Where have I been, you ask?
Well, I'm still busy planning our Disney World trip in August, which I'll be busy planning until the day we leave! Fortunately, our daughter isn't even 5 yet, so I don't feel guilty depriving her of teaching time. She gets plenty, actually, but not much formally.
I am trying to figure out the best way to get organized for homeschool. I want to keep very good records of everything, for everyone's benefit. I want to have lesson plans and ideas in one place, and actual things studied and learned about in another. Should I use two calendars of some kind? Should I just use a three ring binder? I need to look up some things that have worked and not worked for other people. And I need to finish reading my homeschool books!
Speaking of which, I flipped through the "What your Kindergartner Needs to Know" book at the book store. I thought I'd read reviews of the series and deemed it not required, but it looks like it would be quite useful. Not as any kind of complete curriculum, but it would save me time in research and money in paper and ink costs that I would normally spend digging up all the songs, stories, etc., that are in the book. So for $10, I'm thinking of buying the Kindergarten one. If it's useful, maybe we'll buy one each year.
posted by Jenny Williams @ 4:42 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi! I have a similar blog called homeschooladventure.blogspot. It's fun to see another blogger with such good taste in names ha ha. :)
I'll have to post about how we've done organizing. Our current system I guess is a planner that has Sunday through Saturday listed down the page on the left, and a large grid on the rest of that page and the opposite page, that's divided into categories like: Learning about the World (geography and history), Learning about Literature (reading, etc), Learning Life Skills...I can't remember exactly. Someone I know from the Parent Partnership made this up, and I told her last time that I thought she should publish it (which she hasn't yet). This isn't doing it justice. The titles are so clever that you don't feel guilty about recording activities that encourage those things rather than just recording workbook pages. Anyway- I use the column on the left to map out specific assignments and things to do that week, and the grid on the rt to record various types of learning that takes place. So baking cookies, making lunch cutting up an apple while talking about fractions easily fits in the math section grid even though it's not an "assignment". There are pages in the beginning of this planner where I list what "curriculum" we're using, there are pages in the back to record "fun places we've explored this year", "books I've read", "books read to me"...It's a very fun planner.
I'll check my notes- I know my friend just gave me a bunch of photocopies from a book that she really found helpful and I was going to check it out. I have tried out various systems both as a homeschooler and a preschool teacher.
Right now planning for next year I'm just using a spiral notebook to keep all my thoughts, ideas, inspiration, and wish lists.
I would love to chat with you some time. I taught a homeschool "kindergarten" class that met 2 days a week, and schooled one of my girls for kindergarten. (She is now in 2nd grade.) I bought the What your First Grader Needs to Know the other year not because I was afraid either that we wouldn't cover everything in there, but rather I liked the stories, poems to memorize, and various things in it. I thought it lined up well with what I was hoping to cover, so it was an encouragement to me. I didn't buy one for this year. I found that I really liked a book called "The Harp and the Laurel Wreath" for the reading selections, poetry, and copywork/dictation; it has things appropriate for the youngest years through high school. It isn't all encompassing either, but I really like it as "part of the menu".
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