Saturdays are our rest day but I missed my normal lesson-planning session due to church summer camp stuff so here I am, on Saturday, lesson-planning for the week for two students. Usually I write a blog post on Saturday for my own enjoyment but today I thought I'd better kill two birds with one stone. We get a blog post on my updated lesson-planning!
A helpful precursor to lesson planning is for me to work a Capacity Cake for each student. This enjoyable little exercise helps me keep our daily priorities in sight. I do one of these each quarter approximately, or whenever I want to add or change resources. *If you decide to purchase any of the resources I link on Amazon I will earn a small commission at no cost to you.
Back to this Saturday's lesson-planning. Currently, I am housing everyday school resources in baskets. I have one for family subjects: Bible, History, Science, and any other Electives. Another for my 1st grader and a third for my fifth grader. I gather the baskets and my planner and get to work. I'll try to link all the resources I am using in case you're interested in them.
Step 1: Label and date the week for each student. ( I use specific colors for each student so I can easily tell if I'm on the right page during the week. Red for my fifth grader, blue for my first grader. Each student has their own week in the planner.)
Step 2: Plan for the family subjects first. I can do my thinking on one student's week and then copy it into the next student's. I grab each resource one at a time and plan out how to use them for a week.
Our family does Bible first thing each morning with breakfast/a snack plate. We are currently reading The Ology.
The next thing we do is an elective, in this case All About Money and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy. This is currently my oldest's favorite subject.
For Science we are going through Farm Anatomy and the corresponding Notebooks.
Our last family subject is History. I posted some History options last week if you are interested in reading more about that click HERE. We are using The Good & The Beautiful History Year 1 as our base with GA Henty books as reading companions for my oldest.
We don't do every subject every day. We just do the three R's: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic along with Bible, every day. Science, History, and Electives are spaced throughout the week.
I plan by student basket for the rest of the subjects but I'll combine them here for the sake of time.
Step 3: Plan Math. We start each math session with some sort of flashcard work. We're still practicing math facts. Lately, we've been doing games with flashcards for 10 or 15 minutes to start and then they move on to seat work. My oldest is in Saxon 54 so it's easy to just write flashcards and Saxon on each day. My younger son is working in a Ray's Arithmetic Workbook.
Step 4: Plan Writing. I plan for my fifth grader from his resources. I have a cache of pre-printed packets for Weekly Paragraphs, Vocabulary Exercises, and McGuffey Spelling Grade 5. I pull what I need for this week, fill in the cover pages, and pop them into the planner.
To plan Writing for my first grader is dependent on what he is reading each day. He reads from three resources each week, currently: The McGuffey Readers Revised Editions (paired with Copywork), the McGuffey Readers Original Editions (paired with a handwriting page-this one is free), and a selection from the Arthur Scott Bailey Tuck Me In Tales , which can also be used as an early Science base (paired with Comic Summary Book Notes). So, his formal reading and writing are planned together.
I consider Spelling to fall under Writing so I plan his spelling at this time too. Usually I print a McGuffey Spelling Packet for Grade 1 and call it a day but as he's completed all 30 spelling lessons this year I am just reviewing for a bit this summer. Therefore all I need is the flashcards (which I've already made) and to pencil in some activities to review them. We're into games lately so I'll go with that theme this week: Memory, Go Fish, Pattern Sorting, Alphabetizing Cards, and an Oral Spelling Quiz. If you practice anything with flash cards it feels like a game.
Step 5: Plan reading. I just write in the amount of time I want each kid to do their independent reading. We follow the Robinson Curriculum reading list. My fifth grader is reading a GA Henty book that corresponds with our History curriculum currently. He does an hour of independent reading and chapter summaries. My first grader is still in bridge books. See my post about that HERE. I only require 10 minutes for him.
I do like to pop little skills in here and there as I come across things I think are valuable. Lately I've been adding one Fact and Opinion activity a week. Here is a freebie on the Author's Purpose.
Sometimes I have a literacy game I have us play like this version of Guess Who.
Step 6: Add in activity and hobby plans and the week is planned! Hot dog! Put away the resource baskets and tidy the schoolroom. You are a master of lesson plans.
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