Lost in the planning pile....

A very wise woman said to me this morning, as I was feeling lost in my piles of curricula and trying to plan next years lessons,

"Go through your list of goals for this last year. With an objective eye, and with out judging yourself or your child, make a list of what you were not able to cover. Then decide from that list what cannot be left out and add it to a new list of goals for this year to come."

At least I feel as though I have a place to start now.

YoungSon1:

It is hard with YoungSon1. We spent half his year in an all consuming remedial reading program. It was important and his reading skills went from measuring at about half way through Kindergarten (at the age of 10) to testing at around the beginning of 3rd grade. That is a huge improvement. I say "testing" because he has never been a great tester, especially of standardized tests with little bubbles. He may be thinking "fill in bubble a." but then color in bubble c. It becomes REALLY confusing if he is offered choices a - d. because b and d look so alike. Any way... off subject....

The point of the above ramble was that for YoungSon1, we didn't cover A LOT. Does he need to have an Ancient India block? Ancient Mesopotamia? My answer is no, I do not need to go back and cover those. It feels important to cover fractions. I am glad that we are finishing Botany II now. I would like to finish the 12 Labors of Hercules mostly because it is started and unfinished. The one I am struggling with is US Geography. Does he need that? Will he slowly pick up the states and their regions? It feels important to me, but then it all feels important to me!

In summary, this is as far as I have gotten for YoungSon1:
~We will complete Botany II next week.
~We have 6 lessons left of The 12 Labors and will complete them in two weeks of three lessons each week.
~We will cover Fractions in the 6th grade.
~I will set US Geography on the maybe plate and begin making a list of the blocks I feel need to be covered in 6th grade with an estimated time it will take to cover them.

YoungSon2:

I went to last summer's list of academic goals for YoungSon2 and found:
~Complete Explode the Code 1
~Know his letters in the "quick access" way, not have to sift through  and say "what sound does g make again?"
~Complete the number story (value of numbers block)
~Introduce the Four Processes
~Fairy Tails to spelling and reading
~Begin reading simple stories
~The act of working on something until it is fully done IS the lesson and one of the main academic goals for 1st grade.

Well then, I can confidently check everything off my list. (He had already had the letter story in Kindergarten)

Nice.

We even covered more than what was on our list. We did:
~The King Of Ireland's Son and I plan to do a whole post on the goals and gains of this block.
~Introduced even and odd, greater than less than, fact families, and place value

The next step for YoungSon2 is to sit down and decide for each subject what it is I want to cover, which curricula I want to use to cover it and how long many lessons (how long) I think it will take.

YoungSon3:

This little guy has always just been along for the ride.

He has not had a formal letter story and so far had not been interested in one. He desperately wants to write and read, but when I try to teach him a letter with a story, he gets lost. He may do better with a book like LMNOP and I found a book called Working with LMNOP (and All the Letters)

I will also do a value of numbers block with him.

After the more beautiful introduction, I'm thinking to let him work through
 Explode the Code
Kumon Workboks
and some of the work books from The Critical Thinking Company.

I have to be careful with this little guy. It is so easy to let him slip past because the main lessons of the older two feel so important. But YoungSon3 is making it very clear to me that he is ready for lessons and WANTS to do them with us.

What a great little guy.

Long story short, I finally have a plan to make a plan. 

Thanks wise woman.

Now I have to get off the computer and follow through with today's lesson. 

But oh how I would rather plan for tomorrow's lesson than do today's!