how do you plan your lessons?

[AmyW]

I've seen some of the things you all add into your FIAR (notebooking, lapbooking, worksheets, etc...).

Could you share how you prepare for your lessons? I seem to have lost all creativity and desire for homeschooling. It's a bit early in the year for burnout. :unsure:

Thanks, ladies!

[debbie in ak]

This is what I do....


*Select the books for the year that we will row (but I don't pick which weeks we will row them, just which month.)

*Go through the manuals and right down on my planning sheets the lessons we will do for that book.

*Write down any go alongs we will need at the library.

*I have several files of extra ideas for each book. I go through those to see if there are any extras we want to do.

*This year I also went to www.homeschoolshare.com to see if there were any extras there to do lapbooks with. We don't do a lapbook for each book we row. It would be overload for me!

[CJ]

This is our 10th year of homeschooling and I've been getting burned out much sooner in the year. I've got another 16 years ahead of me so this has been very discouraging. My oldest dd suggested changing up our weeks instead of following the basic public school schedule.

That lead to what we're doing this year - 5 weeks of school, then 1 week off.

During the 1 week off, I plan our next 5 FIAR books and our next 5 BFIAR books. It's really working out great and has helped my burn out a lot!

I have a 1 page document for each book that I print out and I sort the manual and go along books into a list on the page arranged by day. Then I put all 10 sheets into a 10 cent 3 prong report binder. I have a piece of card-stock in the middle to divide my FIAR books from my BFIAR books.

I know other families that do a variation of weeks... 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off; 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off; etc. I can't believe I didn't try it sooner.
:eek:

[Michele]

CJ,
Thanks for your post. This is also our tenth year and I'm feeling like I need to make some more changes..NOW.

:)Michele

[Kendra AU]

We do a 3-4 week on and one week off rotation. During our one week off I plan the upcoming school weeks, get dinners tossed in the freezer, and make sure to put all books I'll need on hold at our local library.

As for more specifics on planning.. We're rowing by country this year as I've worked a badge type program (I've made this up completely) for my six year old. So he's working in a specific order to earn his badges this year. We started off with a simple introduction to Geography by using Katy & Apple Pie. In anycase, because dh and I have a basic outline of what we're working towards this year it makes our planning a bit easier.

I have the current FIAR planner, which is terrific for helping lay out lessons. I make up a set of papers as I need them fill them in and pop them in my notebook. I keep a specific notebook which has four dividers in it. One is labeled, this week, next week, week 3, week 4. Each divider also has pockets so that I can put in any papers (like maps, flags, etc) that I may need for the current week.

I also keep a plastic rubber maid style file box with a file for each FIAR title. That way as I find tidbits here and there I can tuck them in and know where they are when I'm ready for them. All though for the most part we stick with the manual, and then do some lapbooking or notebooking to go along.

I've gleamed a lot of creative ideas from the various lapbooking and notebooking sites that have been previously mentioned, but for the most part I go with what I know my child really wants to learn. I love the fact that my six year old is confident in the fact that all he has to do is ask and he knows we'll jump in and learn about whatever the current subject of choice is.

In fact it's this amazing desire to know and learn that inspired the patch program that I made up. He had a huge desire to earn boy scout badges, but the scout program at his level wasn't doing much to earn badges.. that and his deep desire to know about anything on a map...

Kendra

[Michelle]

I've found that I need to take a much more relaxed approach to our rowing, as I am so busy teaching 2 to read and working on hard math with another...

So during the weekend I often choose which book is next, sometimes a little further out. I look over the manual and choose which topics we will cover. Usually just one subject matter a day. I often will go to homeschool share as well and print off anything that I htink the girls will enjoy. We have also started taking just about 2 weeks to row a book.

The girls each have a spiral bound scrapbook. We do a 2 page spread for some books, none for others. It just depends mostly on their interests and if some special opportunities happened. For instance, last week we rowed Babar and went to the Young People's concert at the CS Philharmonic. Afterwards we met with 2 other FIAR families and played at the park. So we have a photograph of the kids, elephants that were drawn and cut out and a paragraph about the concert to add to our scrapbooks on Monday.

HTH :)

[Stacy]

Well, I am definitely on the more relaxed (okay, so I actually need to admit that the right word would be 'unorganized' :lol: ) end. On Sunday, I think, "Hmmm....what should we study this week?" I pick either a book or a theme, then open my Excel spreadsheet and fill in the blanks. It takes me about an hour to create the lessons, set up the schedule, and find all of the resources. We do the same outline every week, with regards to which days have history/science/social studies/etc and with which days have math workbooks versus real-life math, for instance.

[Nancy Ann]

I took volumes 1-3 and there are 54 titles I can get my hands on. So I divided that by 2 and am doing 27 titles each year. The third year we will re-row and our youngest will join. I don't pick out or plan exactly what books for the whole year we will do. I need to have more flexibility. I plan about a month ahead a time. I purchased the FIAR planner and I printed off 27 sheets of the weekly planner page and I three whole punched them and put them in the back of my binder and I only bring out 4 of them at a time to write the titles on that we will do.

