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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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