling downstairs during breakfast. I am open to that changing.  I only point this out for the 67th time because so many of my new-to-homeschooling friends (and I) have a hard time accepting that plans have to be flexible.

Also, Thomas is going to use PALS in the morning and we will start Before Five in a Row, too.  It can be a full preschool curriculum or it can be an "add on" depending on how you use it.  I will have to see what works for us.

Finally, Max is starting a new Latin program, and I have no idea how involved it will be.  It is a program that only requires, I think 32 weeks to do, so we can easily start it a few weeks into the school year.  If he starts and it isn't working where we put it in the day, it might be something we do after dinner or something.  I make notes like this to help me and Max stay calm.

Max and Charlie do BINGO during school time in the morning if they are waiting for me (so much better to keep them busy!), but they can also do it during quiet time or after.  In the cold months when we are stuck inside, I like to be able to suggest it if they tell me they're bored.  Usually, they don't, though, because I just give them extra chores since I am mean.

This seems like SO much thinking and planning, but again, since I front load the year by planning the pace of each book, the content for morning time and BINGO, it is like those RonCo Rotisserie Chicken Infomercials: You set it and forget it (mostly).  I spend very little time over the weekends of my school year planning or grading anything ever.  The only planning I do is the ongoing, fun planning for Five in a Row and Story of Civilization (mainly looking ahead to make shopping lists of craft, experiment, and baking supplies) and the quick "checking in" kind of things for math, the pacing of those books, and switching out BINGO topics.  

PS. I sincerely feel that if you have read this whole long post, you should give yourself some kind of prize.  Well done you, and thank you for reading.  Best wishes to you as you plan your school year. Knock 'em dead, break a leg, bon Voyage, and may God bless you!

Planning part three: The books are here...now what?!

Ok, so if you have mapped out your calendar for the year, and you have set some goals and purchased books based on those goals and your tentative plan, AND the books have arrived...what do you do next?

If you purchased a boxed curriculum, you usually get a set of lesson plans right in the box.  You can choose to use those plans.  They usually encourage you to fill out a teacher plan book and write lesson plans like the good ole' days, and that can be very satisfying.  BUT write in pencil because plans change.

Sometimes companies send you a sample of their lesson plans.  I think this is helpful to see the pace they set, but it also confirms for me that I prefer my method.  It is a lot less complicated, which means it is more likely to actually happen!

If you are like me, someone else's plans aren't going to be a good fit, so you get to start from scratch.  I used to write out much more detailed plans. for preschool. seriously.  Old habits die hard.  I loved my "Students will be able to..." objectives from my public school days.  This isn't that though, and I realized how much extra time I was putting into planning than I needed to. again...for preschool! I just wanted everything to be perfect for my sweet little darlings and I worried too much about everything.  I wish I could go back and reassure myself, but since I can't, I will reassure you.  Have a simple plan and you will be fine!

So...what can you do instead?  I'll tell you what I do now that is a lot more basic and still quite effective.

I make an agenda that lays out the plan for the day (and I will post about that in Planning Part Four), but first I look at each book to get a sense of how often each book will be used.  It seems kind of backwards, but it works for me. 

For many subjects, anything that uses a student work book especially, to plan the year's work schedule, you do not need anything more than some post-it notes and a pencil and maybe a calculator.  I will use Max's new Seton English 5 book as an example.

1. Open the book and see how many pages there are total: Excluding the appendix and answer key, 287 pages.

I am not a professional photographer if you can't tell haha.

2. Flip through the book and guess about how many pages are pictures/ not really content.  The higher level books have few pictures.  I am going to guess about 10 pages.  So 287-10=277 pages of content.

3. Divide by the sections of the year (four if you use quarters, half if you plan by semester...)
How many sections are you breaking your year into? I am going with four quarters, so I can either divide by four or by two to determine either my approximate page goals for the quarter or the half way point of our school year.  I sometimes do both. Half of 277 is 138.5, so let's go with 139.  277/4 =69.25, so let's go with 70.

