It’s that time of the year.
Late summer. The time when our version of “teacher in-service days” begin and we start our homeschool planning for next year. I love it! Now is the best time to have in your hands a customized homeschool planner for each one of your students. I am in the beginning stages of filling in the Goals & Planning section for each of my boys and it is exciting!
I have been asked many times how I use the Long Range Planning Form found in our Student and High School Edition planners.
Originally, I created this form to show a snapshot of the year when my guys were little. When we were studying colors, letters, books, and holidays, I wanted a place to write that information down. I wanted an aerial view. It made it so much easier when I broke my year up in that way.
Now, my boys are going into 6th and 8th grade and I find it even more useful, I want to share with you how I use it.
First things first.
The first thing I do is to decide the number of categories for each of my boys. This varies from year to year. Then I grab a ruler and pencil and make my own columns, one for each of those categories. This year, for my soon to be 8th grader, I have a generic column titled “school” where I will put a variety of information on many units he will be covering. The next two are for History and Science. I chose these because we don’t want to miss anything when we study our favorite Sonlight history, and we are accountable to finish our science modules on time to participate in lab experiments with our friends. I then labeled the last two columns “Activities” and “Birthdays” to organize those for the year.
Then, I write in the months on the left side, but I also add the week numbers, which I have found very helpful. For curriculum that is divided into weekly lessons, it makes it easy to lay out. Some things I don’t worry about “finishing,” but I definitely need a plan in place for those I do!
Even though it isn’t the first form in the section, it is the first one I fill out every time I start my homeschool planning process.
I hope this give you some ideas to creating your aerial view of the upcoming homeschool year.
Happy homeschool planning!
