I am a Planner!

Posted by LaToya | 3 comments

This year I took the plunged and “officially” started homeschooling my preschooler and my kindergartener. I planned to start in August but then we ended up having to move at the beginning of the month so that didn’t work out too well. Then I planned to start right after Labor Day. We did but soon after that my house was full of cooties which left at least one of us out of commission for about 3 weeks. Then right when we recovered from that my school work load was a bit overwhelming and we had to take a break so I could catch up and regain some of my sanity.

I am a planner. I have plans for everything, color coded calendars, weekly menu plans, etc. My plan for this year never seemed to work out. Half way through those first few months of homeschooling I fell out of love with my planner. It just wasn’t working for me anymore. And it was so sad because I had taken two weeks over the summer to plan out the entire year for both boys. It took a month but I found another planner that is working quite well for all of us (I may have to keep it around for a while).

Both of my boys are a little bit further ahead in skills than I originally thought they were. Actually my kindergartener is way ahead of me in the skills I wanted to work on. I’m constantly playing catch-up with him it seems. All my planning had been of little use during those first few months. So during our holiday break I decided to do something about it. I needed a new plan.

I realized that even though I had a plan I really hadn’t taken the time to figure out where I wanted to be by the end of the year. So I did. I looked at the work my boys had done so far. I looked the things they really enjoyed and the things that they didn’t like. I asked them what they wanted to learn about and do during school. I made a list of what I want them to learn and then I took it all to the Master Planner. After much prayer my plan was in place. And it’s a good one this time because I made sure to “do it right” this time around.

My new planner is filled with assignments, activities and field trips. My kindergartener has extra activities and lapbooks to go along with his assignments and he’s over the moon about it! My little guy isn’t doing any literature units this year because he doesn’t like them. He wants to learn his letter sounds and I’m okay with that. And mommy has thrown in some fun character lessons and activities and Bible verses for memorization.

As a newbie homeschooler it can be overwhelming to figure it all out. To know what’s going to work and what will not. It’s equally difficult to predict where your child(ren) will be at skill-wise. And as much as I love to plan I know that there will be many times when my plan falls completely apart. And that’s why this time I wrote in pencil!

LaToya Edwards is a homeschooling, single mom of two beautifully busy boys, one that has been diagnosed with SPD. She has a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Development, will soon have her law degree and aspires to run her own adoption agency in the future. She is a very busy woman, but wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s loves music, poetry and reading fiction stories. But mostly she just loves spending time with her boys. LaToya get real over at Christian Momma, where she blogs about the struggle and journey of being a single christian woman and mom.