Planning The Next Semester

LESSON PLANNING IS NO FUN

But Someone's Got to Do it

We do lesson planning for the year, then a weekly plan, and a re-evaluation plan for the 2nd semester. It's usually when we clean out curriculum that isn't working, add curriculum we want to try or pause curriculum in place of adjustments to schedule or the child's progress.

Breaking down the school year into 4 quarters and 2 semesters has helped our family make adjustments as needed. Filling in educational gaps is something the shorter quarters or block times help us focus on. As working and homeschooling parents, it gives clear time frames for us to make adjustments and to deep dive into subjects.

TIME FOR CHANGE

It never fails, we always need to drop a curriculum item, condense something or elongate lessons. We've learned to expect it and not get too upset about it. Math and Writing are always an issue for our current student and we have had to prolong lessons in certain areas in order to strengthen and solidify understanding and skills in these cornerstone subjects.

THE QUICK AND DIRTY WAY

Creating a topic list with the subject, page/reading or videos to watch is a fast way to add a new subject or curriculum into the mix. Setting a weekly review of the student’s accomplishments of the list we do with the student’s weekly presentations to the family.

BREAKING IT DOWN

After taking note on how long it may take to finish a subject for the semester, we review areas that can be combined or removed in order to fit the shorter timeframe. We make sure to focus on the key points of the topic. Also, using visual aids and posters to show the information in a condensed manner. This is a great approach for Science, History, Language Arts, Grammar, Reading and Remediation of subjects.

PLAN IN BREAKS

Never forget to plan in for time off. Realistically planning for a four day week with one day of makeup work is doable for most working and homeschooling parents. However, we planned for a five day week with the kids having the weekend as their ‘homework’ period to finish any work they haven’t completed for the week or to review any work that they had problems with.

DON'T OVERBOOK ~ I MEAN IT ~ DON'T

This is one of the major mistakes we made early on in our homeschool and working adventures. Slowly, we learned what our challenge was and fixed the issue (mostly). Once we 'underbooked' it was easier to have time to focus on topics and skills that the students really needed the most help in.