Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Planning...next steps

I've talked a lot about planning lately...but once you have all those wonderful materials for next year, now what?

Since I use a wide range of materials, nothing is planned out for me. It's a lot of work over the summer, but when you are sitting on the patio enjoying the beautiful sunshine with some cold lemonade, it is actually quite enjoyable.

The first step, is page through all the materials and try to decide how to break up long chapters into manageable pieces, or decide how many days a week we will use the materials. Then I sit down with my planning grids and write away...I plan everything from quizzes to movies to extra books from the library...All of this up-front work saves a lot of time during the school year.


This grid is set up to plan any subject for up to 5 days a week. You are welcome to get a free copy of my planner at the following link: Blank Lesson Planner. (When you print it, be sure to change the orientation to landscape so it prints correctly.)

I fill one of these lesson planners out for each subject. Then as we go through our school year, I check off the boxes as the assignments are completed. I like the flexibility of this system - if Little Man wants to do an extra lesson of Math, I just check off an extra box and it hasn't ruined weeks of plans.

Then I take the lesson plans by subject and put them on individual assignment sheets for each of my kids. Yes, this is a bit labor intensive, but necessary in our house. The kids were confused looking over the grids to find their assignments and I got tired of having to write each assignment on the white board. I print out one week's worth of assignment sheets and put them in a 3 ring binder. The kids can look at their assignments even if I'm busy.

I only plan one week at a time. (And, coincidentally, I don't post on Fridays because I usually spend that afternoon after co-op planning for the following week.) If someone isn't able to complete everything on their assignment sheet, it just gets moved forward to the following week. If someone completes extra lessons, I record them and check them off on the planners - again, it doesn't mess up 2 weeks worth of carefully planned assignment sheets.



I've found this is a really useful assignment sheet, 1 page per day for upper grades (6th +). You are welcome to get a free copy at the following link: Assignment Sheet Upper Grades. When I use this for Precious Girl, I print it 2 sided so I don't waste paper.

Here is a link to the another week-at-a-time assignment sheet for those who like that system better: Assignment Sheet Weekly. (Be sure to change the orientation to landscape so it prints properly.)

I hope these resources were helpful to you!

Blessings as you plan,



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