Organizing Lesson Plans

The lesson plan system I’ve ended up with is remarkably similar to the system I had when I was teaching, I guess it worked for me 11 years ago, it still works today.

{This post contains affiliate links.  See my full Disclosure statement for more information.  In addition I did receive Illuminations for free, doesn’t change my opinion of it one bit}

There are a couple of different elements you have to organize for school:

• lesson plans
• supplies
• text books
• kids worksheets and such stuff

Organizing lesson plans

This year I’m using Illuminations {affiliate link}, which does most of this for you if you follow their plans (and if you don’t it’s editable to change it around).

I realized I forgot to include what curriculum I’m using, which can help you understand more of this post.

First gather all of your supplies, anything you might use to teach from in the coming year.  Then over the course of several days, a little bit at a time (I did this while watching movies with my husband), I go through and break the work down into bits that work for us.

[Side note, this is part of why I’m loving Illuminations because it did all of the work for me in most of my subjects this year, all I had to do was science.]

Then I go through my textbook and divide it up into manageable pieces, making notes of any hands on activities I want to add in.

Finally I get to typing.  This year I simplified it down to 4 columns of possible ideas, in previous years I had books to find, movies to find, and it was too clunky.  Now I’ve got it down to textbook info, notebooking/writing, hands on activities (which includes movies or extra books), and online ideas.  For those of you wondering how I organize pinterest, head on over to The Homeschool Village and read my Pinterest for Homeschool post.

This whole process can take 3-4 hours to organize it all for each subject for the school year.

Buuuuuuuuttttttt……….  with Illuminations, it was as simple as click print.  While I know I could have just looked at it from the computer, I like to carry my lesson plans around with me.  Archaic of me, I know.

Next I bind everything I might need to refer to into a book with my handy dandy, supery dupery Manual Comb Binding Machine {affiliate link, I bought mine at Office Max, I buy all my office supplies there so I get coupons to save MONEY!}.  Everything, what did I bind up this year?  I’m glad you asked:

• miniature versions of the kids history notebooking pages {affiliate link}
• my science lessons
• all of the lesson plans from Illuminations
• book lists

So, that’s the big over-arching idea.  That’s all I did last year, and I was constantly having problems and not keeping up with things, or not making progress because I didn’t do science enough times a week to finish it during the school year.

ENTER MY NEW ORGANIZATION TOOL: WEEKLY LESSON PLANS

There’s no real way to make it big enough for you to read all of that, but it’s all of my to do lists for the week right there.  Back when I was teaching my lesson plans looked very similar to this, only then it was a word document in a table.  This is an editable PDF that has pretty colors. (I’m out of all the ink, so it’s just in boring black and white right now).

Most of my week is already done for me, when I open the weekly schedule, but I add in my plans for the week for science and move around subjects, delete a few.  Then I end up with my schedule.

This is last week’s schedule.  Each check mark is something we completed, a few things were completed that I didn’t check (history and geography), but I didn’t finish English from the Roots Up last week, so it slid over onto this week.  We have 3 days to complete instead of 2……….

Since the kiddos are still young for Illuminations we’re not completing all of the activities suggested, but other than that I’d say this has been a life-saver for me in time saved.  This year I didn’t have to make up a template for our lesson plans, and didn’t have to write up all 10 subjects we’re completing, I just printed off what they said to do and did it.

With a few details changed.

Because heaven forbid I actually follow everything just as it is…………

 

That novel covered all of the lesson plans, textbooks, and what have you, now on to worksheets.

Organizing Kids’ worksheets and schoolwork

Sunday night I spend about 30 minutes putting together my weekly lesson plans, and gathering materials for the week.  It’s only 30 minutes because I put in the time earlier to make it short.

If I’m bad, it’s Monday morning as I blink at things.

I print off everything, copy everything, and generally run through lots of ink.

Then I organize it all in the order it’s going to be get done and put them in their “Do/Done” folder.  This is new this year, and has been working well for us for the past 2 weeks, we’ll see if that continues.

Why I like this folder:

1. They are responsible for their materials, which leads them towards my goal of independence.
2. I don’t have to stop and pass out materials in the middle of the lesson, they already have it.
3. The kids like seeing the work they have to do go down in size, and what they’ve done go up in size.

 

Here’s my plan for the “How can I teach when I’m a mess?” series:

My prior attempts at organization

Organizing lesson plans (today)

Teaching reading to multiple levels

Organizing notebooks

Your tips on homeschool and life organization

 

Now, go see the other series on “How Do I Teach?”  There’s something for everyone there, and I’ve got some great friends writing on different topics.