Saturday, July 17, 2010

A Change Is Gonna Come

I have been in prayer about what is to become of this blog. It has become clear that this should be a virtual space to record our homeschooling journey. Which means it will be incorporated into our school year plans with timely updates.

To that end let me share that this is planning season. Planning season for homeschoolers is exciting time because everything is fresh with new possibilities and grand goals. The trick I have found in my three years of homeschooling is to embrace those grand design, explore them and put them down in revision 1 of the plan. Then back off, give it a day and think about your life. Who are you? Who are your kids? How many outside activities do you plan on doing? How long will they really take? Where are the potential rabbit holes or unexpected cool field trips likely to happen? How your household actually functions? Then adjust the plan to this reality. Thereby avoiding complete homeschooling meltdown when things do not go as planned. Remember it is homeschooling so keep it SIMPLE and FLEXIBLE.


Part 1: What worked and what didn't work last year.

FIAR kinda worked last year but is planning intensive in order to support ds's learning style.

I honestly didn't think I had the time this summer to pull all of it together. But the other options are outside our budget right now, so I made a choice to slow down our summer plans to incorporate planning days. That is right days because I had to adjust my expectations of getting it done all at once.

Here is my attempt to plan with Five In A Row (FIAR). All items
highlighted in gray were completed in 2008-2010. Items in green are planned for this year.
Five In A Row 2010-2011 School Year Plan

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Your planning advice is most excellent! The ideas in our head are one thing, but reality is quite a different thing. It is so important to "be real", so stepping back from your plans for a day or two is a great idea.

daniele @ domestic serenity said...

I appreciate your thoughts...doing the same thing over here! blessings as you prepare. (I didn't know google had spreadsheets, thanks!!)