Mom Is Teaching

This is part 3 of my homeschool planning week. You can read the first two parts at:
Pre-Planning for Homeschooling
Get A Planner and Get Planning

Today I wanted to focus on getting what you plan to teach with in order.

For those who go the route of prepackaged curriculums this is an easy task. With most predesigned plans you will get everything that you will need when you buy it. It can still be helpful to go through and make notes of any additional items, books, or tools that you may need. If you are planning on teaching more than what comes in your package you will need to plan out what you will need for that. Even if you are only going to be using what is offered in your packaged plan there will still be additional items that you will need: arts and crafts supplies, books for extra reading, and tools such as calculators or maps. Sit down with what you are planning to use and make a list of what more you will need and want to get.

For those who are not using packaged curriculum making a list can be a bit more work. There are several things you will need to plan out before getting to the actual work. You will need to decide what you want to teach to your children. You can look online to find what children should be learning according to your school district. There are also some great scope and sequence lists online that you can use as a guideline, such as this course of study list for each grade. You certainly do not have to follow the list, but can use it as a general guide to see what areas to look towards. You can also make note of anything that your children already know and any things that you think they mightnot be ready for yet. That will help you as you get into the curriculum you choose.

We will be reading a lot of books and there are certain books that I want to read but have not yet been able to get all them. So one other planning idea I know I will be doing is making a list of the books I want to read with my sons, and make a list of two or three alternatives. Then I will be hitting the libraries to see what we have available and what I won’t be able to find. Luckily many libraries will do inter-library loans, where you can have books sent over from other libraries. But it can take longer to get the books to you, you may not be able to keep them for as long, and some libaries charge a small fee for this. Check with your local library to find out.

You can also check with local homeschool groups and see if there are resources available locally. One local homeschool group near me has a small library of curriculums that you can use to read the various curriculums and copy pages off for your own children. You may have a similar resource that can be very helpful in planning.

homeschool, homeschooling, planning