I Have A Question To Ask You...

Okay, my very few dear readers. I have a question to ask you.

I am wondering how long others take to plan and organize their studies. I mean all of it- planning, printing, gathering materials, organizing... ready to go.

There was a day when we did our FIAR (Five in a Row) studies that it was pretty simple. Many times, we just chose a book on Sunday and spent a week or two rowing it. Add in a sprinkle of phonics and a dash of math and... done!

I suppose (but don't actually know!) that a program like Seton or another preset curriculum would be more efficient as far as set up goes. I would love to hear. Then again, if you pull from different sources, how long do you spend?

I've been at this a long, long time. You'd think I have all the answers, but not so much.

Do you have a "how I plan" blog post? I'd love to read it!!


Comments

  1. PattyApril 20, 2013 at 6:20 AM

    I have used Seton for 9 years. The only planning would be extra "fluff" I add to a class. Otherwise, the kids open their lesson plans and go at it. I will glance and see if there are items they can skip ahead, or I go online to the site and print off extra work if they need some more time to practice on a particular point being taught. When I taught school, I could NOT stand putting together my lesson plans. I know that sounds terrible, but it took hours and I was teaching in a Catholic school already making poverty level wages. My time was important and I didn't want to sacrifice more family time. When we decided to homeschool, I knew immediately that someone else was going to have to do my lesson plans. Where that wasn't my only objective, it certainly was one of the many main objectives. I really admire all the moms who put together their own complete courses, but I honestly don't like home schooling that much. Does that sound bad? I know it would make me feel more burned out and then possibly an angry home school mom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LaurieApril 20, 2013 at 7:26 AM

    Patty,

    Not bad at all! I love your honesty. And prioritizing your time is important! I love my children passionately and love being with them, but homeschooling has had it stuggles for me too. I had a really hard time when it was time to "start over" with my boys. Only through God's grace was my enthusiasm renewed! - and that is an ongoing process. ;)

    I wasn't thinking about the fact that LESSON PLANS are actually created to go with the curriculum! Nice!

    ReplyDelete
  3. NicoleApril 20, 2013 at 8:22 PM

    We draw from different sources for each subject. I have a simple planner that my husband made me that has the subject and a blank box next to it. On Sunday afternoons I print off five planner pages, grab my texts, and write down what we will cover each day of the week in each subject. That usually takes me no more than one hour.

    Each morning I pull out my planner and all the texts, supplies, etc., and place them on the table. We start with Bible and then the kids take turns drawing a stick with the other subjects on them to tell us what we will do next. We do all of our essentials in the morning and unit studies, history, science in the afternoon. I just copy sheets as I go. For our afternoon studies, I pull out any supplies we need during our lunch break so it's ready to go after lunch. At the end of the day, I put everything away.

    I would say I spend ALL TOTAL about an hour and thirty minutes a week planning and preparing. But, actually, the planning part is my absolute favorite part of homeschooling. I love working up our lessons for the week because it makes it exciting to see it all come to fruition at the end of the week. Plus, if it's not written down, it doesn't get done.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownApril 21, 2013 at 9:26 AM

    That's a great question! It really depends. Right now I'm not spending a ton of time on planning for what we are working on right now, we are kind of in a groove so it doesn't require too. We haven't been doing a bunch of extras lately either. Sometimes I think I like to plan more than I actually like to school! With a new year approaching I will spend some extra time planning. I *think* we are going back to Trail Guide to Learning for the older kids, I'm not sure about the younger ones yet. I have to say I'm not sure how Seton would work for you and your boys. I found I liked it more than my boys did, the religion is awesome, but some of the other stuff is pretty dry.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Morning Time

Image
Look at me writing 2 posts so close together!! So... I have loved listening to the podcasts on morning time called "Your Morning Basket". I have listened to all of them. Very inspiring! They are all worthwhile to listen to, but I have to tell you that episode #2 with Andrew Pudewa is a game changer (in the homeschool sense). We have had our own variations on morning time in our house. When my girls were younger (they are now 31, 30, 28 and 22 years old), we had "seat work time" and "couch time". I'd say that couch time was our version of what is now being called morning time. For the most part, we read historical fiction, discussed history (I would either read from or discuss from a text), learned a little geography, read the bible, had prayer time, and had some pretty fun discussions. There was a transition when my now 28 year old became sort of a teachers helper for her younger sister. I remember working on art appreciation with her at the h...
Read more

Week in Review: February 1-5 2016

Image
Lots of baby care around here as the boys' big sister (our second daughter, Jessica) was having her fifth baby. It was a week full of sword fighting, cuddles, disney movies, books, and coloring. It's also been a week full of colds. The 2 year old twins had a cold, which I assume James caught from them (although every one in the world seems to have it, so not necessarily). The problem is that no matter how many times I caution the boys, who can resist cuddling with a sweet little toddler who does not feel well? I guess germs are meant to be shared. In the way of school, we have been in "keep up" mode. Paul's strongest focus is on his Dave Ramsey finance class (which I highly recommend), his Spanish class, and his economics course. http://www.daveramsey.com/store/search.ep?keyWords=homeschool http://www.livinglanguage.com/languagelab/spanish  (I cannot recommend this highly enough. The books and cds make it easy to open and go. Additionally, the...
Read more

Din-spiration Part 6

Image
This is sort of a lighthearted post, but I am going to start by saying that all those in Paris and the World are in my prayers. There are never words when something so unspeakable happens. As it has been pointed out, it happens far more often that we usually hear about in places that are more obscure to most of us. I'm going to continue with this planned post as most of us still have "normal life" to attend to and families to feed amidst this very stressful backdrop. To keep myself accountable, I was going to keep up posting about my crusade to eat at home. I have failed the last few weeks, but the resolve to eat at home has not! The great thing is that on the days when resolve wanes in me, my husband picks it up. He is often the one to encourage me that he can stop by and pick up an ingredient I forgot, or to step in and create a dish himself. He chose make us a Lasagna last week- for me, that is a more involved dinner than I will take on a week day. Rather than...
Read more