Recycling Curricula & Planning

I think I have purchased an equal amount of resources that are currently on my shelves, as are now on someone else's shelf.  No matter how much research I do ahead of time, sometimes I just don't know if a curricula will work until I try it.  I'm a frugal person, but I'm not going to keep using something that just isn't working because I paid for it.  Flexibility of curricula is one of the main reasons I homeschool.  I've been warned not to be a slave to my curricula, and I believe that is sound advice.

I was asked by a non-homeschooling mom at the park the other day, "How do you find time to plan?".  Tired and not ready for the question I glibly answered with a smile, "By the seat of my pants."  Afterward, I took some time to think about "How do I plan?" and thought I'd share the general process here.

First of all, its important to understand we homeschool year round (June to May).  I think this has a couple advantages:

• We don't have to vacation in the summer when everyone else is, which lowers costs and avoids crowds.
• We can take breaks when ever we NEED them, due to mental fatigue, physical illness, special events, visitors, etc.
• My kids don't loose their brain over the summer causing us to lose time at the beginning of each year finding their brains again.

I do try to have their core curricula complete by the end of April each year.  May is usually very busy with vacations, birthdays and my state's annual homeschool convention.  Therefore, I generally use May to plan the next year and do homeschool lite that month.

I never really stop planning or evaluating curricula but May is when I sit down and try to put together my plan for the new year, understanding that once we start anything could change.  First, I go to the convention usually wanting to see and touch a certain number of items that have piqued my interest.  I like to see and touch, I find it hard to make purchases on the internet if I've never actually seen the resource in person.  That's also where knowing other homeschoolers can really help.  I have saved myself a lot of money over the years by asking if anyone has a certain resource I could look at and after seeing it my opinion sometimes changes completely.

I try to spend our summer really focusing on Science and History.  I try to complete both curricula between June and August. I find not trying to do all subjects, all year long makes our days go better.  The rest of the year I put a stronger focus on Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.  However, I choose Science and History curricula that incorporate all those things, so we never really stop the basics, we just change the focus.  Also I try to find a curricula I can use for both my older children for Science and History, I just expect a little more out of my older child when we do the curricula.

After I go to the convention for looking at curricula and other resources, my next favorite event of the summer is a HUGE Used Curricula sale held the week after.  This is where I look for living books to support our Science and History theme for the year, and a few just to have fun reading.  It's always a relief to come home with so many bargains after spending a bit too much at the convention the week before.

I have chosen to do history over a three year cycle:  Ancients, Middle Ages/Renaissance, American History.  However, I like to go deep instead of wide.  For instance, this year we are in the American History Cycle, by year end we will have covered Columbus through the Revolutionary War. Next time through we will gloss over these areas and go deep maybe Revolutionary War through Industrial Age.

That's the general idea of how I plan on a Macro level.  On a weekly level, planning is just as flexible, especially since the arrival of our new baby.  Each week I try to get in at least three days of Core Curricula work.  Fridays I find they are physically and mentally drained so we focus on more hands-on activities, like Fine Arts and reading Living Books.  

In keeping with my understanding of Charlotte Mason's principals, we do NOT try to do the same subject at the same time every day.  She felt children did better with short periods, that varied in order from day to day.  I have tried to keep to the short periods but timing our subjects caused a lot of stress in our homes.  What does work is to keep in mind the idea of short subject periods when determining how much work they need to do each day, ie. for my older son I only have him do half the review questions for math and sometimes I will split a spelling lesson into two days.

To further organize our "Stack System" and chores, I have recently implemented the use of the "Reminder" program on their iPads.  I made a reminder list with all the possible things they would need to do in a day from "Getting Dressed" to the "Journal Writing" word of the day.  Then each night I go through, check as "completed" the things I don't want them to do the next day, which leaves them with a list of things they must complete.  Rinse, Lather, Repeat....  It's working better than any other system we've tried.  They are doing their "Xtra Math" and "Push-ups" app on the iPads, and frankly they like them so using them isn't a chore.  This could be done in a more low-tech manner, but my boys have an innate ability to avoid the obvious reminders when they aren't interested.

I've made the mistake of trying to re-create a school environment a couple of times by having a very detailed and strict schedule that followed a typical school day.  Our idea of homeschooling is to do things differently and hopefully better.  In my previous life in corporate America I had a saying, "I've never met a process that couldn't be improved." and this is the mentality I now apply to our homeschooling journey.  Its the reason we are always changing, at least in some way, what we do and how we do it.  The goal of perfection is unachievable, but that is what we strive for in homeschooling.  Despite more failures in this area than I can count, all we can do is to get up and take the next right step as best as we know how and try to have fun along the way.