So after putting together Migi’s curriculum, what’s next?

Well, since I’m actually a very unschooly person at heart, this is where it tends to fall apart, and it has. In years past, I’ve used Google Calendar, or had Migi use a planner. But somehow that system didn’t really work well for us. What HAS worked well is me putting together a chart of sorts that he can look at in the morning, check off through the day what he’s done and turn in to show me before he goes off to play. The problem with that was I often failed to make a chart so I’d have it ready for a week or two and then fall back into our old (ineffective) ways. Yup, even after 11 (12?) years of homeschooling we still don’t have a system down. Part of it is that my children and I all have different personalities, similar to a degree, but different enough to bungle whatever rhythm we’ve got going, if we’re not careful. While my haphazard Let’s-plan-the-year-and-then-see-what-happens has worked well with two other kids, it hasn’t been working well with my third. He wants to know what he’s expected to do every single day, no more, no less, preferably ahead of time. SO…. here’s what I did this year that I think will help him AND me.

First, the spreadsheet, which I do every year and that we use pretty much as our guide for the whole year. For some people, this will be enough. I have it set up this way because it’s how my mind works.

Usually, I would just print that out, staple and put in my kids’ binders and that’s what we consult when we need to see where we are, etc.

This year, I took some extra steps for this child.

First I put it into database format, which means the rows became columns and columns became rows.

This is where my secretarial skills come in (I used to work as a secretary while waiting for my paperwork to arrive from my university so I could continue college studies here in the US)

I made a template for a weekly schedule

then merged it with the database and got this:

So now he’s got 52 weeks of plans that he just has to check through.

In addition, I made monthly pages — which I like better than print outs from Google calendar:

and daily planner pages for him:

using the same database-merge process.

I’ve only printed the August pages out so we can tweak as needed, adding in scouting activities, etc. if need be.

I think what I’ll do next is put together a HUGE binder ala-Kolbe and put EVERY SINGLE worksheet, literature guide, experiment instruction, lab report page that he’ll ever need, etc., so that it’s ALL THERE, a whole year’s worth of work, organized and ready.

We’re excited to put this into action!

ETA: I FORGOT A CRUCIAL FIRST STEP before putting that curriculum into a planner page! First I made a “schedule” page and took what I thought might be a “typical week”, just to make sure that everything we’ve planned to do is actually DOABLE within a specified timeframe. I made sure there was plenty of time for sleep, and free/idle/down time, because kids so desperately need that these days. This is also to make sure I actually have time to spend with my child on the subjects where I need to be more hands on. I put all the subjects in, and when I did that, that’s when I realized that we had to revise our Confirmation prep plans A LOT. More on that tomorrow.