Making a Plan

This time every year homeschool moms everywhere are beginning the process of planning for the next school year. For the fortunate few, it will be as easy as getting the next book, the next level, the next package. For many of us, there will be tweeking, re-assessing levels, and switching curricula. Then there are those years where everything gets throws out the window and you start from scratch. For me, it is all 3 this time around. Every year I get multiple messages asking how I do it. How do you plan an educational program for multiple children at multiple levels, meeting everyone's needs, and not going crazy yourself.

The short answer: you can't. Just ask my family - I went crazy years ago. We just all expect Mom's crazy to be "normal" now.

I thought I'd take some time to outline what I do, why, and some of what has worked for us. Just keep in mind that your family and your personality are not mine, so mimicking what I do probably won't work as well for you!

1) Pray. Pray. and Pray some more. That may seem obvious, but it is easy to forget. Or, more likely, to drop that aspect at some step in the process. I have found I need to constantly go back to my children's Creator for wisdom. He knows them better than I do. He sees the future. He sees resources and opportunities that would never cross my mind. I go back to Him before, during, and after each step in the process.

2) Evaluate - what worked and what didn't. What brought joy? What brought frustration? What was beautiful? What led to best moments of the year? What led to the worse? It may be curriculum, circumstance, attitudes, skills, or the unexpected moments of life, but you need to really look at how the big picture and each small component worked together. Talk to each child. Talk to your spouse. Talk to others who have observed you and your family. Evaluate finances and how much you can spend. Talk to God. Look at what life is bringing and factors you will need to work around.
We have a big year of change ahead of us - a child leaving for college, a move (but we won't know where until September or later), Dad possibly switching jobs twice but allowing him to be home more, 1 moving into high school, 1 becoming an independent reader and writer, 1 showing signs of transitioning into rhetoric thinking, 1 new dialectic student. 

3) Set Goals - what needs to be accomplished this next year. Absolutely look at academics - skills that have improved, subjects that were over looked, large leaps that were made. But, also look at social, spiritual, and emotional needs. You may have a child who just needs a year of successes. There may be one who needs a major challenge. Set goals for each child and for the entire family. Don't forget to set a target budget.
As a family, we want to see Christ more fully and to see Him in everything. All the children need to work on writing skills. They also need high-order thinking skills in math and literature. L needs to be challenged more. O needs frequent small successes to build confidence. R needs to take more ownership in her learning to build excitement and self-motivation. The number of books and supplies needs to be minimal to keep the packing and moving process simple. Budget needs to be low to prepare for massive expenses when we return to the States. 

4) Organize - find a way to organize your plan. There are a lot of pre-made resources out there. I have found them to inadequate for my needs, so I've created my own Excel spreadsheet. It make minor changes year to year to accommodate for changes subjects (and number of students), but the basic content remains the same. I list each subject with room to record what material I will be using and its retail cost (usually from the publisher's website). I've formatted Excel so it calculates the total retail cost per child, and for the entire school. Next to retail cost is a place to enter my actual cost.  I try to take advantage of sales, used materials, and discounts, and compare multiple vendors, so I can get the best price I can. I include shipping charges associated with any purchase. Those can really add up after a while if I'm not careful! All this give me a quick way to record what I have purchased and spent. It really cut down on double purchases, or missing material the first week of school!

