Planning The School Year Ahead

Today's project:  I will begin printing out schedule sheets and try to start planning our year. 

What planner do I use?

Well glad you asked.  I have a subscription to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and with the subscription I get this wonderful thing called schoolhouse teacher.  This is a great addition to my subscription.  There is so much on there that I can't believe it. (talk more about that in a later post)  Included are great planners.  There are several levels that you can download moms, special learners, primary, intermediate, high school.  I will be using one for me and one for my oldest daughter so she can be more responsible for her own education and day to day work.

If you are new to homeschooling or don't have a subscription yet to Old Schoolhouse I highly recommend it (it is now an online only subscription with one mailed issue a year)  I read it on my Kindle Fire.

http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/
http://schoolhouseteachers.com/

What is your yearly schedule?

Wow, you ask some great questions.  While in previous years we followed the same schedule as public school we are trying something new this year.  We will be doing a year round schedule this year.  Why would I do this?  Well everyone, including me, gets burned out throughout the year.  This is a great thing about homeschooling, FLEXIBILITY.  We can take a break when we want, not when someone else tells us we can.  We get to vacation and visit places when it is not so crowded with other vacationers.

Here are 3 options for year round schooling

Option 1:

School     Sept, Oct, Nov
Break       Dec
School      Jan, Feb, March
Break       April
School      May, June, July
Break       August

Option 2:

School for tree weeks and break for one week, year round.

Option 3:

School      September through mid-October
Break       Week off
School      Late October until Thanksgiving
Break       Week Off
School      Early December
Break       Three weeks off for Christmas and New Year's
School      Mid-January until late February or early March
Break       Two weeks (Everyone gets tired of school by late February!)
School      March, April
Break        Two weeks off
School      Late April, May, on through summer
Breaks      Anytime during the summer, whenever you're vacationing, visiting, entertaining, etc.

(taken from The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, love this book)

Which one are we doing?  Well option 3 more than likely, still praying on this, maybe option 2.

How do you know how much time to schedule?  Well if your math curriculum has 140 days to complete then you need to schedule that many days into your year, plus days for tests.  Our schooling is 4 days Monday to Thursday with Friday as a catch up or field trip day.

What do you do on weeks off?

Another great question.  We will use this time off to take day trips or vacations as a family.  We will also use some of this time to do week long unit studies, so the kids are still learning something great but taking a break from the normal curriculum. 

So this is a look into my planning for this year.  I will talk some other time about our actual daily schedule (or what I try to make into a daily routine)

Quote for the day:  A curriculum that gets done is superior, to a superior curriculum that doesn't get done.  (it took me a few years to learn that this is so true)