School Plans Part 1

I've spent a good portion of the summer thinking about the upcoming school year.  I have 6 pages of scribbled notes, a small stack of new books in my closet, and kids that are making their back-to-school wish lists.

So I thought I'd share it all here since it's a good place to get some of it organized and it's helpful to see what other families are doing sometimes.   That means I hope some of you will share your upcoming plans as well!

We've kept what I call "a flex schedule" this summer.  Meaning there's been plenty of math and Bible and writing and reading and plenty of gardening and family time and goofing off too.  But as our garden is showing the first signs of winding down, football practice has started, and school supplies are on sale I'm getting ready to settle into a tighter schedule.

~I re-read one of my favorite scheduling books early on this summer.  And one of the things I got from it is that Pam says she does school when it's school time and chores when it's chore time.  That will be a new measure of helpfulness this year as it seems I'm always trying to squeeze in another load of laundry or chop dinner vegetables when my time would be better spent being more focused on school when it's school time.  And even if my kids are working quietly I want to use that time for planning for the upcoming week and resist the temptation to fold towels.  One of my greatest pet peeves is being unprepared and it seems that I'm never as prepared or organized as I want to be.  I think this will help.

~When my older kids were little we had Child Of The Week (COW).  That child would get any special privileges that might come about that week.  They could check the mail, have the last cookie, go with Dad on errands, etc.  When God added more kids to the mix we changed it to Child Of The Day so they wouldn't have to wait so long for their turn.

This year I'm changing it back to weekly and letting that child be my right hand man.  It might mean that she does very little book work that week but instead focuses on helping make meals, household chores, errands, etc and working very close to mom.  My goal for this is to train up my younger set to have some of the responsibilities that I usually rely on my older ones to do.   Mally will especially love this since I will let her set the table for tea time with any dishes she wants.  (I usually use paper towels or coffee filters and plastic cups.)

~I'm starting something I'm calling "Sharing Projects" this year.  The idea is for each child to get to share in some sort of way with the rest of the family that contributes to learning.  For example,  my older two will be in charge of science for the younger ones.  This year we are studying the human body and they will be making skeleton models and paper bodies with cut-out-and-glued-on organs.  I'll plan this out and let LB and Christian be in charge of it.

Lane will be in charge of everyone's Bible copy notebooks...keeping them organized and making sure everyone has what they need for it every week.

For the middle ones it will mean reading aloud to the younger ones and planning which books they will like....not the books only the reader likes.   This will also give my middle kids more practice at reading aloud and dramatizing instead of just to themselves.

My younger ones will share a story or a report or a song they've been working on.   And occasionally I might have everyone do this as a means of a little public speaking practice.  Even though your family is not public it will help them to organize their thoughts and words better if it has to be presented in any way.   This sort of thing will be reserved for Fridays as I'll share my schedule later.