Than when I have chosen the 4 titles I look through my FIAR manual and read through all the lessons, write down on my weekly planner sheet the ones that seem good. Write down any supplies I need. As for creativity I will search in the FIAR archives and the homeschool share website and find ideas or go along books and see if something sparks and would be interesting. Some weeks we don't do any go alongs or lapbooks or any extras..it really depends on the book and the available resources and our MOOD! :)

So this covers about 27 weeks of school the rest of the weeks to make 36 will be review or interest based learning, rowing other books from homeschool share or doing a lapbook or unity study from Hands of a Child.

Also as a side note we spend a week on each FIAR book (Monday -Friday)regardless of what happens that week. If it's a short week or we don't complete everything I planned we still move onto the next story. I will read the book on the weekend and do a little review on some of those short weeks. We will be re-rowing and so I am not worried about doing everything.

The other subjects like electives, Math, penmanship ect.. I decide on the begining of the school year. The key for me with these other subjects is to not get distracted and add more things in because I come across something interesting. I have to keep reminding myself that I can't do everything or I will put it on my list I made up in a Word document for future homeschooling ideas.

Maybe you want to do three weeks of FIAR and just do the lessons straight and not add anything than you can have a fourth week be an interest based learning week like something from Hands of a Child where the lapbook is all planned out for you and you could use for both your children.

[Kendall in GA]

I seem to have lost all creativity and desire for homeschooling. It's a bit early in the year for burnout. :unsure:



Don't overextend yourself...Relax! No need to freet...FIAR is perfect if you're feeling as if you've lost your creativity...ALL of the work has already been done for you...Grab manual, have school! :)

FIAR does not require lots of planning and/or bells & whistles. Some of us do enjoy planning and adding go-along & extras; but, part of the beauty of FIAR is that it is effective in its simplicity. You can be confident that your dc are learning even if you just stick to the basics.

IMO, if you are feeling a little less than creative than you'd like, you should consider taking a break and sticking to the basics...It'll be fine. You can always be more creative when (and if) the urge ever hits in the future. :)

[AmyW]

Don't overextend yourself...Relax! No need to freet...FIAR is perfect if you're feeling as if you've lost your creativity...ALL of the work has already been done for you...Grab manual, have school! :)

FIAR does not require lots of planning and/or bells & whistles. Some of us do enjoy planning and adding go-along & extras; but, part of the beauty of FIAR is that it is effective in its simplicity. You can be confident that your dc are learning even if you just stick to the basics.

IMO, if you are feeling a little less than creative than you'd like, you should consider taking a break and sticking to the basics...It'll be fine. You can always be more creative when (and if) the urge ever hits in the future. :)

...I think a break is just what I need.

Thank you all for your replies. I am jotting down info for future reference (when the creativity urge returns!!!). :)

Blessings to you all!!!

[laurie in ok]

We do what's in the book. Seriously, I don't really add anything much to the lessons. I check out books from the library that pertain to the topic - animal, science something or other, and we read those. We've never notebooked or lapbooked any of our FIAR titles. My kids just haven't gotten into it and I don't have a desire to work that hard if they aren't going to really enjoy it!

[Nancy Ann]

It's the holidays!!! It's not uncommon for people to take time off from Thanksgiving to New Years! We have done this in the past. This year we are not going to..but other years I have and it's been wonderful.

[Shelly L]

I had to do something to boost my enthusiasm, and what I decided to do, first of all, was to realize that for some reason we never get through a book in just one week. With that in mind, I created my own version of a planning sheet that has enough room for 8 days of lessons. The next thing I did was NOT label those days "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...." and so on. Instead, they are labeled "Day One, Day Two, Day Three...." etc. This takes a lot of pressure off of worrying that a certain lesson or activity didn't happen on "Monday." The schedule or plan has to abide by our interruptions and exceptions, rather than me feeling bad that something didn't happen when the schedule said it was supposed to happen on a particular day.

After I take the manual and read through the lesson and jot down what I want to do in each subject area for this "rowing" of the book, I will transfer all that to my 8-day sheet on the appropriate days. I also have, for each day, a box for listing supplies needed for that day. This is a two-page sheet, and at the bottom of all the 8 days is another space for extra notes regarding the book or lessons, etc. (By the way, I just started using this sheet and the "Day one, Day two" plan, but so far it seems to be working great!)

I don't record what we "did" on this sheet -- I have another planner for recording all of our school activity -- but this is my FIAR plan, and it made me very very happy when I had it done and in-hand by the week we started a book. I probably won't be able to do a gob of these ahead of time, (I have done many "pre-plans" ahead of time -- looking through the manuals and jotting down what I'd like to do) -- but I feel like I will be ahead of the game just to have this plan ready to go by Monday morning.

I have found that, for me, going through the manual ahead of time and getting myself excited about the lessons, and then putting my plan onto paper, is what gives me my enthusiasm for the book we are going to row and the potential learning that can take place.

Shelly L.