Every year around June/July I start organizing for our coming school year. I am not one of those lucky few who has a head so naturally organized that I can just "keep it all up there". My brain is a fairly chaotic place, like a computer with too many browser windows open. I need to get everything out and onto paper in order for things to run smoothly. But I had trouble finding an already prepared planner that had everything I wanted. So I created a mish-mash, eclectic planner that had everything I needed from free printables online.
Why do this? When I take the time to plan and organize carefully, I have noticed that our homeschool doesn't seem to hit as many rough patches. I have a chronic illness that flares up randomly. Taking the time to plan means that school can still run smoothly even if I am not feeling well. That is very reassuring to me. The very first thing I created this year was my homeschool teacher binder.
I chose a binder I had around the house. Picked up some of pocket tabs, some sheet protectors (well, actually a whole lot of sheet protectors), and post it notes. This binder is not where I do my lesson planning. But it is where I organize my thinking for our homeschool year.
The first page in my planner is my Daily Rhythm - The Grown up version, in a sheet protector. It was inspired by Waldorf, and
a blog post I read last year. Having the daily rhythm offers me flexibility. Nothing has to be timed perfectly, I can follow this regardless of when we start.
The second page in my planner is a Daily Rhythm - Kids Version in a sheet protector. I keep a copy in my planner so I can keep everyone on task. Each child also has a copy in their student binders (which I will share in a later post).
My first tab in my planner is labeled "curriculum".
I have three pages printed out, one for each child. I listed each subject, and beside it is the curriculum I plan to use. As I gathered the curriculum I needed at various used book sales I was able to check them off, and I highlighted what I still need to look for. I used the printable I found
here. I also printed out a page of all the books on each child's booklist for this year.
The second tab in my binder is labeled "goals".
This might be my favorite section. I love that it has both character goals and academic goals divided by four quarters. I printed out two pages for each child. The first one I filled out with my goals for each of my children. The second copy I had each child fill out their goals for themselves. I placed their copy in their student binders. I like the self evaluation this inspires. I downloaded this page
here.
The third tab in my binder is labeled "yearly plans".
I have this all in one sheet that I printed out
here. I also have a yearly calendar I printed out from
here. and our local school districts calendar. (We are home school snobs who avoid public places on school holidays).
The third tab in my binder is "weekly/daily plans"
I made this daily schedule with post it notes and a sheet protector. I worked out how I could schedule the kids morning so that I could work individually with each for Math and Language arts, without having the others standing around with nothing to do.
Then I added in a worksheet where I worked out what a typical week would look like for our classes, co ops, and park dates.
After that I printed out the weekly schedule worksheet from the same website I downloaded the curriculum planner from. I used sticky notes to plan out which classes we would do on which days. I highly recommend the sticky notes. If things don't work out the way they are planned, you can easily adjust and move them around!
I also put this sheet in there that can be filled out each week, I downloaded it
here.
My last tab is labeled "unit studies". I am doing KONOS with my youngest, and I needed a way to plan out those unit studies.
I used the long range plans printout from
here and sticky notes to plan out which units we would do in which month. Of course, I used the sticky notes because the "best laid plans often go awry.." Then from the same site I printed out a unit study planner for each month. It allowed me to plan out all our activities, movies, books, and field trips for each unit study!
Overall, I feel very prepared for the year! I will also be sharing my behavior management system, grade keeping, student binders and morning meeting set up over the next few weeks!
