Happy Planner Monday! I'm so excited to share with you guys how I planned our year which officially starts today.
Our Curriculum Choices
It's taken us a long time to find the right curriculum for us, and I'm sure what works now, won't forever. We currently use a mix of Gather 'Round (unit studies) and Masterbooks (math and language arts). Our family is a fan of Charlotte Mason-style learning, and both of these curricula fit the bill. Charlotte Mason was an educator in the 1800s. Her philosophy included lots of outdoor time, recitation and dictation for the younger years, and essays for the later ones. She advocated for a later school age, around six or seven, instead of the age five requirement we have today. She did not agree with long school days, and believed everything can be taught in just a few hours. I definitely agree with that one. We only spend one-two hours per day engaging in our curriculum. The remainder if our days are spent outside, playing with friends, and interacting with the "real world".
My favorite thing about Gather 'Round is the "family-style" learning. For each unit study topic, you get a teacher's guide and then you choose from different student notebooks, based on your child's ability level. Masterbooks has a very gentle, Charlotte Mason-like approach to learning. It's worked really well for us from Kindergarten on, and I can't wait to use their Preschool level with B this year! We have the beginnings of a great year, and here's how I planned it all out.
Our Typical Day
We are usually awake by eight o'clock, although sometimes Z sleeps in until eight-thirty or nine. Since we homeschool, we don't follow a rigid schedule. A general routine works well for us.
Once everyone is awake, we eat breakfast and the kids get some screen time while I do chores, or maybe get some work done. A few days per week, we have morning playdates, and some days, we have afternoon co-ops. We school around these activities, so when we do our curriculum varies each day. We start with math and language arts, and save our unit study for the end. Gather 'Round is Z's favorite, so having him do that last motivates him to finish his other subjects without (too much) complaint. B usually colors while I teach Z, and then I do her lesson. After our school work is done, we spend the rest of our days hanging out.
Planning Our Year
I always start planning our year by blocking out our start date and end dates, as well as breaks we will take. Homeschooling comes with a lot of flexibility, and that allows us to take a longer break during the holidays. Usually, we break the week of Thanksgiving, and don't resume until the first week of January. I really love being able to enjoy our holiday season throughly!
After I outline our general schedule, I write out what curriculum we will use and when. For example, I write in our math and language arts lessons, and decide when we will do our unit studies. This month, we decided to start with Botany. I also write in when we go to our homeschool co-op. Here's what August looks like:
I like to color code to make it a little easier to organize, and it makes it look prettier, which is always important. I continue doing this for the remaining months, until I'm happy with our schedule.
Planning our school year is very simple. If you have more children, it may be more involved than mine. B is only in pre-k, and what we do with her is very unstructured. Z is going into third, so most of the focus is on him. If you're interested in learning more about planning your school year, or homeschooling in general, let me know! I don't know everything, but we're heading into our fifth year, and we've tried many kinds of curriculum. I can definitely get you pointed in the right direction.
-xx Alycia
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