Reverse planner
I do really poorly with homeschool planners. I am really good at making them and my post on the old Crafty Mama about making your own planner is still visited (thanks to Google) almost daily.
Once I get my planner all set up, I only use it for about a week and stop. Then, when I decide to get organized again, I use it for a week and stop, again!
I said in January that I wanted to get more structured, so again, I have been through my planner use and non-use cycle. How useless!
I decided that I do not need to have a lesson plan to be structured. If I am using a book or other pre-planned curriculum, I only need to pick up where we left off. If I am planning my own lessons, I just need to have them planned out, but not penciled in on a specific day in a planner.
This way, I can set a time when we will do school every day, but the kids and I can still have the freedom to choose which subject to do, in what order, and how much. Sometimes, they do a few days worth on one subject and then skip a few days. I am flexible enough for that, which is partly why a planner does not work well for me.
My problem is in knowing how much we have done and whether or not we have enough time to finish everything before the school year is over and I need to submit my paperwork to the state.
My solution is the reverse planner. Instead of writing out what we will do on each day, something that we never end up following, I write in what we did do each day. This way, I have a record of what we did. This will help me with my report to the state at the end of the year and I can use it to figure out, at any point, where we are with respect to our curriculum for the year.
I am using a Mary Engelbreit lesson planner that I picked up at the Scholastic Warehouse sale for 50% off. On the weekly planner pages, I write the seven areas of study that are required for the state and list what we did each day under the proper heading. If we do anything additional, I list it in a separate category, for my own knowledge.
Now I have a record of what we did and where we are at, without being tied down to a written plan.
1Dana
wrote on 9 February 2007 at 5:34
I’m not good with planners, either. Then I had a way cool idea. My long term goal is for my child to take on more and more responsibility in this area until sometime in her adolescence she takes on most of the responsibility with some direction and supervision from mom.
So, I thought, why not start young? At the beginning of the unit, I get out all my stuff and she sits and plans with me. We talk about the general overview of the unit, write down what kind of information we need to find and make up sort of plan. Then each week we sit down and I have her write in her planner the broad themes for the week and she makes out a list of things we need to pick up at the store or the library.
Now that we have made this a part of school rather than preparation for school, it is magically getting done rather consistently.
And I think my daughter is learning a lot about what we are doing and why.
2Charity
wrote on 9 February 2007 at 13:53
Great suggestion. Thanks for sharing it.
3Proverbs31
wrote on 23 February 2007 at 7:19
I do the same thing. I plan what I would like to do… but then I record what we actually DID do.
I wrote all about that not too long ago myself.
Be blessed!