This past week, Dragon was at his camp, and it was incredible how quiet it was around here! I always find it interesting how taking just one child out of the mix creates a different atmosphere. Please don't get me wrong, I would never wish to change anything about my children or how many I have :) but it is something I notice every time one is away. The same thing happened while Fairy was at her theatre day camp last month. This week, the girls played many "girl" games with their dolls, read or listened to "girl" stories, painted and even made some felt play food...which the kitten got a hold off and pretty much destroyed!
I took advantage of the quiet times to finish off my planning for the school year. I had already decided which curriculum/resources to use, but now is the part when I sit down and work out the schedule. The schedule I make is more of a helpful guideline. I basically look at each subject and see how many lessons or chapters we want to cover over the year. I also plan out how often we will do each subject, daily or 2 or 3 times a week. I try to plan out the whole year and fit in special projects, such as the Iditarod or the Journey North Mystery Class. I can also see how much time we can plan for breaks or vacation...I am still debating over following a different schedule this year, maybe doing school for 5 weeks and taking the 6th week as a break to do something different (a unit study or special project). We are almost ready to start again...in September!
Hello,
ReplyDeleteJust visiting from the homeschooling carnival - I think alot of moms are working out the schedule/guideline for the coming year. Most of mine is still in my head, but I'll have to get it on paper soon to keep us on track. We had to start seeing it as a guideline and allow flexibility for special event and projects that arise spontaneously - if I try to stick rigorously to a schedule I would drive myself nuts and take the fun out of school!
Thanks for the post, always good to see how others set up their school.
I'm still working on mine as well - last year was our first year as homeschoolers and we didn't really have a set schedule..it was more of a 'do the next thing', y'know? But this year, I'm trying to break down everything by weeks - with flexibility, of course... :-)
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