I blogged back in January with a link to my planning page, but I decided I would repost with a little more explanation and estimated time involved. I’ll mark it out step-by-step…which could be a little long! Remember that this is the ideal week–which almost never happens! But it is how I try to do it.

7-10 Days before we start the week:

1. I move the week’s plan to a small one-inch binder so it will be easier to use. (I use 3-inch binders that hold as many weeks as I can fit in them!) Organizational Note: I keep pocket folders in this binder to hold the printouts for each child.   Slash Pockets
2. I look over the Threads and the Reading List which are the first few pages. I highlight the titles that I own. I jot down the main topics on the top left of my planning pages. (Time: 5-10 minutes)
3. I go to my libraries online site and look for any titles that I think I might need to fill in any holes and put in requests for them. (Time: 15 minutes; This can vary greatly. I try to buy a lot of my books so I don’t spend much time on this. If you don’t buy as much then this can take much longer.)

Over the days leading up to the start of our Actual Week:

1. I skim and read over all the Teacher’s Notes. I usually do this over a couple of days. I don’t always get this done prior to our week starting, but I do try. On occasion I spend the first day of the teaching week reading. (Time: 30-60 minutes; depends on how in-depth I read, often I just skim)
2. I go online to the eProducts and Loom page to print off the maps, Student Activity Pages, Evaluations, and any Key Documents I need. I use the small boxes on my planning sheet to check off in case I do this in spurts, which I am prone to. (Time: 30-45 minutes; to make better use of my time I usually print a few weeks off at a time. If I was smart I would print this out one Unit at a time. It would really help to shave off planning time.)
3. Next I look at the Key People to be studied that week and look at the Historical Figures CD to print off timeline figures for my kids. (Time: 30 minutes; again, lots of times I do a few weeks at a time which helps)

Planning of Assignments:

1. I look at the book list and write down the books I want each of my children to read on the right side of my planning page based on books I own and those I’ve requested at the library.
2. I read over the Writing Assignments and jot down what each child is doing, very briefly, on Day Three of my planning sheet.
3. I then look at the Writing Aids book to see what pages I may want my children to read. I write these page numbers down under Day One.
4. I look at the appropriate graphic organizers, etc. on the Writing Aids CD and print off any pages that will be appropriate for that week. I write down these on Day Two.
5. On my planning sheet I made a general schedule of when we read, work on Accountability questions, do mapwork, etc. Since this is already on my schedule there is no need to do anything further but follow my schedule when the week begins.
6. Total time for this is probably around an hour.

I would say I spend roughly two hours each week planning for each Tapestry week. TOG does not lend itself well to just opening on Monday morning! There is planning involved, once you get in a groove of how it flows it goes pretty smoothly. Printing out needed papers is a biggie. Spending a day printing all you need for an entire unit will save you! Set up file folders for each week (number them) and just toss in the papers for that week. Then when you go to plan the week you just grab your folder and all the needed pages are there.

Missed Part 1? Part 2? Part 3?

Join me for Part 5 as I describe a typical week at our house with Tapestry of Grace.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am and is filed under Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.