Why is it that I'm always worried that we aren't doing "enough" for school? I do this every year, then as I'm assembling their portfolios, I'm always amazed at how much we've done!
Our day today was pretty full with our schooling and I still didn't get everything covered that I'd wanted, but it still was a good one. When I calculated up on the calendar that we only have about 8 solid weeks of school left before I send in their portfolios I got a little shock!! We normally do formal schoolwork 3 days a week, the other two being "life lessons" meaning participating in activities in the real world. So I found a blank lesson planning chart and made one for each kid and one for me.
On theirs I have categories for Math, Reading, Writing/Penmanship, Spelling, and Language Arts. In each of these blocks I have written specific pages or lessons they are to cover for the day and week. It is up to them how they do it as long as the entire page is complete by the end of the week. On the one I have for me, I have those subjects and anything I want to cover with them in addition to assisting with their assignments, like reading a punctuation book for Language Arts. I write those things down and check them off as they are done.
In addition to those 5 subjects, I also have written down assignments for Health, Science, Social Studies/History. These 3 subjects we are going to do as a group and some with have individual follow up assignments. For instance, Science today was working on the Undersea University kit we purchased from Scholastic, and History was reading more in "To Be A Slave." Unfortunately, we got so into the oceanography book that we wound up not covering what I wanted to in Health. Oh, well, I still have it written on my chart so it will get covered this week sometime.
The reason we normally do school just the three days is so we can have other interactions on the other two. On Wednesday's we meet with other homeschoolers and either do field trips or just let the kids hang out while the parent's discuss homeschooling topics or just chat. On Fridays are the days we do our errands and cleaning of rooms. We do the bank, post office, groceries, and most importantly the library. However, I'm going to make sure that any work written on their charts that are not completed must be finished before leaving the house on Friday. Usually I've been letting them hold it over until the next week, but we really need to focus on getting it done for the portfolios.
I like the portfolio option that we are able to utilize, but I'm thinking I might try testing again next year. I haven't done the best at keeping records this year so testing would definitely not be making me stress out like I am right now. However, the portfolios keep the kids from stressing out like testing would. Oh, well, we'll see how the reviews come back to determine what our assessments will be for next year. |
