Planning for the Fall

Now is the time of summer that I start thinking about what I am going
to teach this coming year. When I have a pretty good idea, I read
through the text of the toughest subject I am going to teach. If I am
going to use all of the chapters, I then figure out how long each
chapter should take. I can then make a chart showing that I combined
chapters or stretch them out- based on the weeks I determine in the
calendar planning section below. Of course all this could be avoided
if I just purchased SonLight and had them send me the gigantor binder
with the year-at-a-glance schedule! But you PAY for it Baby, you pay!
This method is m-u-c-h cheaper!



To plan the year-out, I start by printing my favorite one page
school year calendar (here.) Then I mark all holidays, my 7 teacher
in-service days and any special days or vacations we may be taking.
(like-Sept 20th! Matt & Jen's wedding!) At this point, I can count all
the weeks from when whenever we begin in August/Sept to the first week in
January as the first semester. (There are usually 16 weeks in the first
semester and 18 in the second.) This way I can see if I need more time and
we can begin a bit earlier. I am also pretty decisive about the end of the
year date. Through the years I've discovered that if I do not draw the
line and set an end date, I tend to become lazy and school seeps into the
summer. Hate that. I cannot have it happen this year- as Josiah will be
graduating, so I need time to get the finals and grading done.

I am using an Abeka textbook I had left over from when I homeschooled Matt.
He really liked it, and I am realizing that Josiah does REALLY well with
textbooks. I am going to use the full extent of the curriculum, as J needs
to be challenged to write more essays. Daniel will jsut answer the questions
in each section.

I enjoy creating grids in Word- as you can see it is 5 pages long,
but I like to leave room for notes as ideas I may come up with later.
Here's my schedule for American Government. (click on it)


Love, Moorea