I try to get as much planning done in the summer for the coming year as I can. I’ve been wanting to write out how I do this, but haven’t been able to. I did find this website that has some wonderful suggestions…especially for new homeschoolers!
Here are a few forms that I use for planning with a short description:
1. Yearly Planning Sheet: I use this to roughly sketch out each course for the entire year. On the left side is a box for each week where I jot down the chapter or topic. On the right side I list books and resources I plan to use along with other notes.
2. Quarterly Planning Sheet: After planning out the year, then I work on the daily assignments quarter by quarter. I do NOT enter dates on this form. (This form I got from the donnayoung.org site, but I made my own version with lines to write on.) Things always come up, sickness, etc…so I don’t like to write dates on this.
I actually photocopy these forms at 70% and keep them in a half-size binder. I had an old Daytimer that works great for this! This is where all my homeschool stuff stays.
After doing this for all my courses…I consider the year DONE!
From here I have done two different things.
The first year I used a blank Assignment Sheet and printed off at least 36 copies (a couple of extra for mess ups and half weeks) and spiral bound them at the local office store to make my own student planner. (I did add dates to this planner. ) At the beginning of each school week, usually MOnday, I would sit down with my child and give them assignments from teh quarterly planner I kept in my notebook and they filled out their planner. With different dates off, etc, the quarterly planner can get confusing for your child. Oftentimes we would be on different weeks for different subjects, so I kept up with where they were in each subject. Sometimes you will realize after you get into the middle of a book that you need to slow down or speed up.
The second year I used this system I bought a homeschool lesson planning software (I bought “Homeschool Easy Records” but there are others). From the quarterly planner sheets I entered all my daily assignments. The program allows you to set up your school calendar, including adjusting for sick days, and will date the assignments for you. This way you just print off the weekly assignment sheet from the software.
Which way did I like better? The first..although this is the more time consuming method. For my older two, there was just something about them writing out all their assignments. They knew what they needed to accomplish for the week and things seemed to get done better. For my younger one, I would write out the assignments for him which helped me stay on top of his stuff. When it was all on the computer we often would only read one day at a time which prevented us from preparing for some things like we needed.
Hope this helps you get organized this summer!