Luckily, my boys are only prek and k, so if I am skipping something, it is not going to mess them up too much. The reason I am asking the question is that right now, I am pretty much looking through everything I have every day and pulling out what I want them to do for that day.

This is not too big of a problem except that I just started working a few weeks ago (mostly nights so I can still be home with them during the day). I have noticed that I am getting a bit behind and it would make it a lot easier if I planned for each week. I am thinking one folder for each day (son #1 on one side, son #2 on the other side) with what we should do that day and printed pages for their work or workbook pages already put in. This would make it easy for dh to help with schoolwork when I am busy also.

How do you do it? I can use all the advice I can get at this point. I am looking into subscribing to ed helper and enchanted learning soon. From what I have seen so far, that would help a lot too.

Do you have any other tips and tricks of the trade?

I wish I were better at planning. I am a "sit down and do the next lesson in the book" kind of homeschooler. I realize this probably doesn't help you very much.

I like your idea of the folders. I wish I could help you more. :-)

My son does better when everything is planned out for him, but I'm not that kind of person. I am a do the next lesson in the book, planning the night before and that doesn't always happen because sometimes I'm lazy.

I need to plan more, I try to plan out for the week. I do use folders one for each day of the week (one side is work to be done and the other side is completed work). My son loves the folders he decorates them every year and knows where his work should be. (That is, when mom puts it in there). I also have a crate that I put all of his books in, so he knows where to find them. I got both of these ideas from this forum. :-D

Well, Okay, this I CAN answer with what/how I did.

When I got the okay to home school, I went nuts. Partially because my husband said the kids had to finish 2 + months of their regular school. I actually had over 8 weeks of worksheets planned. I used a 3 ring binder for each kid and filled it oldest to newest. Then I had weekly plans with which sheets and which order and what my goals were for the week. That went well, but I had a hard time if we missed a day or something as I had "very" structured weeks.

Then I ran into the fact that ... well ... I just couldn't spend that amount of time planning once I got past those weeks. Also... printing off and organizing all those materials, even thought they were mostly free... was actually very pricey. I decided to go with curriculum. Some is very cheap stuff from stores. I found I had to go up several grades sometimes...

Now what I do is on Friday's I sit down and kind of do the "next 2 pages thing." But I also note what supplies I need, and where I am going. If I don't finish the week, we just put those on Monday's schedule. However, I erased the days of the week and just date the day that we do it where the weekday would be. That being said, there are some subjects, like spelling, that I don't do the week's worth because if he test's great on the pre-test, we move on... So I plan about 2 -3 hours per week on Friday's... usually while we are schooling. At that time I go through the web and grab supplemental stuff as well.

I think I am leaning towards the 2-weeks at a time. I have a big block of days off every two weeks (pretty much a long weekend off and work the next weekend). I am not at the point where I can plan ahead more than that. Once we buy an actual curriculum (which my husband is pushing towards) I will plan ahead more, I think.

Thanks for all of your ideas!

Do you use any of Donna's planners? They are fantastic! (You're fantastic Donna for taking the time to create and putting them on your website).

I use the excel 6 week planner for my KinderKid. It gives me the dates and days, and objective sections. Then I created a planning routine for homeschooling (using concepts from FlyLady- see the Flying moms section of family life to learn about FlyLady)

I spent 15 minutes in the evening pulling the supplies I need for the next day (including computer printouts), and clearing off the homeschooling space (our kitchen table); in the morning, I take 15 minutes to pull out everything I need. After each learning session is done ( I break it up throughout the day with my pre-K and K) I take 5 minutes to clear off items I file items away for my KinderKid. Then after the last session of the day, my kids and I spent 15 minutes putting supplies away and general pick-up. Then I just do my evening routine after doing the dinner dishes for the next day

I spend about 70 minutes on Saturday mornings planning while the DH takes the boys out to play or run errands. This is my weekly homeschool blessing routine (just spend 10 minutes doing each thing):

1. put away anything homeschool materials that are out, collect up teacher guides and planning materials and put next to computer, turn on computer, make coffee and a bagel, get put a pad of paper and a pen, write down Sunday-Thursday on the paper.
2. Review my goals and objectives, modify anything, check last week's plans and make any changes if you didn't get to something.
3. plan the reading lessons and handwriting for the week- type in the lesson plan and write down any preprep you need to do the evening before.
4. plan the math lessons (and when I hit 1st grade- language arts lessons)
5. type in theme of the week activity (eventually history and science)
6. Fine/arts/PE/field trips- this rarely takes the full ten minutes so anytime I have left I use setting up the next 6 week term file and planning objectives or future theme units
7. library check: what needs to go back, what do I need to get; online research; print out the weekly plan and post it with the list I can list on the refrigerator so I can look at it each evening while gathering up supplies.
   If I need to do any additional planning: then do it 15 minutes at a time during the weekend. However, I am trying to get to the point where if I can't type it up in 1o minutes then I am making it too complicated. Sorry if this post is too long.

Heavy planning starts now for next fall school year. I get goals set and then during July lay out the year. As for weekly I spend probably 1-1.5 hour per week updating the tracker, rescheduling, or whatever I need to do.

I also will spend a few hours if I shift the planning around. I did this with Esther and her lapbboking for weather and Texas History.

Me too. Like Jill & Ber, I spend a little bit of time each week preparing for the week. I try to do this on Saturday (my weekly chore for that day), but sometimes it may be Sunday or whenever I can fit it in. If my kids were as young as yours, I doubt I would plan the entire year, mine are much older. I lay it all out in Excel by the number of the school day, it's actually very flexible.

I developed agenda pages for the kids to feed off my lesson plans, so I update that each week and they put that into their "agenda books".

We have a folder system in letter trays. There are 4 trays: Handouts, Completed Work, Graded Work, Work to Record & File. Any handouts I have for them including agenda pages, tests, art lessons, quizzes, etc. are put in the handout folder for that particular child prior to Monday morning. etc. etc.

I'm not quite as structured as I sound. I do fly by the seat of my pants sometimes. I just like to have a system in place so I don't completely bury myself.