5) Start Curriculum Planning - I always begin with talking with the children - as a group and one-on-one. This is their education and they need to have input as to what they like, what they don't like, what they would like to do or not do. This is especially important with middle and high schoolers! I actually have my high schoolers do some of their own research and choose some of their own material. I get the final say, but I take their opinions very seriously and make sure I have a good explainable reason when I choose something different than they want. (Studying math is not negotiable, how we do it may be.)  The first things to go into the spreadsheet are those things I know will not be changing.  As I go through each child and each subject, I look first at my goals and second at the time commitment it will require from me.First is always figuring out WHAT CAN I COMBINE. History, science, and literature are usually the easiest. There have been years I've been able to combine children in writing, grammar, and Latin. I've never combined math, but I know families who have done it successfully. Don't have more going than you absolutely need to! This becomes the hardest part - finding resources that meet my goals for each child, respect my time limitations, and tailoring for individual learning styles and preferences. Homeschool boards, Rainbow Resources, The Well Trained Mind, and Google are my best friends. I have my favorite publishers, so I tend to go there first and check their store and blogs for new material. When we were stateside, Homeschool conventions were a great way to find new material - and sometimes my best finds were in that small vendor no one else was going to.   As you go through, be sure to record supplemental resources (maps, tests, literature guides, etc..)  Re-evaluate the entire plan as you add in each subject. I will use cells below the actually planning grid to make notes and list alternatives as I go along. This is why I love using Excel - it is very easy to move and change the plan as I work.  Remember to pray through each step and each decision. I often feel as if I'm texting God through the entire process, (even if it is simply "HELP!") but He does respond!
We want more independent learning and for each child to take more ownership of their education - so we are leaving Tapestry of Grace and following The Well Trained Mind very closely for history and literature. There are also fewer books to put into checked baggage during our move. Everyone loves Math-U-See, but we are adding Beast Academy for the problem solving skills. B should be reading independently and copywork she can do while sitting next to me, so I can spend more time one-on-one with writing with other children - so we can move to Writing with Skill and Writing and Rhetoric. Since we are moving to a Great Books literature style, I added a second sheet with my list for each level.   
6) Start planning your days - Read teacher's manuals - even if you've used material before! Yes they can be boring, but more often than not, I find when parents have problems with a curriculum it's because they haven't learned how to use it. Make a curriculum work for you, but know how it is intended to work and why. I use a lot of materials based on developmental skills, so the method is just as important as the content.  I recommend doing that early so if you find it isn't what you thought or it isn't going to work, you can change plans sooner rather than later. I like having all my teacher's manuals in hand by the time we hit the last 8 weeks of the current school year.  Plan how you will keep each child accountable. This changes every year for us. Look at pre-made student planners, on-line planners, ask friends what they do. It doesn't have to be complicated. I didn't use written plans at all when everyone was little. We had daily and weekly routines with curriculum that was open and go. note: I don't plan for breaks or according to the calendar, with the exception of Christmas. School is our priority at all times, but we don't work when Daddy can be home - and I don't always know when that will be. I find we need a break every 6-8 weeks or so, but life sometime demands more, or less. We break when we need to, no matter what the calendar says. That is why I don't use a dated planner. I want the freedom to take off when we need to, and not need to replan.

Next school year we are moving from me giving them daily assignments, to them filling in what they have done each day. Each child will be given a blank planner and a weekly routine - this is what must be done each week or day. They will fill in what they did (this is part of the independence and ownership plan). For example - each week my Dialectic students will know they have to: put dates into a time-line, put places and events onto a map, read the assigned pages, create an outline of their readings, write a 1 page summary, do additional research on anything they read about, and complete a project of their choice. Daily they must work on math for 45 minutes, Latin for 30 minutes, and Literature for 60 minutes - we keep those subjects self paced, not book driven. I am putting my own weekly schedule together for the entire year, with readings and content for each subject and each child.  When it is completed I will have a 2 day spread for each week of school with reading assignments, supplies needed,  and a place for my own notes. The back will include a running literature list for each child, so when they complete one book, they can move on to the next. Each child will check my book to get their weekly assignments. I have started simply looking at the number of chapters in each spine or text, dividing by 36, and filling in each week. I find I need to plan the entire year head of time. I don't date anything, to free us from the calendar when life happens, but I also don't have to do weekly planning. I do need to tweek things now and then, but the curriculum I've chosen allows a lot of self-pacing, so "keeping up" is rarely an issue. 

7) Gather supplies. We are now in a position where I can usually gather everything I need for a year or semester at one time.  I have found the more I have before the year begins, the more likely things are to get done. This is especially true with science experiments, history projects, and art. We haven't always been able to do this, so then I made weekly or monthly lists and picked supplies up with groceries.  I spend the weeks before we start a new school year gathering as much as I can, taking advantage of sales and bulk pricing. I have shelves and tubs dedicated to art and science supplies, so they are always easily available. (I even have a tub with pennies, because you know when the chemistry book calls for them I'm out of change!) I try to stock up on crayons, pencils, pens, erasers, and paper for the entire year. The more I can do ahead of time, the more smoothly everything runs - especially when life happens and I don't have time to plan for the next week, or day, of school. As much as you can, get good quality supplies. Beeswax crayons, or even Crayola, last longer and give better results than the cheap RoseArt or dollar store. In the long run, the extra initial expense will save you money. (Yes, I am that Mom in front of you at Walmart with 50 boxes of Ticonderoga pencils when they are on sale!) I buy boxes of copy paper, multiple sets of toner for printers, bulk rubber bands and paper clips - anything I can store to have on hand "just in case".

8) Rest - Part of my yearly planning routine is reading "Teaching from Rest" by Sarah Mackenzie, beginning to pre-read literature at the pool, and recharging myself. Don't forget to plan your own time and space to relax. I now have a running list of books I need to read for the kids' education and those I want to read for myself. When I start reading before the school year, I get to take the time to really enjoy the great literature the children are reading. During the school year, a book from one list or another is almost always in my bag, ready to pick up and read whenever I have a down moment. "Teaching from Rest" helps me start with the right perspective. I also have a spiritual plan for myself - what I am studying, how, and what I need to do that.

I hope this helps. It is a lot of work, but being well prepared helps the school year run much more smoothly. Each year the process is a little easier as I learn what works for us and each child.

Happy Planning!