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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
* 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 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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. |
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.
 |
| 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.
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are always welcome. Being mean is not : )