Planning For A School Week

I thought I would post how I plan for school each week, in case this might help someone else as the new year begins. First of all, I use The Homeschoolers Journal from www.fergnusservices.com. I have used this week-at-a-glance, spiralbound planbook for several years with great success. Basically, I set aside some time to plan on either Friday afternoon when the week we just had is still fresh on my mind or on Sunday afternoon when everyone is resting and my husband can keep the kids out of my hair. I sit down where all of our books are kept (a section in my laundry room) and make sure to have my calendar and “to-do” notebook with me so I can write down things that come to mind, and also schedule around activities and appts for that week. I assign each child’s work for the whole week, with page numbers and all, writing it down in the planner. This time is well spent, because once I get it down, I can just check each day for the rest of the week and not have to think about what we are doing again.

Then, each day I pull out the planner and write each child’s assignment in their personal assignment book. These are 5X7 size spiralbound notebooks. Each child has their own and has a different color. (If you get these, take my advice and spend the extra money for the vinyl covers for durability. These have to last all year long and get thrown around quite a bit.) We got ours this year at Target for about $2.50. Ours are very snazzy and came with pockets, index cards and a neat nylon fabric type cover over the spiral part so it doesn’t get hooked on anything. The nice thing about only writing the assignments for one day is that if you did not finish something for that day, you can just write the makeup work or change the schedule for the next day without it messing up a week’s worth of writing. The actual writing of the assignments on my part only takes maybe about five minutes a kid. This is time well spent in making sure they know what is expected of them each day!

The idea for these assignment books came from my oldest needing more direction than I could give him when I was constantly distracted by the little ones. This way I could get him on track pretty easily by asking if he had done everything he could in his assignment book when I needed to be doing something else. He said he liked having an idea of what each day entailed by simply looking at his assignment book. I am sure for a kid that is nice since they are sort of at our mercy for most things. This helped him prepare for his day, just like I like to be able to do!

Anyway, for each day I write the day and date at the top and then simply list their assignments for that day and also chores and any extracurricular activities they will be doing. This helps them sort of gauge whether what needs to be done when based on where they have to be. I like to think this helps them learn to manage their own time a bit. They check off each item on the list after they complete it. This is a total honor system. I do periodically grab it during the day just to see where they are. Here is my daughter’s for a random day, just to give you an idea:

Day, Date

Chore: clean upstairs bathroom

• Quiet Time in God and Me (this is done before they even come downstairs in the morning, but I include it as a reminder)
• Read on your own (this is from a book they choose but I must approve, again, this is usually done in the evenings before bed, but I still include it)
• Timed Journaling (10 minutes, done all together)
• Read Pippi, p.11-16 (We were using Total Language Plus)
• Vocab C
• Daily Flashcard Review
• Grammar C
• Math, p.5-6
• Science, read pgs. 10-12
• Writing with Mom
• Art with Mom
• Bible with Mom

Marybeth is homeschooling mom to six children ranging in age from teen to toddler, as well as a speaker for Proverbs 31 Ministries. In her column “Because Life Happens”, she addresses things like burnout, dealing with interruptions, and handling homeschooling from a very practical perspective. Be sure to visit her blog, Cheaper by the Half Dozen.

Tags: homeschool life, Homeschool Methods, Organization, planning

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