Is planning for the spontaneous?

“To fail to plan is a plan to fail” 
That’s what they say anyways.
I find that to be somewhat true in my life. 
You see, I am spontaneous. To the point that I eloped with my husband, to the point that we picked up and move our entire family to a small town where we didn’t know anyone or anything about it.  So spontaneous in fact, that one day we just pulled our kids out of public school and began homeschooling.  Yep!

Well I am proud to say that I have been HAPPILY married for 9 years, we love our little town, and our homeschooling is going strong!

You see, none of those things were planned for.  However they are all successful due to planning.

My marriage: We made a plan to always communicate.  ALWAYS! 
My town:  We made a plan to try and find happiness.  ALWAYS!
My homeschool:  Let us go into a little more detail with that one.
First of all we have created a homeschool schedule.
My next best friend has been simple flexible (remember, I’m spontaneous) planners.
I have 2 main planners. One is specific to my Five in a Row plans,  since that is quite a teacher intensive curriculum, it gets it’s own binder. The next one in my main planner.
Let’s start with the FIAR planner.  In here I have sheets for planning which I downloaded a while ago from a blog that is no longer.  I see that Proverbial Homemaker has a very similar one.  On  the bottom is where I write a few themes of the book as well as any additional things I may need, such as food, or other items I still need to purchase.








Behind each book specific sheet I have some worksheet type activities. For this book she will be notebooking and some ordinal number pages. 

I also have a file for FIAR activities. In these folders are pieces or activities that don’t fit well in the binder. 
This includes things like lapbook pieces, our geography disks, any cut outs and anything I have laminated. 

The rest of the homeschool planning is all done in my Mom Main Planner.  I use mostly planner pages from Schoolhouse Teachers.  
In the very front I put any papers I may need quickly, kinda a misc spot.  In the front right now I have a sheet from 4H inviting me to leader training.  I have a few contact papers from items I am reviewing.

I also have my Mom Fun School pages in there.  These are 2 pages back to back that are in sheet  protectors.  I write on them with dry erase markers.  Obviously  Thursdays are our co-op day in the afternoons so I don’t plan fun school on that day.  That day is also my library check out/return day.  Our co-op classes are usually at the library. 

When I plan my Mom Fun School, if I am planning a unit study like this simple machines one we are working on right now. I usually type it up and print it.  The reason I type it, is I save it on my computer to be able to click on any links I have saved. 
Behind all that, I have tabs for each kid as well as a FIAR tab and a tab for Tommy’s math, (which is where the answers are). 
Behind Katey’s tab it has her weekly planning sheets, which I do type out.  I only print 2 weeks at a time, back to back, that makes it easier for me to move plans when we have a spontaneous day.
The next page is the current FIAR page we are working with.  Obviously in my planning we don’t fully follow the schedule.  So I just cross of what we have done and work on what we haven’t yet.  I plan out FIAR about 12 books at a time every 15 or so weeks, I need to leave room for….. whatever!  
Oh and at the back, behind that FIAR tab is where I keep my blank planning pages as well as a yearly schedule.  I also do much of my FIAR planning on my Pinterest Board. As you can see we have already had to move a few books around.

Emily’s plans look like this….

She is doing Prairie Primer so much of her work is in that book.  I just list the numbers she is to do.  I have plans to type hers up, since I think it looks so much nicer, but I have already written hers out so we will finish up with the written ones.  I will print hers out a book at a time.   I plan Prairie Primer out about a book or two at a time. 

Tommy’s plans come next.  His is very similar to Emily’s his are also written and I do plan on typing his up also, but only printing 2 weeks at a time.

Do you have any good planning tips for me?