4.  Write the pages down in the front of the book: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th quarter and the page numbers OR "Half way through on page 139"

5.  Figure out how many pages you need to do per day to get enough pages done in your set amount of time.
Think about how many days are in the quarter or half of the year: 9 weeks with five days a week means each quarter has 45 days.  How do I want to fit 70 pages into 45 days?  Some pages are the explanation and not an exercise, so I don't actually worry too much about how many pages we do each day.  I tend to think more in terms of lessons, so...flip through the book again.  How many pages is each lesson? A few pages, three or four on average. So...the aim would be to do about three to four lessons per week. 

We will be "ahead" if do four all the time, but maybe we start with four and then around Christmas when things are really busy we cut back to just two for little while.  Maybe he gets sick in November and we don't do school for a week at all or he just does math lessons before listening to audio books and napping.  No problem because we were ahead.

See how nice and flexible this is?  If you know your big goal posts, you can't get too behind. Just make a mental note or a reminder in your calendar to check on your "book goal posts" at the beginning of each quarter. 

If you see that you're behind, pick up the pace or remind yourself that it is also absolutely fine in you choose to take a bit more time with that book.  No one says you have to actually finish the whole of every book in 180 days.  As a public school teacher, I can promise you that that never happened. Kids sometimes aren't ready to absorb everything we place before them at certain point.  Wisdom and prudence (and conversations with other veteran home school moms and good friends!) help us decide whether they're being a little lazy or ornery or whether they really need to switch gears or just slow down.

Another way to do this is look at the table of contents.  How many chapters are there?  In Seton English 5 there are 9 chapters, so I could aim to complete one chapter per month knowing that we test in May and I would prefer not to have any English left then.

The younger kids are, the simpler their books, and the more straightforward this method is.  I do think that in a few years, as we approach high school, I will have more particular plans for some subjects at least, but for now, for the elementary years, I really like this planning approach for workbook kind of learning.

There is actually something even easier to consider for somethings...
The "no lesson planning method":
I have a confession to make: sometimes I don't even do the above described amount of planning for a subject.  I do almost no planning AT ALL for math, and spelling and sometimes composition (depending on the program).  If I know that we are on lesson 124 in math, tomorrow we will do lesson 125 and we will probably do five lessons for the week EXCEPT that maybe we won't.  Maybe Charlie will hit a wall and clearly need more time on something, so we will stay on that lesson. I will review the main concepts, and I will give him some made up sample problems the next day or until it makes sense.

Yes, you read that correctly. I have NO plan for how quickly we should move through math and spelling.  I am concerned about mastery, not the pace at which we move.  

I used to wonder if doing this was "ok" but after my kids have done extremely well in the math sections of their end-of-the-year standardized tests, which I know do not give a full and complete picture but are a helpful piece of the puzzle of assessment, I worry a lot less.  

Our math program, RightStart Math, is a great fit for us, and it helps students learn to think about math in a different way than I had ever been taught.  I will write a post about the curriculum choices we have made soon, but I will just say for now that RightStart Math is an excellent option if you are looking for math curriculum.

In this "no lesson planning" method, I do one thing to be prepared. I look ahead in the teacher book especially for math.  At the start of the quarter I flip through the next ...30 to 40 lessons or so.  I make a list in my day planner or on my phone in case we need anything like an empty quart container or glue sticks.  I do this every now and then very organically, so I know what is  next, but I don't stress about it at all.  If it seems too loosey-goosey, that's ok! Make a note in a planner or on your phone calendar to check once a month or once every 6-8 weeks on the upcoming lessons.

For Charlie's composition program, I take this same approach.  I look ahead and make sure I have an idea of what we're doing, and that's it.  I have no agenda about the pace except that we will work on it a few days a week.  He is so little and so smart, and I see no need to rush.  I aim for three days a week for him each week.  If we get there, great.  If not, we will get to more of it next week.  When I was in second grade, the only writing we did was "creative writing" and I don't remember how often we did it, but thanks to my mother being a pick of a "saver of things" I have ALL the writing I did in second grade.  Let me tell you, it wasn't pretty, but it was fun.  I love to write now, so somehow it all worked out. I refuse to force my little guys to write a lot and then hate it.  I saw so many burned out high school students in my classroom.  One of my goals is that my kids enjoy reading, writing, and math.  Less is more.

