How far in advance would you plan?

[annettemarie]

Usually I sketch out a general plan for the year (general math, language arts, and main lesson goals I want to hit for each month) and then plan a month at a time. However, with twins looming and not knowing when I'm gonna blow, so to speak , I'm really struggling with how far in advance to plan. I'm stuck between thinking I should stick with a month at a time and thinking I should plan as far in advance as possible (well, at least through December, at which point we were going to take 6-8 weeks off anyway) just in case I end up on bedrest or something. I'm due on Dec. 6, FWIW.

[MyLittleWonders]

I'm working on planning out the entire year right now. I have one due in December and I swear I've been nesting since before I realized I was pregnant. I'm using the "filing" system talked about elsewhere (can I link a blog?). Basically, I'm planning 36 weeks - four full days of school plus US History (mostly reading) and art to be completed over five days of school if needed. Then I'm photocopying everything right now - right now I have history (History Odyssey), US History (mostly a few pages I made up), and Writing with Ease all filed. I still need to plan art, Latin, and science, and I need to photocopy Latin and science.

I started by doing the first six weeks (this is week 3 for us); I'm slowly working on completing weeks 7-36. I've never done something like this before. I usually planned one week at a time on Sunday evenings, sometimes needing to photocopy things mid-week as the boys are at the table waiting for me. Thus far I have loved having the first six weeks planned ... I freaked a little this past Sunday evening, feeling like I needed to sit down and plan the week and then realized it was already done.

[dotnetdiva]

I've been planning out half a year at a time or so. I print out anything needed ahead of time and put them in its own file, although I am not following the 36 week file folder plan, I like having more flexibility.

[annettemarie]

MyLittleWonders, you can absolutely link a blog, as long as it's not your own.

I like the idea of planning for however many weeks we need. I guess my big concern is that we do a lot of seasonal stuff, so if I end up incapacitated during October, heaven forbid, then when we get back to things we'll be doing fall in winter, LOL!

[accidental_hs'er]

This is the time of year I do a general outline for the 2010/11 academic year. Dh and I talk about things we'd like the kids to learn. Areas we feel they may be lacking. I dig up all the curriculum material laying around, figuring out what we can use - what we may need to pick up.

I have goals not a specific itinerary. September through December is a very busy time for us overall. I lay out the plan to the family and we do our best to get through it. I reassess everything in January. We tend to have more time for book work in the dead of winter so any "catch up" can be discussed then.

[annettemarie]

Right, but I'm asking about pretty personal specific circumstances. I don't know if I'm going to hold onto these babies full term, have preemies, or end up on bedrest. I'm trying to find the best way to plan under my particular circumstances.

[MyLittleWonders]

Here's the blog that helped me a lot in figuring out how to plan out the school year. I don't have a crate with all 36 weeks in it - I bought a smaller file box to house 6 weeks at a time and then put the other weeks in the file cabinet by my desk. The subjects we do together are all going to be photocopied, but other things will just be a "do the next lesson" type thing like math, spelling, and grammar. I might make "check-off" sheets for those subjects to have a visual of how much we are accomplishing over the year, but I didn't want to plan ahead mastery-based subjects as some days we'll do 2-3 math lessons and other days we can barely make it through one.

It's been a while since we've had a baby in the house; when ds#3 was born, ds#1 was only doing K level work (and not much of it ... we were much more relaxed back then), so I didn't worry about having things planned or getting things done. But, this year I have a fourth grader and a second grader, plus a PreK'er that wants to do school. I knew I needed something done before the baby was born because I knew I would not want to be planning our week the Sunday before while trying to juggle an infant and the three boys. This is only our 2nd week of having things planned ahead (I started planning our 36 weeks towards the end of our first week back for the school year) and I am loving it. It was very nice last week to have our Week 2 folder empty, knowing we accomplished what I wanted to accomplish and that it was all done ahead of time.