Home Sweet Home(School) - Student Assignment Planning, Part 1

Home Sweet Home(School)

Sep. 10, 2008

Student Assignment Planning, Part 1

I promised you planning as Jennifer van Atta introduced it to me, and other moms in our local support group. She went on to teach a workshop at a homeschool conference, but that was years ago, and tapes of that workshop are no longer available from the conference host company. I've googled Jennifer and haven't been able to find her; so I'm sharing highlights of her system with full credit to the author.

Jennifer shared this as an approach to encourage students to work independently, especially in times of busyness or high stress, such as taking care of a seriously ill grandparent, or some other family crisis.

I'll be posting this in steps over the next few days, as quickly as I can get it done amidst the many demands of homeschooling life.

Foundation for Success

Here are Jennifer's basic principles underlying the process (adapted from a workshop handout):

1. Pray throughout the process of planning. The Lord knows exactly what you need to accomplish. He also knows you, your strengths, and your limitations.

2. Know your personal goals for the child, and let them influence your planning.

3. "Put on" the mentality and personality of the child whose work you are planning. Your own "teacher" mentality will come thorugh on its own. Remember your child's strengths and weaknesses.

4. Do not even try to plan a subject until you have already obtained the basic material (text, worksheets/activity sheets, tests, etc. -- not supplementary material.) You will only fragment your plans and your brain simultaneously.

5. Tackle the most complicated subjects first. It clears your brain.

6. Finish one subject completely before you move on to another. You need to know that each subject is DONE.

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More tomorrow, if all goes well! By the way, I'd like to have a copy of the master planning sheet available for download. Can anyone direct me to a safe document-sharing site, something like Photobucket for .rtf or .pdf files? I suppose I can just scan the planning sheet and upload it as a .jpg to Photobucket, but I remember seeing a site where you could upload shared documents, somewhere.

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Comments

Sep. 10, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Amanda625

Jean, thanks for the heads up about "Biz" and the idea of maybe dying my daughter's entire dress! Might be fun!

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Sep. 13, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by jrwinters

I loved your description of "homeschoolish heaps." I 've been homeschooling for quite a while and have devoloped heaps. I guess my children should survive it. I try to get rid of things as soon as they're done. That helps some, except for the "to be graded" heap.
I appreciate your prayers. We all sat down at McDonald's yesterday and worked through the problem. Hopefully, now we can have a kinder, gentler co-op,

Have a good day!

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