(As a side note, they actually love writing stories, joke books, comics, etc. when I don't make them! They have hilarious imaginations and these great ideas pop up especially when we are on school breaks.  I will be tidying up and come across some new "chapter book" they are co-authoring or some comic page they made for their grandfather.  If we don't drill our kids to death and insist that they have quiet time to be bored without screens, they will be creative in the ways that naturally suit them!)

I love everything about this...especially those titles! 

I can't wait to hear how it ends!

This method of "not a lot of planning" is that it works best if you front load the week and the year.  It is better to start strong and get "ahead" in a book or program than to inch your way along and not make progress and not get in the habit of doing work right away.

BUT you still need a way to record what you did.  You will wonder later, and depending on where you live, you might be required to show your kids' work.

In order to track our progress, I have my kids put the date on EVERYTHING.  I look when I check each page and I won't even check it if there isn't a date.

Last year I had the boys use a check sheet to track completed work.  This year I have a plan to use a day planner.  I want to shift the onus to them for keeping track of assignments.  We are using the Catholic Sprouts planner. I will share some pictures of it and update the blog a few weeks in share how it is going.

I plan for Max and Charlie to write an abbreviation for each of their subjects per day with a check or X once they're done.  I have a list in the front part of the planner for them to reference, and I know this will take some practice to get it right.

My last thought about this: If it is too stressful to not plan/ not write out lesson plans, then don't do this!  The main goal of planning simply is that should be simple and not stressful.  The plan is there to serve you, and what works will look different for everyone!  I used to write out much more detailed notes for each day, and I needed that step in my journey.  Be true to what feels comfortable for you with planning, and be open to evolving over time as you settle in to your routine.  Change does not mean failure.  Change means growth.

Planning Part two: Goal setting and making your shopping list in five steps

After I have a tentative plan for the year, I immediately want to buy curriculum.  I want to be like Belle in Beauty and the Beast riding that ladder along the book shelves.  I want all.the.books. and Dixon Ticonderoga Number 2 pencils! All those lovely catalogs call to me.  They dangle that promise of a perfect school year, but I know I must resist until I figure out what the goals are.  After all, what is the point of buying anything to help us learn if I don't have a little bit of a plan in place right?

STEP ONE: I start with setting goals and thinking about what I want the year to look like. We always try to study some things all together, so I begin to dream a little about that.  I ask my kids questions, too. What would they like to study? Is there something we did last year that they really love? We went out to brunch and lunch to discuss these things as an end of the year treat.

After I set goals for academics and life skills and activities, and I come up with a tentative list of topics for our morning time group study, I also think of the "traditional areas of study" because, of course, we all have blind spots.  I tend to go toward the arts, history, English and religion, and I really like our math curriculum and science...is...just not my thing.  I have come to accept it!  Of course, they still need to learn science things.  If only we could just nature journal our way through the years..*sigh*, but we can't.  So...I look at all these considerations and I think back to what we did last year, and I scribble out a plan for the year.  Which things do I want to do together in a group, one on one with each child and what topics can some of the kids do on their own (before I check it and review it with them)?

Little side note: If you are new to home schooling, it might seem difficult to know what your goals are, but really...think about it.  What did you like about the educational approach your child was using?  What did they like?  What wasn't cutting it for you?  Was there any area where a teacher suggested remediation or where you saw a need to accelerate the pace/ level of the curriculum?  What kinds of things do you like to learn and teach about? What would your kids get super excited to learn about?


How I actually set goals: I use a piece of paper and write down each child's name and then "academic goals" and "life skills/ activities" and brainstorm a list.  I also use a list of traditional school subjects to help me see a broader picture and avoid blind spots.

 It is easier now, in some ways, because I know that I want to make progress with a certain history program or I know where we left off with a poetry memorization system and plan to keep that going.  It is more difficult now, though, because I have more little people, and as my older kids get older, it does feel that the stakes get higher. When I start to worry, I read and reread a few books that help me to calm down and mentally get my big girl panties on and just get the show on the road.  Think: It can be done, and I can do it.

