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Mega-Planning Strategies
By Kendra | August 12, 2009
We talked about planning everything for the school year all at once here. It’s a HUGE undertaking, but one that frees you up for the whole rest of the school year. No more Sunday night planning marathons! That’s worth it, isn’t it?
Dana emailed to ask me some questions as she was working steadily on her mega-planning this summer. I thought I’d share our dialogue since I know some of you have the same questions.
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Question: After I make the binders with ALL of the photocopies, and I make spread sheets for the subjects I do with them (like history) what do you use to communicate with the kids what you want them to accomplish each day in their individual pursuits? Checklist or spread sheet? I assume you load that into the binder also.
Answer: A little of each. I have spreadsheets that I put into page protectors and that go into binders for the older guys. They keep them where ever it is boys keep those things. I have a checklist for the others. But truth be told, this summer everyone got a checklist that I have been updating weekly. It’s a “quickie” checklist, made with capital “o’s” to bubble in and printed out on Sunday nights:
Jack- Checklist for the week of August 2nd
Breakfast prep – – O – O
Devotions O O O O O
Circle Time O O O O O
Chores O O O O O
Greek O O O O O
Lunch Prep – O – – –
Omnibus Reading O O O O O
Red Herrings O O O O O
Piano O O O O O
Fold Laundry O O O O O
Weed Trampoline O O O O O
Clean Timmy’s Cage O – – – –
Evening Chores & Zone O O O O O
Garden O O O O O
The bubbles, by the way, represent each day of the work week- Monday through Saturday. Just couldn’t get them to line up here on the blog 
Question: Do you ever take apart a book and put it in the binder simply to have it all in one place (to lessen the chance of it being misplaced or lost)? Am I going overboard?
Answer: Yes, I do. Definitely. And the year I did Story of the World III I interspersed the text pages with the student activity pages and maps, etc., just so I could see what was on tap for each week. In other words, I took the binding off the book, punched holes in it, then organized it by weekly tabs. Then I did the same with the student pages and maps, filing them in the correct week as well.
Dana and two other friends got together to plan over the course of a weekend away. You can see what fun they had at Rebecca’s blog, Leading Little Hearts Home.
Topics: Educating at Home, School Organization | 9 Comments »
August 12th, 2009 at 3:33 am
My favorite tip to make my year easier: I take nearly everything to Staples and have the binding chopped off and the pages 3 hole punched.
Obviously not textbooks, but just about everything else! It makes pages easier to photocopy. It takes up less space on the kitchen table for me to hand a kid one page to use than a whole book opened out. And with 7 kids vying for the table, space is at a premium!!
Some examples: math workbooks; Considering God’s Creation; handwriting workbooks; Learning Language Arts thru Literature teacher books; etc.
I keep themin labeled binders in my homeschool cabinet.
Dawn in SC
August 12th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Hi Kendra!
I often take the bindings off of books as well only I take them to our local printer where they will slice off the binding and drill the holes for me for a nominal fee. I’ve only done this with soft covers so I don’t know if they will do hardcovers or not but this saves me tons of time!
Cyndy
August 14th, 2009 at 6:56 am
You know, I just love you for doing this! One of the best benefit’s I have noticed from doing this humungo amount of planning all at once, is the flow of my brain. Even broken up over a months time, I haven’t lost my momentum nor the flow of my planning. Plus I can think without feeling pressure that I need to make a decision by ‘Monday’. Sunday’s always took me a bit to find my brain and get the hampster running. -D
August 14th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Ooo..that is an idea.. Cutting up workbooks! We have a huge problem with workbooks and fighting for space at our table. With 5 kids (only three doing school) at our table we are so very cramped!
August 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Kendra,
How do you navigate when crazy things happen. Do you just skip the part you miss or pick up where you left off.
I planned the whole year last year and one thing after another, baby in hospital, husband loosing job, family coming unexpectedly etc. It threw me a bit. We never finished history at all.
Just trying to figure out if I should plan the entire year or maybe in quarters.
I know you had some surprises last year too.
Any thoughts.
August 15th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Sandi-
I like to make the plan anyway, knowing it can be changed to suit what’s happening rather than letting it run us. So use it as a tool and don’t let it use you!
~Kendra
May 29th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Kendra,
I have read about your mega-planning sessions before and like the idea of it. My question is this: How do you plan so that you are able to adjust when one of your kiddos isn’t “getting it” as quickly as you thought? You know, like they don’t get the idea of borrowing in subtraction. Or, they need more time for memorizing that passage of scripture than you thought they would. The stuff like history or science I can see how that works but I’m having trouble figuring out how to work the planning for math and stuff like that.
Thanks for all you do for us.
Because of Him,
Tracy in NC
May 30th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Tracy-
See comment above
~Kendra
May 30th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Duh! That’s what I get for running to the end and no reading all the way down, isn’t it?!
Thanks!
Tracy in NC