Breaking the school year into bite size chunks – Lesson Planning

Lesson Planning has been fully underway for me.  I do feel like some changes had to be made this year.  We had lesson plans and all last year, but there was too much flexibility in them and we took advantage of more opportunities than we should have.  Not that the opportunities weren’t great, some of them were even necessary.  It’s more along the lines of we did way to much. I realize that spontaneity is in my families nature, and we love to travel.  So I needed lesson plans that were realistic and flexible. Here is what I have come up with.

I began by choosing our curriculum. Then I am planning it out in chunks, or blocks. I have been using the Hey Mama Planner from The Old Schoolhouse. They are supposed to average about 6 weeks.  However after looking at our calendar and some travel plans I decided to work those in to our schooling.  We have some 5 week blocks and some 6 week blocks.  After every block we get anywhere from 3-5 days without plans.  The kids can use that time to catch up if needed.  They can also just take a break, or dive into a subject they want. They may need this time to finish up work missed due to a family event that we chose to do.

Our first block is planned out and looks like this:

I also did our plans weekly within our block.  That way the kids know what they have to accomplish in a weeks time.  Last year I gave them to much freedom and we got off track so that when the end of the year came we had to work hard, too hard really to get where I wanted us to be.  We never did make it as far as my original goal.  That is life. 

So instead of taking a full summer we will take a shorter summer with these breaks built in. This has made lesson planning less intense, it opens up opportunities for change as needed.  It gives us a little break when we need it for trips, like weddings, seeing out of town family, and traveling in the off season!

This is making so much sense in my head that I really believe it will work better for us. 

Check out some of my awesome bloggy friends, who are also blogging in the Back to Homeschool Hop!

 

Laura @ My (re)Viewpoint
Anne @ Upstate Ramblings
Julie @ Nurturing Learning