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