Now that I have all the resources I will use for the coming school year in hand, or, I should say in bins and boxes, it's time to decide how and when they will be used. For too many years, I stopped my planning process at the previous stage. Once I had all my books, sorted by who would use them, I considered my planning complete. The problem is that I never really felt like I was getting everything from the resources I had ordered. Math was easy, I just followed the book. But many of the other resources I used should have been better planned out. If you are an unschooler, or someone who does not like to plan you might find that this post seems like over doing it. But for our homeschool I find it necessary. So, the next step then is going through each resource and making some important decisions.
I would like to note here, that I don't do any of this planning for my daughter, Social Butterfly. She is enrolled with Mother of Divine Grace so in her case, all the planning is done for me. This is a great fit for my daughter and each year they add new services to help us busy homeschooling moms out. This year Social Butterfly will have the advantage of taking a few on-line courses provided my MODG. We are both very excited about this. I do not have my sons enrolled yet. I decided to hold off for a couple of years since I really enjoy making the decisions regarding what they will learn and when. But like their sister, they will all be enrolled by 8th grade, if not sooner. I have nothing but good things to say about Mother of Divine Grace. Now, back to the planning...
This year, I am using a very helpful e-book from Simply Charlotte Mason called Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education. This is a very thorough planning resource that takes you through several steps to, in my opinion, getting the most from the resources you have taken the time to gather and possibly purchase. This book takes you through the stages of planning, from looking at the year as a whole, to breaking down your day. The steps look very much like the steps I have been blogging about, since I am using this tool, but I have tweaked things to suit our needs a bit better.
I really appreciate the tables that are included in Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education. The book shows how to fill them out, providing examples, and includes a section in the back containing more blank tables that can be used. One of the first tables to be filled in, once you have all the resources in hand is the "Term Outline Chart". On this chart you will list each resource, how you want to divide it (pages, lessons, chapters, etc.), how many of these divisions there are, and how you want to distribute the divisions into your school terms. For example, one of the books we will use this year is the Baltimore Catechism #2. I noted that this book has "lessons" for the divisions and there are 37 total. The chart in Planning Your CM Education divides the year into three 12 week terms, so doing a bit of math, I know we need to accomplish 13 lessons for one term and 12 for the other two. I, personally, have divided my year into 6 six week terms. I just find it easier to plan that way so I added a few columns to the chart and divided the book further which means I have 6 columns noting that we will cover six lessons each term, and one term adding a 7th.
The next form this book provides is the Weekly Work Worksheet. This is a worksheet you will fill out for each term. Here you will list the subjects, the books chosen for each subject, the number of division for the term you are planning and the number of days you will use that resource. Back to the Baltimore Catechism example, I listed it as Religion, Baltimore Catechsim 2, 37 divisions (lessons), and 6 for Term 1. That means we will cover 6 lessons in the first term. For number of days, I put 4 because I will spread each lesson out over 4 days. For "living books", like in the case of historical fiction, I might decide to have my child read the entire book in one term or divide it among several terms. I would simply need to note the number of chapters to be read for each term the book will be used.
Planning Your CM Education then goes on to show you how to create a weekly schedule and plug the resources in, according to the number of days you will be using them. There is much more to this book, many examples and helpful tips to aid you in your planning. It also provides chapters on how to choose resources, Charlotte Mason recommendations, planning your day, and more. I highly recommend it as a planning tool.
Once I've used these tools to help me with the break down of the books we will use, I break them down farther with a chart I make on Word. It is a simple chart, just listing the week number, resource, and pages or lessons to be accomplished. I use this chart to create my weekly lesson plans, or sometimes I just use the chart as the plan and cross things off as we go. I really like the way Sarah color codes her lists. I think I will use that idea as I go through this step of the planning process. While I sometimes think I need lengthy paragraphs describing what we will do in the various subjects I realize that in the midst of a busy day with children in various grades and little ones getting into things that all I really need is the book and page number. If I need to get more information regarding an assignment I can always look it up. This chart gives me a nice, at a glance, look at what we need to accomplish each day and where we are at in terms of our goals. Below is a portion of Jetter's chart, so you can see the layout. I just need to plug in what pages from the resources he will be doing. You wont see religion, science, or memory work listed because they go on a seperate "Family" Chart. We are doing those subjects together this year.
Lesson Plans for Grade 6, 2012-2013
Week/Day
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Saxon 7/6
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Language
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Diagramming
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Latin for Children
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Spelling Wisdom
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Daily Paragraph
Editing
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History
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Art
Drafting
Sketchbook
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1.1
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1.2
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1.3
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1.4
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2.1
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Finally, I want to talk about one other planning tool I am using this year. It actually comes from another e-book that I purchased several years ago. I got The Tanglewood Corebook to use as my planner one year. It was very nice and helpful but after that year I no longer used it. However, in this corebook, there are pages that I find quite helpful. One of these is a sheet for listing your goals for the year in each subject, divided by term. This is similar to the chart I talked about above, but it's lay out is a bit different. First, it's divided into 6 week terms. For each six weeks, you simply note what chapter or lesson you should be on for each subject at the end of that term. I find this helpful for subjects like math, grammar and spelling, especially. Then there is another chart, to be filled out at the end of the term where you note which chapter or lesson you are on, verses the goal you had set at the start of that year or term. You then note what adjustments you need to make, if any, to reach the original goal. I think this will help me to stay accountable to my goals. So often I find that life sweeps us away with it and the original goals I had set are not attainable. Evaluating every six weeks will help us stay on track, and help me to see if my goals are even realistic.
This part of the planning process takes quite a bit of time and I usually do it in spurts, whenever I have some free time. From this step, I will go on to how I communicate to my children what their responsibilities are for each day. This year I'll be using a combination of past methods, depending on the personality and needs of each child. This will be the content of my next post. If you missed the last planning posts, here are the links ~
Beginning the Planning Process
Setting Goals
The School Calendar
Choosing Resources
Hunting and Gathering
Cleaning the School Room
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