Lesson Planning

To be honest, figuring out how to do this and what layout for next year is giving me a headache!

BUT....I thought I would tell you how we currently organise our plans we do have. We currently use Sonlight P3/4 & P4/5.

P3/4 IG - Is just a little book advising what stories to read, separated into 3 terms I think it is, and a big list, with lots of people thinking back "yonder" in speech bubbles about what they did with their kids. This IG may work for some people, but for me it was higgledy-piggledy, and overwhelming to look at. So what I ended up doing is opening the very simple "word pad" program. I made 36 "pads" each named Week 1, Week 2 all the way to week 36. Then within those I put Monday down to Friday (my mistake, if I ever did it up again, I would put day 1-5 in each pad instead, I don't like "naming" days) Under each day, I put a Story and an activity to do from the list in the IG.

Here's an example below:

MONDAY

Goodnight Moon (Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics) w/ Lapbook Activity

TUESDAY

Baby Says (Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics) w/ Build with Blocks

WEDNESDAY

Noah's Ark
Ask Questions about the book. Count, Name & Make Animal Noises.
Blanket over table and "save" the animals.

THURSDAY

If you give a Mouse a Cookie (Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics)
Bake Cookies and give them with milk for a snack.

FRIDAY

George Shrinks (Harper Collins Treasury of Picture Book Classics)
ACTIVITY FREE

This list was then printed and put into the appropriate weeks folder (more on that in a minute). This enabled me to have it a bit more organised since I have more then 1 child (I have 3 under 6). I try to keep the activities quite simple, I do a quick google, and if nothing appropriate comes up after a quick search, I leave it "activity free"

P4/5 - We are using this as a Kindergarten program, so we added Language Arts K, and some other books from other publishers (like H/S Aust Social Studies, Singapore Math Preschool year). What I did was have the big giant binder set-up exactly how they tell you to set it up...looked at it and went "ahhhh p-shaw" it was MASSIVE. Looking at it makes you want to go eat grass or something else not requiring brain-age LOL. Since it was already separated into weeks, with the answer keys at the back, I then found Dawns File Crate System WOOHOO. I liked the general gist of it, but not the "naming" of months. She uses Seasons, and general ideas and makes up her own things as time goes along, she also is quite involved with the community and events like Lent, none of this applies to us, we homeschool year round and just concentrate on a 36 week formal curriculum, and after that if we have had much breaks, then we finish bits that go on longer than the specified 36 weeks (like next year SOTW goes for 42+ chapters) before moving on to the next 36 lot of curriculum.

So I got 18 hanging folders, the cardboard archive boxes (they are cheap and we needed them for a couple of other things, plus you could also make decorating the outside of them a craft for each year), and 36 folders. Each hanging folder has two weeks in it (Wk1&2 all the way to Wk 35 & 36) and then appropriate labelled weeks folders goes in.

Then all I do is put the appropriate Core Week in, the printed P3/4 schedule, any other loose bits I have and the answer keys for the appropriate week (yep I also put the answer keys in there.....I really hated that binder ROFL, the only thing left in it is the divider pages and some phonics keys that apply to mutiple weeks). Once the whole kit and caboodle of stuff was in those folders (all loose, no order to it, just in the appropriate weeks files) I set down to the next task at hand.

Since Sonlight is already "planned" the next bit is as hard as it would be to others whom plan on a daily basis lol. Next I have 2 more archive boxes, each has 20 hanging files in it, first box has D1 -D20, 2nd box has SD1-SD20 (S-econd D-ay, yep not very original) in each of those is another folder named the same as the hanging file.

Still with me? lol. Next I take the Weeks 1-8 folders & hanging files from my original archive box. I place Week 1&2, and Week 3&4, still in their hanging files, to the back of the first box. And 5,6,7 & 8 into the second box.

Then I start the real planning! I also have Handle on the Arts Supplements so I print these out for the appropriate weeks I am planning for.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 (I'm outta oomph and need some caffeine!) I will put up some pics over the next few days too!