With academic goal-setting, I try to highlight the main topics that I feel need the most attention, things that were difficult last year, things that are new to us this year, etc. For example,  Max will be starting a new Latin program and I don't really know where we will fit it in and how much he will need me.  Last year I felt the school days were getting too long and I cut back on some things about 2/3 of the way through the year.  I worry a little about how adding new things will prolong our days.  Charlie will work on writing paragraphs this year and continuing with narration. Thomas is so excited about learning to read, but he is so little and I want him slow down.  He needs more training in being patient and following directions than anything else!


After I write down academic goals, I think of activities and life skills. In what areas do I see the need for growth?  In what areas do I see some interest or growth already that I want to foster? Are there moral/ virtue kind of things I see need to be addressed?  I note areas where a child might need a little extra push, and I think about what might make the year more fun. Max and Charlie both would like to continue with piano lessons and a variety of "extra curriculars" that we can't really bank on because who knows that to expect with Covid?!  I will plan for what I can.

Thomas is so eager to read.  He loves Bob books.

STEP TWO (optional): Read or reread some things about planning, home schooling, trusting in God, etc.
What are some of these helpful books I am reading and revisiting this year?
Pretty much every year, I look at my copy of the very helpful Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum to see what the wise Laura Berquist has to say about our current/ upcoming grades.  I don't actually use the Classical method or at least not strictly, but in general it works for us to plan with it in mind.

This book is so helpful to me, to the point, wise, calm.  I read and come away feeling like I can do this.

I also read Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie or at least flip through it to the sections I have underlined.  She makes so many excellent points, but a few that really guide me: 1. Planning is guessing 2.  We don't have that much time to do school after we factor in life first, so plan with life in mind vs. trying to make life happen around a super packed, unrealistic joyless school plan 3.  God asks us to place everything we can offer, which is pretty meager, "our loaves and fishes", in front of Him and we can ask him humbly to multiply our efforts.  If we feel small and unable, well, good.  We are small.
Was is St. Catherine of Sienna who heard God tell her "I am He who is, and you are she who is not" ?  I find that so helpful.  We aren't God.  We aren't going to be perfect, but we can guess well, be realistic, and set everything in front of Him as our little offering and ask God to bless our efforts and help our kids grow.  What else is there really?!

I am also reading Mother Culture by Karen Andreola which looks at motherhood and home schooling from a Charlotte Mason perspective.  The more I read, the more I like it.  The reflection questions at the end of each short chapter are excellent journal prompts and have helped me recharge and reflection as I look ahead.

STEP THREE: Consider the blind spots by looking over a list of areas of study AND...
My list of areas of study, in which there is some overlap:
English (literature-reading comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, phonics, composition, grammar)
Poetry
Religion (which is both an academic subject and just living the Liturgical Year which is more like life than school, so things can get complicated in my head...)
Memory work
Math
History
Geography
Science
Art
Music
Latin

Think about how you want to use your day:
What are your needs?
Do you have very little ones who will be unpredictable?
Are your school-aged kids able to sit for a while, or are they still little and need breaks to move around?
Do you want to do school Monday to Friday? Will there be days that are set aside for a co-op or other ongoing program or lessons? Do you want to do a morning meeting/ morning time?


Some thoughts about morning time:
We love morning time.  It is kind of how we accidentally started home schooling before I realized it had a name.  We would sit on the couch after breakfast and read, and then I thought it might be nice to start the day with a little prayer, so pray, read, take a walk...and then suddenly, Max was learning to read and we had really begun.

Since we have always started with Morning Time, even though this year it will shift a little, we will still do that.  What seems to work for us is "Pray, date/ calendar time, sing (some years it has been hymns, some years folk songs, songs from Song School Latin, songs from movies just to make everyone smile...), poetry memorization (which for the past few years has been us chipping away at the IEW Poetry memorization program, but before that was random poems I picked), and then "one other thing" and that has changed a lot...Here are some thoughts about that:
You can schedule the "one other thing" using a loop, by day, or by chunks of time, which some call the "deep dive".

The loop idea is that you make a list of a few topics and you start on day one with the first thing, day two the second, and so on, but if you miss a day for any reason, you aren't behind because you just go to the next item on your list. A loop might be: "Art Study, Math logic puzzles, science topic, geography workbook" and then you do one each day and loop around and around.  You get a more even spread of topics, but it can also feel a little "all over the place" especially if you have little people and you can't even finish a sentence without someone crying or needing to nurse or something.

