This comes at a good time. I'm in that same place. 2nd grader to be, kindergartener to be, 2 year old and newborn due when the school year starts. I've already started to schedule out but I know I struggle with execution and expectations. The planning is easy and fun for me. It's the doing and evaluating my expectations, honestly. I'm trying to prepare in quarters so I have an idea of what pace we would need to go at to finish. But I think it will be valuable to plan these check ins to determine if what i originally planned is a reasonable expectation. Thanks for this!
This is the first video I’ve seen of yours. I’d love to see a sample schedule…like a year at a glance to see how you schedule the breaks in conjunction with holidays.
Thank you for this! I’ve been planning our homeschool and am so grateful for your wisdom to not plan it all at once-which I was trying to do and it was very overwhelming-and I think I will give the year around schedule you suggested a try this year!
I understand your reasons for cautioning against planning the whole year over the summer. My issue is that summer is the only point where I have enough time to plan for multiple kids. A week-long break isn't enough time for planning because I need to be doing cleaning during that time and hopefully some relaxing.
I have a school-year plan where the readings are mapped out, but I don't print and schedule and align every single piece like I used to, so that if we get off track in term 2, everything is broken :) I basically make a list and we do the next thing, and I print a new checklist each week for each kid so I can adapt if we need to, and I do spend a time in the break week assessing how we're doing and how we need to adjust the plan or the routine. I'm not starting from scratch in the break week.
I am the same way. I planned my first 6 weeks last year and it went well but then the 1 week breaks I would take were consumed with travelling for holidays (all our family is out of town on both sides with split families) Then I still had no time to just rest with my kids or clean the home or plan for the next 6 weeks. So I'm working this summer to lay out our plans. But I'm doing it on homeschoolplanet where I can adjust easily and not have to erase and rewrite all the plans. I appreciate the warning though of checking the boxes
And also keeping interests and progress in mind as we go. (But history and science can be pretty well planned out ahead of time and then pushed back as needed if there's a need for longer time spent on something)
I so appreciate the reminder that efficiency is not everything. I've been toying with a year-round plan for a few years at least, but one thing I'm hoping you will talk about is the break weeks. It seems to me we should keep the same wake-up & bed-times, but beyond that I get stuck. Are the kids just doing whatever they want after they get their morning chores done? Is this a good time to try to schedule orthodontist appointments or is that just pie-in-the-sky to think I could clear our school days of those sort of things? What about "morning time" gatherings--do you try to keep those up on break weeks? Bible reading is a daily, we consider music practice a daily, but then what abou the rest of those days? I want us ALL to be industrious, and I definitely understand how a simple change of activity can be restful. Anyway I am hopeful you will address this aspect of the year-round school: what to do on a break. "So teach us to know how to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom." ~Psalm 90:12
I did schedule dentist appointments and haircuts and routine checkups for break weeks, but ortho came too close together to fit neatly into break weeks. We don't do morning time during break weeks, but we still have family devotions after dinner. They still read their Bible on their own and do piano practice and lessons because those are life things, not school things. My kids always occupied themselves for the most part. Break week was a good diagnosis opportunity for whether or not their minds were active - what were they choosing to do? They didn't get more screen time on break weeks than normal. They did have friends on the same street who followed the same school calendar, though, so they played board games and outside with friends a lot and read a lot. Because they knew break week was coming, they made plans for it. This post might help: simplyconvivial.com/2017/break-week/
What are you doing to try to make homeschooling easy? How's that going for you? lol
This comes at a good time. I'm in that same place. 2nd grader to be, kindergartener to be, 2 year old and newborn due when the school year starts. I've already started to schedule out but I know I struggle with execution and expectations. The planning is easy and fun for me. It's the doing and evaluating my expectations, honestly. I'm trying to prepare in quarters so I have an idea of what pace we would need to go at to finish. But I think it will be valuable to plan these check ins to determine if what i originally planned is a reasonable expectation. Thanks for this!
This is the first video I’ve seen of yours. I’d love to see a sample schedule…like a year at a glance to see how you schedule the breaks in conjunction with holidays.
The blog post linked in the description has a calendar example :)
Thanks!
Thank you for this! I’ve been planning our homeschool and am so grateful for your wisdom to not plan it all at once-which I was trying to do and it was very overwhelming-and I think I will give the year around schedule you suggested a try this year!
I understand your reasons for cautioning against planning the whole year over the summer. My issue is that summer is the only point where I have enough time to plan for multiple kids. A week-long break isn't enough time for planning because I need to be doing cleaning during that time and hopefully some relaxing.
I have a school-year plan where the readings are mapped out, but I don't print and schedule and align every single piece like I used to, so that if we get off track in term 2, everything is broken :) I basically make a list and we do the next thing, and I print a new checklist each week for each kid so I can adapt if we need to, and I do spend a time in the break week assessing how we're doing and how we need to adjust the plan or the routine. I'm not starting from scratch in the break week.
I am the same way. I planned my first 6 weeks last year and it went well but then the 1 week breaks I would take were consumed with travelling for holidays (all our family is out of town on both sides with split families) Then I still had no time to just rest with my kids or clean the home or plan for the next 6 weeks. So I'm working this summer to lay out our plans. But I'm doing it on homeschoolplanet where I can adjust easily and not have to erase and rewrite all the plans. I appreciate the warning though of checking the boxes
And also keeping interests and progress in mind as we go. (But history and science can be pretty well planned out ahead of time and then pushed back as needed if there's a need for longer time spent on something)
I so appreciate the reminder that efficiency is not everything. I've been toying with a year-round plan for a few years at least, but one thing I'm hoping you will talk about is the break weeks. It seems to me we should keep the same wake-up & bed-times, but beyond that I get stuck. Are the kids just doing whatever they want after they get their morning chores done? Is this a good time to try to schedule orthodontist appointments or is that just pie-in-the-sky to think I could clear our school days of those sort of things? What about "morning time" gatherings--do you try to keep those up on break weeks? Bible reading is a daily, we consider music practice a daily, but then what abou the rest of those days? I want us ALL to be industrious, and I definitely understand how a simple change of activity can be restful. Anyway I am hopeful you will address this aspect of the year-round school: what to do on a break. "So teach us to know how to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom." ~Psalm 90:12
I did schedule dentist appointments and haircuts and routine checkups for break weeks, but ortho came too close together to fit neatly into break weeks.
We don't do morning time during break weeks, but we still have family devotions after dinner. They still read their Bible on their own and do piano practice and lessons because those are life things, not school things.
My kids always occupied themselves for the most part. Break week was a good diagnosis opportunity for whether or not their minds were active - what were they choosing to do? They didn't get more screen time on break weeks than normal. They did have friends on the same street who followed the same school calendar, though, so they played board games and outside with friends a lot and read a lot. Because they knew break week was coming, they made plans for it.
This post might help: simplyconvivial.com/2017/break-week/