Homeschool Friday

Well, this is the last Friday before school starts.  It’s been a long summer, but Fall seems to have snuck up on me.

I thought I’d share today how I plan our school day.  Last year when school started I had information overload on how to organize the day.  I read so many blogs, and listened to some great podcasts. 

After the first month last year, I settled into a routine that worked, and was much less work than what I was doing.  I found that our life is too crazy for a schedule.  When I tried to keep a schedule a baby wouldn’t nap, or a fight broke out, or my voice would feel hoarse.  I found myself constantly frustrated that our day was interrupted.

Like everything else, I researched how to organize the day and found I didn’t like any system and created my own.  I realized I’m more of a list person.  I like lists, and I rarely work them in order.  When I had a list of what needed to get done that day, I could pull what we had the attention for at that moment.  If the boys seemed to be playing quietly, I could pull out grammar.  If the boys were going nuts and needed some attention, I could give Silje some independent reading.  With this system I felt like we didn’t lose momentum as often.

Since next week will involve a lot of review and only 4 days, here’s week 2, which is much more typical of a spreadsheet:

Once a month I take the pile of teacher’s manuals and schedules given by various curricula and compile it onto one spreadsheet.  I’m not very Excel proficient, but I can handle this.  I’ve found that I can’t do any more than 4 weeks at a time because I adjust things within the spreadsheet too often.  If I want to do 3 days worth of math, then I have it all in front of me.  If I want to move a read aloud, I use a red pen and push it over.  Usually by the end of the week this is completely marked up with all sorts of adjustments, as well as things being crossed off when they are done.  It’s a starting point.  It’s not the law or ruler.

This year I’ve added Elias and Solveig to the spreadsheet as I want to be sure that I’m sitting and reading with them as well.  Sometimes if it’s not on the list it just doesn’t happen.

I’ve also taken out a chunk of subjects off on Friday.  I chose topics we often get ahead on, and replaced them with crafts/activities.  That doesn’t mean we’ll do them on Friday, as I can easily rearrange them to a different day.  That’s just where the activity list landed, and it shows which subjects we are sacrificing once a week in order to do them.

The other thing I added was a library topic list at the bottom of the list.  When we go to the library once a week I’ll know what subjects it would be fun to have additional books on hand for the kids to dig deeper into a topic if they feel like it.  I’ve found that if I just have the books laying around 90% of the time they’ll read them with enthusiasm without me ever asking them to.

Additionally, I’ve added a supplies/copy section at the bottom of the list to have on hand for our weekly shopping trip.  This has any supplies we my not have on hand, as well as activity pages to be copies out of The Story of the World activity book. 

So a few days ago I took my 4 pages of 4 weeks of “lists” and got my month’s supply of copies done.  We’re all set now, although I think the house should be cleaner for the first day of school.  A weekend of camping won’t exactly help things…it never does.  It’s always worth it though.

I would love to know how other homeschoolers organize their day/plans?  Is it all off the cuff, or organized in your brain, or do you have elaborate work boxes laid out for your children the night before?

Happy back to school to everyone out there!