We have also done the kind of plan where the "one other thing" was done by day like "Monday: science topic, Tuesday: Math logic puzzles, Wednesday: Art Study" etc.  The problem with that approach is that if you often miss a certain day, you  might miss out on a large chunk of one topic, or you start to feel behind and that you need to double up.

I think this year we are going to try the "deep dive" method where we spend a few weeks on one topic as our "one other thing" so we can still start with prayer and a song and a poem for memory work, and then we do the "one other thing" as a deep dive and go to the topic every day for a week or two weeks or whatever.  We can do that content all together, and I can get the older boys off on their own work while I do a little something with Thomas for preschool unless he's done at that point OR I can work with Max and Charlie can have "Peter Time" and then we can switch.

We used to do "Tom Time" where one of the big boys helped with the baby for a bit while I did math with the other.  If learning to help a fussy baby isn't a life skill worth having, I don't know what is!

This is where the "planning is guessing" idea helps.  I don't really know what will work, so what I do is make a good guess, and we try it for a few weeks.  Then, I sit down and do some reflecting and thinking and praying. What is working? What isn't working?  Sometimes it is a disaster, but really that is good! That helps make things really clear: Don't do that thing.  It is not a good fit for right now.  Switch gears now!

Sometimes there are a few revisions to the plan before it works.  Putting all these observations "to paper" helps me see that I really do have every reason to be calm.  I so badly want to "get it right" right away, but the reality of all home school years, at least for me, is that things shift and we all grow and the plans change to reflect that AND THAT IS GOOD!

To summarize: Before buying books of any sort...
1. Goal set academics, life skills and activities for each child.
2. (optional) Read and/ or pray about home schooling and think slowly about the year ahead.
3.  Consider your blind spots and think big picture.  Think about the subjects for individual work and independent work for each child. Do you want to do some subjects each day? Once a week?
4.  Map out your day roughly.  It is ok to not have all the answers, to guess, and to hope you're picking things with feeling certain that you are.  Make a planning list *which is also a shopping list* by kid and subject, note which things we already have and if there are topics we want to cover but don't know what to use yet.  Then...
5. Shop! Take the leap and buy your books and pencils and pencils and post-it notes and crayons and paper! It is going to be a great year!

Since we already have certain books/ curriculum going, it is a lot easier now to make a shopping list now.  If we did Seton English 4 and it was good, then we are going to go on to Seton English 5.  If we left off with RightStart Math level C and are almost to D, we will need to make sure we have the teacher and student books for that level ready for when we need it.

Picking new curriculum can be so exciting and fun and stressful all at the same time, and I will write more about that another time, but for now, I want to make sure I document the planning process that precedes buying anything.

Planning part one: how I think about the school year

Not super tidy, but it works!

It has taken me a while to work out a system I like for planning for the homeschool year and the daily stuff.  I start with planning out my year.  This is where the public school teacher in me comes out a bit because I still think of my school year as four, nine week periods.  The flexibility of homeschool means, though, that those nine weeks can start anytime, breaks can happen anytime, and the "nine weeks" don't even actually have to be nine weeks long (my last nine weeks isn't!). I have a ten week period to build in flexibility for sick days and days we took off for other reasons (like that the weather was so beautiful that we couldn't stand being inside!).

I start by listing the dates that are important to us: we almost always go to the beach in July and early September, travel for Thanksgiving, take a long break at Christmas, and we take off Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the week after Easter.  We also take time off before Lent sometimes to visit my in-laws or go have an adventure somewhere warm.  On my phone I make a little list of those holiday dates and a guess of the weeks we might be away at other times. 

I use Microsoft Word's calendar template and plug in the information like a title and break times first.  Then I think about a start date.  We usually start the week after our parish's VBS which is the first week of August, but since Covid changed that, we are starting the first week of August. 

This is a strange season in which everything has just been...different.  A spring without playgrounds and visits to the Botanical Garden, but thankfully we still got outside a lot.

