Planning and reviewing

As we head into the new school year I have been planning my arse off. Scheduling lessons, deciding on resources, then finding the cheapest way to acquire those resources. I have been busy, my brain is tired and in this heat my body is tired too.

While I have been planning have been reviewing our last year, our first 3 terms of homeschooling ever. What worked, what didn't work? There are things that I don't think worked well enough, but I am yet to decide on how else to do those things.

The area I struggled most with as we started was how to report and record. I am still really struggling with how to do it.

This is what we did last year:

This is our weekly timetable. I plan these in advance to help me spread the work out over the term. Then as we go I tick off the things we did and jot down extra things we decide to do as we go along. (Please ignore the misspelling of site, I know they are sight words hahaha it took me a few weeks to spot my boo boo, and of course I pick the wrong week to photograph). 

What I loved about this:

• I could open the folder and know exactly what work to pull out that day.
• It was clear, neat and easy to follow.

What I didn't love:

• Just like I am incapable of following a recipe, we would end up doing Friday's work on Monday, the Monday's work would get split over 3 days, and maybe I might follow Thursday as is. So by the end of the week it was a mess and I struggled to see what needed to be done.
• There wasn't a great deal of space to jot the extra activities.
• It really didn't help me remember to keep note of what he struggled to learn that week and help me keep track of the areas we need to work on. I knew in my mind what was needed but have nothing on paper for it.

Our yearly report. This is where I have been able to mention what he has and has not achieved. Maths I cover with simple dot points of Yes he does these areas well, and these areas need more work. For English I write a little blurb for each outcome area. And then the other KLA's get a paragraph of what we did that year and how he has progressed. I am really happy with these and I will continue to do them half yearly and yearly.

Thanks to some amazing work of Tamara from Tutor your own child and Suzie from Suzie's Home Education Ideas I have these amazing proforma tables. I love these women for making these tables. As I plan I jot down the activities I have planned for the term/year. It helps me see that we will cover everything. At the end of each term I tidy it up and delete anything we didn't manage to cover or move those activities to the next term. I don't think planning like this is for everyone. But for me it really really works. My organisational brain loves it, loves the order and neatness these tables give. Plus it gives me a very clear visual of gaps that appear. I don't jot down a great deal of activities for English as those lessons just sort of happen amongst other lessons.

And so I move onto planning this year.

Master N will be starting a preschool program this year and we have decided to follow a modified version of Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter of the Week program combined with reading eggs and other random activities that interest him. So above is one terms worth of work printed and laminated ready to go. I used an entire 100 pouch box of laminating pouches to create this.

Master I's work is almost ready and programmed. I am just waiting on a couple of books before I finalise everything and get everything for term one printed off. I am getting as much ready to go now while Dad is home to help with the kids and it is too hot to do anything else anyway.