A Little More on Planning...

Well, since Leonie asked in the comments of my previous post, I thought I'd share a little about planning, at least atm at my house.

I want to preface this with a post a wrote a while back about trusting God and my kids. I am trying not to over plan and/or plan without knowing why. So a lot of this is balance, just trying to do things I feel are important for us, leave room for lots of serendipity and find that neat book or website I heard about when I want it!


Here's that old post...

My planning in a nutshell:

- I have list of things I want my boys to know or be exposed to. Mostly (great and noble) ideas, basic literacy in math, science, etc and connections with the world.
These change. But I keep a running mental and written list. That goes in my main notebook. I have a tab for that and named it 'VISION'. :-)

- We meet periodically and talk about what they are up to. I see what is happening in life and jot notes in my spiral notebook. I keep that out all the time where I will see it and hopefully write in it.

- I will read through it and if I see areas they do not cover as naturally, will be on the lookout for ideas. I need a place to keep these ideas. I put notes/brochures in my idea box which sits on my desk. Also I keep a favorites section on the computer and an email folder with ideas I find online. I also have a section for Ideas in my main notebook and even tab the pages by subject.

I also have 2 fat 4x6 inch notebooks. I keep one in my purse and one by the phone and when I think of ideas, or get recommendations when out with a friend for coffee, I jot it down.

-Now that I am armed with ideas, we just live for a while. If they express and interest in an area, I will look in my idea places above or start a new search, mostly through Google or the local library search engine. I also have a Netflix account where I can find some awesome DVDs.

-For the things I suggest to the boys I have a bit more structure. This requires more planning, but not too much.

-I will often ask for time together- to share things I don't have time to during the day. These could be articles or books, lectures, etc. Most are things I find interesting and think they will, too.

-Sometimes I will strew, but more often I will just share neat things I find. For example today it was an articlein today's paper about how scientists say you can read a dog's mood by which direction (right or left) he wags his tail. Yes, they measured the angle and I assume used the scientific method....lol

-I have a white board in my office that is a great visual for me. I think the boys use it, too. On there, I jot down what we are currently doing, that is ongoing. If we start a lot of study in one area, I will write it down and some of the resources I have so the boys will know what I have available. But, mostly it is for me to remember either things we are doing or plan to do.

-I keep a place for 'project piles' books/notebooks we are currently working on and with for various areas. An example is the science DVDs. I watch them first and take notes or jot down ideas. I like to keep that all together with the DVDs and the outline guide, as well as other science resources.

-I have lists for books read and service hours performed that I keep in the main notebook.

-I have a bin of things we did- articles, notes, etc that will go in our scrapbook one day when I get around to it.

-Every few months I take the spiral notebook and type into a word document things they did and group by subject. Then we will turn them into credits.

Besides all this, I will research new things... look for audio books, lectures, local events, DVDs on Netflix, etc and weave it in.

Mostly the planning above is helping me to find things when I want them and to have a sense of where we are.

Hope this is helpful!