A summary of my approach:

1. List important dates

2. Find a free calendar template or just use a real calendar and a pencil

3. Pick a start date

4.  Start counting up weeks.  Play around with things.  Do I want a long Christmas break? Do I want only two weeks of school in December so I can get more holiday magic happening? etc.

Note: We might not take a full week off in reality, for example, when I had planned to if we have a little bit of math to catch up or we are int he middle of something neat and I don't want to lose steam.

5. Make copies and make sure everyone in the family is on the same page. I like to print the calendar and highlight it.  I make a few copies: one to go next to my kitchen family calendar, one for my teacher binder, and now that my oldest boys are getting a little bigger, I like them to have copies, too.  

After I know what our year will look like, I can start to dream about magical days of discovery (insert toddler and preschooler) and then I adjust to come up with a simple, realistic plan of how to do the day.

A few other things I do to help me think about the year:

Our attendance page is very simple.  I like that I write in the date and can see very easily by "ten" how many days we have done.

I keep track of attendance and a "family events" by month because it helps me see physical proof of the work we're doing and the life we're living.  It is a list of anything we have done beyond going to church and doing school work.  I list birthday parties, field trips, errands outside of the normal kind of stuff, anything where we might have learned something, anything where we had fun.  I also try to write down the books we have read aloud and any of the story books we use for the Five in a Row curriculum.  It is fun to look back.  I make notes like "We saw Baby Thomas roll over!" too. 

Our herbs, and a basketball to help with soil ph. *Kidding* Thomas just leaves toys everywhere.

This all helps me when I get into those moods where I ask myself, "Are we doing "enough?" I see that we're traveling and going places and looking for opportunities to learn, and hey when we're stuck at home because of a pandemic, we made the most of it because we did all this stuff we usually don't make a priority (Like Max is helping Jonathan build a bed! I have started an exercise program! We are catching up on crafts I didn't have time for this winter! We tried to grow seeds to start an herb garden, which failed, but then we bought starter herbs so it's all good!)

To make an attendance page, I googled "free attendance page" I think many years ago and then I made a grid and filled in my own information.  You could use a piece of graph or notebook paper, too.

The "Family Events" pages help me to look back and see the good stuff instead of focusing on that nagging question of "Did I do enough????" Under the month I write the books we have read aloud or listened to on Audible.

To make a monthly "family events" page, again, you can literally use notebook paper or you could make a very simple "table" in Word.  I make a folder for each year in Word and then it is very easy to go to documents, update the dates and grades, and "save as" the new year's attendance page and so forth.  The first year you do all of this, then, you will spend the most time. 

When I print all these things, I keep them in a binder which I will post about at another time.  

You have a friend who homeschools!

It has been years since I wrote on this blog. Back when I started, we were just really dipping our toes in to the idea of homeschooling.  I had two babies, and I was having health issues. Everyone was blogging or thinking about it.  Then, in the busy-ness of life and then having more kids and moving to a new house ...just, you know...it slipped away.

Now a family with four boys! We have been outside a lot since everything is closed. 

I had totally forgotten about it until Covid hit and everyone was suddenly trying their hand at some form of home education.  I was getting texts and emails, calls and pms on Facebook from friends and friends of friends asking me all sorts of questions about how we homeschool. It has been my pleasure, truly, to be allowed a glimpse into another family's life and routine, especially when they are switching gears and maybe feeling vulnerable or stressed, and I truly appreciate the trust people place in me as a resource. I am the first to admit that I am not an expert! I don't know what will work for another family, but I will listen and try to help, and I do have a few ideas that might be worth weighing along with the many other far more polished expert opinions out there.

Our last day of the 2019-20 school year! A success, but not perfection!

Sometimes I wonder how we homeschool too, but it works out well most of the time!

Mainly, I want all women who are considering or who are currently homeschooling to feel like they have an ally, a friend who homeschools who will be in their corner. I am blessed to know some amazing homeschool moms and other moms who have helped me grow, who share their wisdom and encourage me, and I know what a gift that is.  So...my goal here is to try to answer some of the questions recently asked of me in a more public format, so that I can share this information more readily with anyone who might find it helpful.  If this is something that seems useful, we'll go from there...