...and I thought I'd share how I do it, step-by-step:

5:58 p.m.

#1:  Look at family calendar to see if there are appointments which could interfere with our academic week.  There are.  Tuesday is the day for photos for our homeschool annual.  My middle son is a senior this year, so we'll be there longer than is typical.  I need to be sure and adjust for this.

#2:  Look at Reading Assignment Chart to see which books I have.  After about two minutes of looking on my shelves, I've spotted The Great Little Madison.  I'm putting it in the milk crate by my desk.

#3:  Earlier in the summer, I printed up maps, worksheets, etc.  Now I'm taking a look at them to make sure that this book answers these questions.  I'm not going to read the whole book to see if the War of 1812 is covered adequately.  However, a quick glance in the index assures me that there are enough pages.  Fine.  If he can't find the answers in the book, he can look online.

#4.  Glance at the time line dates.  There are a lot this week and I'd like to see if any can be left out.  Yup.  We're going to leave out about 7 of these, which will give my son a few extra minutes for something else.

#5.  Oh, I see that dialectic students are assigned The Bounty Mutiny.  If we have time at the end of the week, we may watch the movie.  That would be fun.  I've written this down on a post-it note. 

#6.  Writing Assignment:  I've been doing Level 9 with my 10th grader because he needs extra work in this area.  This week we'll start on essays.  Should be interesting.  Time to print an "Essay Planning Worksheet" from Writing Aids.  I'll also print up the "Talking Points" for his Grammar and Composition Notebook. 

#7.  Since we've got a full day Tuesday, I believe we'll omit Vocabulary this week. 

#8.  Quiz or no quiz?  In looking at the one available for free under Year 3 Evaluations, I see that it looks good.  I'll use it!

#9.  I nearly forgot Government.  From summer printing, it's already taken care of.  This is more of a mental note for me to remember to make sure he does it.

#10.  We're reading Pride and Prejudice.  Last week we got a jump start on it...we actually found Faust to be quite boring, so I shortened that assignment by a week.  Thus, we are ahead a bit, which works out nicely with our schedule this week.  Since I'm now incorporating recitations, I'm doing a google search on "quotations from Pride and Prejudice."  There are quite a few to choose from.  No problem there.

Well, it's now 6:27 and I'm done.  I do still have to plan for Biology, Health, and Latin, but the bulk of that was done during the summer also.  It's more a matter of gathering resources and photocopying pages if needed.

So, around 1/2 hour, and that counts printing up the Writing Aids documents and evaluation, as well as typing all of this! 

Have a great week!