Homeschool planning was something I enjoyed. It helped me stay in touch with my children’s needs, goals, interests, personality, and learning style. I always took these things into account when writing and evaluating each child’s plan. My oldest was an independent learner and my youngest a self-starter. One was overcoming dyslexia and the other was average to above average in everything. Between the four, there were many things to consider when planning.
The goal was always to challenge my children to move up a notch academically without discouraging their joy and love of learning. It was a delicate balance.
I would create detailed plans and meticulously outline them in an excel file for the kids to follow on their own. As homeschool dad Jay Ryan said in one of his blogs,
Our goal is to teach our children to be autodidacts (self learners).
I didn’t realize there was such a highbrow word for how I taught. Once the plans were laid out, I simply facilitated the process and made sure my children were reading and completing their assignments by asking for narrations and looking over their work.Of course, there were some subjects I had to teach—and some subjects I loved to teach—but as a general rule, my children read to learn most of their material, then taught me what they learned through narration. I included narration in their weekly schedules and required they check it off after they checked off their reading. It became an automatic habit to orate what they had read. Narration was a permanent fixture in the Fulbright homeschool plan!
Here are examples of three of my children’s homeschool plans:
Monday:
Go to Master’s Academy of Fine Arts for Art, Music, and Drama centered around an Ancient World theme.
Tuesday through Friday:
At this age my daughter loved to cut and paste, so I purchased materials for her to create minibooksand lapbooks of her learning in addition to notebooking. This kept her occupied as the other kids worked later into the afternoon.
Monday:
Go to Master’s Academy of Fine Arts for Art, Music, and Drama centered around an Ancient World theme.
Tuesday through Friday:
My three younger children did the core of history together (Waring and Mystery) but all had different novels to read each day based on their reading level and interests.
Everyday, she trained for ballet 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours at night, except Mondays when she attended Artios (Master’s Academy’s art program for high schoolers).
I hope these thoughts and sample plans provide some valuable insight as you begin your homeschool planning for the next year.
Read on for more homeschool encouragement.
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