I'm only about half way done posting about our trip to San Francisco and Monterey Bay, but I thought I'd take a short break and post about my lesson planner.
I bought this Elementary Lesson Planner for homeschoolers at Mardel. I came up with this method of lesson planning this year, and it has worked great for us.
Basically, there are a lot of columns with different headings like Langage Arts (with 4 columns), Math, Social Studies, etc. The pages on this post are from this week. You will see they are already filled out, but I usually just plan one day at a time! I either write my plans out at night or in the morning. I do this because I never know exactly what we'll cover. Sometimes, we don't cover everything I've planned so it needs to be moved to the next day. And, today, we started our "Drugs" unit even though I had it scheduled for tomorrow. (When I was a public school teacher, I worked the same way. We had to have weekly plans, so I did them. But, then I did my "real" plans one day at a time!)
Here's a close-up of the left-hand page. It is my most used page as it covers the basics of LA and Math along with Social Studies. I include Bible under LA (basically because there isn't a Bible section.) I read a passage of the Bible (not listed) and then we work on memorizing a verse. Under LA, I am currently listing what we are working on in spelling, cursive, test review (for Stanford test - Alex's first time), and Vocabulary. Under math, we are back to working with Teaching Textbooks and working on a test prep book. And, Scoial Studies is the online history class we are doing.
This is my right-hand page. Under "Science" we are starting a "Drugs" unit. (More on that later, but it is free and includes a lot of learning about the brain!) Under "Related Studies" I list things regarding Alex's 2 outside classes. If we do art, I list it next. Under PE, I list Alex's 2 "sports" - TnT (which is Trampoline and Tumbling) and Dance (which is part of an acting class). And, under Misc, I write whatever books she is reading independently. You also might notice the little numbers to the right (136-140). This year, for the first time, I am keeping track of the number of school days we have and am trying to make it to 180 for the year! (And, I do include traveling days as long as we are learning!)
So, that's how I plan our school days. I hope it might help someone!
You were a public school teacher too? What and where did you teach?
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Laurie
Your planner looks amazingly like mine. Although, I'm so anal that I like to plan for three months ahead. I usually underplan and then add things in weekly.
ReplyDeleteI do it this way for a couple of reasons; I don't want to get lazy (in other words, 'I' need the plan, and I use curriculum that I want to get through without overwhelming us at certain points in the year.
At this time of the year Cade unschools. So, as he does things, I will add them into the planner. It helps me to see what we've accomplished during the year.