the organized homeschool

Each of my kids gets a daily "what I did today" sheet in their school planner. This is where I communicate to them what they need to accomplish each day and where they record it. On Friday they get out their notebooks and show their Daddy just what they were up to all week. Day by day.

Now I used to plan their studies down to the pages of each book they were to read for all four kids, 12 weeks at a time. That was exhausting! It took me a week of doing nothing but planning. And what happened when we got behind? Because we did. It was hard to climb out of the guilt and get back "on schedule."  


Then it happened: I saw that my detailed schedule was taking the love right out of the learning. Not where I wanted to be.

Planning and record keeping looks so different now. 

We use a literature-based method of educating based on the writings of Charlotte Mason, a British education from the 1800's. We plan the books they are to cover for the year and just start reading--about as much as a child can comfortably narrate to me in a sitting. Sometimes they beg for more and we have the time so I keep reading. Sometimes there is an illness or we're reading a particularly difficult book and only a few paragraphs are covered at a time.

The key is to keep reading from the book everyday until it's finished. 

When we're done, we cross it off the list and pick up the next book.

It's really that simple.

Periodically I evaluate our progress and we push ahead or slow down depending on the need. We sometimes take bunny trails and insert other books as an interest develops. But we work the list until it's complete. That's it.

You can read more about my planning a school year and how we keep records here.