Homeschool Planning Day 2

Yesterday I spent the day preparing for my week of homeschool planning by purging and cataloging our resources.  Today I am beginning the planning process by looking at the big picture…deciding what subjects the boys will cover, what materials we will use just how the year will play out.

Here are my favorite forms for this process.  First, a course of study sheet from donnayoung.org.

I write down the subjects each boy will be covering this year and then start my research into which curriculum I want to use for each subject.  I didn’t have to get this detailed when I first started homeschooling with ds1 13 YEARS AGO!  I went with Abeka for everything until I had the first year or so under my belt and began mixing and matching our curriculum to fit each boy’s needs.

Here is ds3’s course of study sheet from last year (well, technically this year but I’m confused enough as it is so let’s just call it last year.)  I keep this in my household binder in the homeschool section to refer back to throughout the school year.

After completing the course of study form I head on to my next most useful tool in the planning process…this year-at-a-glance form from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.  I use it for subjects like science and history or other subjects that I basically create unit studies for instead of following a textbook or curriculum.  I can write down what topics I want to cover each week in a subject.  The pic shows ds4’s MFW Kindergarten themes week by week.

After I have the big picture painted I get down to the nitty gritty of specific lesson plans for each subject.  But that is for another day (or week or month or however long the Tylenol lasts.)  And since it is our spring break the boys are already begging to “go somewhere.”  What they don’t understand is that, even though it is sunny and the highs do (barely) reach the 70’s, the gulf water is still quite cold…as in we can go to the beach but there will be no swimming.  This actually  brought tears to ds3’s eyes this morning lol!  I think they will come around, though, once they put one little toe in to test…what am I saying?  I know boys, and they will jump in anyway!  Maybe a trip to the park or zoo is in order instead.  ;)